Memphis Student Gets Into Every Ivy League School, Elects To Go To Everyone’s Safety School Instead

SteveHolt10 years ago

A Memphis area high school student is making national headlines this week after he accepted admission to the University of Alabama even though he was accepted to every Ivy League institution.

Ronald Nelson was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools, along with schools like Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Vanderbilt and others. But Nelson, who was offered a full ride and acceptance into Bama’s top honors college, chose the debt-free college path instead of the prestigious one. It’s clearly a fiscally responsible decision, but a head-turner, nonetheless.

Nelson explained his college choice to NBC’s Today Show, via AOL:

“I just thought it was something that I didn’t want to pass up because I was looking toward my long term education, not so much my short term goals really.”

Nelson says, while the Ivy League experience would have been amazing, he is more than confident he’ll receive an excellent education at Alabama.

“They’re going to give me invaluable experience working with the assistant dean and the dean of the honors college there, working with so many like-minded and progressive students there and I’m just incredibly excited to work with those students that both share my academic interests and don’t share my academic interests.”

I’ve always believed that spending anything over $500 for a semester of college is a rip-off, with the one exception being Ivy League schools — because of their ability to connect and facilitate networking with some of the top employers in the country.

Nelson is absolutely making the correct college football choice, though I’m not sure it factored into his decision much.

You can view the entirety of his interview here.

This could be Alabama’s biggest recruiting coup of all time, and Nick Saban is its football coach..

[via NBC]