Crockett - Yale offer

[Hey Super]

Reported by Danny West that Damarea Crockett received a scholarship offer from Yale.

Now, I mean, that is a very prestigious offer, is it not? Can't help but think of Solomon Thomas and Stanford when many were saying that he could not turn down such an academically enticing offer. But seriously congrats to Damarea, Yale, nice.

And before anyone jumps on me I want him to be a hog but you can't help but wonder how this offer will affect him, right? I'm assuming academic prestige is important to him of course. Arkansas is a fantastic school with much to offer but yikes.

[ricepig]

Never turn down an Ivy League scholarship.

Never.

Technically, neither Yale or any Ivy League school offers athletic scholarships. All scholarships are need based.

[ricepig]

True that - but the point still stands if the scholarship covers room, board, tuition, etc. - get to New Haven...that is a life changer!

Yep, for the vast majority if they can fit in that environment.

[sickboy]

Sorry... that's probably the only offer I'd think about taking over the Hogs -- if it were me. Which it isn't. I'm also a grown man who has the benefit of hindsight and was never teased by the potential dream of playing pro sports.

[Paul]

Yep  That's quite an enticing offer

[Hey Super]

I'm glad so many of you agree. Could really throw a wrench in our recruitment... but if he is serious about his academics then I hope he takes it. It really is a life changing opportunity for this kid.

[Piggfoot]

I prefer WPS!!!!! to Boola Boola.

[PaintballHog]

Anyone know what he wants to major in? Hope it's business.

[DoggtownHog]

Any of the Military Academies would be enticing for myself. But I'm far from being an 18 years old kid.

[jgphillips3]

I love the Hogs, but if my kid got offered a free ride to Yale, he darn well better accept it.  Now, The total Cost of Attendance for attending Yale in 2014-2015 is $63,250, which includes tuition ($45,800), room ($7,800), board ($6,200), and books and personal expenses ($3,450).  If that scholarship covers it all, he should go.  If it still left $20k, that could be rough.

[Großer Kriegschwein]

True that - but the point still stands if the scholarship covers room, board, tuition, etc. - get to New Haven...that is a life changer!

Look at Grant Hill's dad. Went from the Bronx to Yale, married Hillary's college room mate.

I'd got to Yale. But it's not my life.

[Arthur pigby sellers.]

Yale is a great school but Stanford actually plays serious D-1 football.  Any kid who wants to play big time football is not going to Yale.

[hoghiker]

Yale is a great school but Stanford actually plays serious D-1 football.  Any kid who wants to play big time football is not going to Yale.

Picking Yale would indicate that big time football might be a road not taken. I'd understand if a kid made a choice to go to Yale over the Hogs. That's a door most people never get near. God bless the Hogs, but sometimes a road just turns right.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Technically, neither Yale or any Ivy League school offers athletic scholarships. All scholarships are need based.

Yep.  Had a friend fairly recently get a Princeton football offer.  He was still going to be on the hook for more than it would cost him to pay his own way to UA.

[elviscat]

I would rather see him go to Harvard if he wants the Ivy route. I believe I can help him if that's what he wants to do. I've had two of my children graduate from Harvard. If he meets the standards for admission and is accepted into the program and can't afford the tuition they will give a four year full ride.

[Bacon_Bitz]

I've turned down plenty of ivy league scholarships.  I did accept the one I liked the most though.

[WorfHog]

Yep.  Had a friend fairly recently get a Princeton football offer.  He was still going to be on the hook for more than it would cost him to pay his own way to UA.

The connections he'll make will repay him 100 times over.

[Choctaw Hog]

Never turn down an Ivy League scholarship.

Never.

Why? Because no successful person ever graduated from another college?  And for what it's worth, an Arkansas graduate is now running one of the largest and most influential businesses in the entire world.  How in the hell could that be? 

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Education is what one makes it.

[Arthur pigby sellers.]

Picking Yale would indicate that big time football might be a road not taken. I'd understand if a kid made a choice to go to Yale over the Hogs. That's a door most people never get near. God bless the Hogs, but sometimes a road just turns right.

I agree.  Hard to hate a guy for choosing that. 

[OLDHOG]

WOW! must be a smart kid. Wonder if he's smart enough to take it?

[Inhogswetrust]

Yale is a great school but Stanford actually plays serious D-1 football.  Any kid who wants to play big time football is not going to Yale.

Not every athlete playing college sports is there mainly for the sport.............................

[jackflash]

I like the Razorbacks, but would be hard to tell Yale no

[Inhogswetrust]

SMH.  An Ivy League education opens many more doors than an Arkansas education.

Not necessarily many more...............just different doors.

[sickboy]

Why? Because no successful person ever graduated from another college?  And for what it's worth, an Arkansas graduate is now running one of the largest and most influential businesses in the entire world.  How in the hell could that be? 

Nobody's saying you can't get a good education anywhere except Yale. There are successful people all over the world who didn't go to Yale or an Ivy League school. But it's completely naive to think Yale doesn't open up very big doors. But it all depends on what doors you're wanting to walk through.

[sickboy]

Education is what one makes it.

You don't got to Yale for the education. You can read the same books any kid at Yale is reading.

You go to Yale because you'll probably be friends with the son of a Senator, so later on in life when you accidentally kill a hooker you can get it cleanly swept under the rug and potentially net a job at the State Department. AMURICAHHHHHH!!!

[HogPound]

SMH.  An Ivy League education opens many more doors than an Arkansas education.

Truth.

[Choctaw Hog]

Not necessarily many more...............just different doors.

This. You are what you make of yourself regardless of where you went to college. Top, hard-working, smart people open their own doors and that's not arguable.     

[psooie]

If it were my kid, i would tell him to take it for at least 2 years. IF you want something else after 2 years, transfer.

[WPS007]

Yep.  Had a friend fairly recently get a Princeton football offer.  He was still going to be on the hook for more than it would cost him to pay his own way to UA.

I'll find out the end of next month Darthmouth and Princeton want my son to visit. I know its not a full ride if he wants to go that route.

[Biggus Piggus]

Maybe the kid was invited to apply to Yale + coach said he would be welcome on the football team. But they can't offer him an academic scholarship without him applying and getting accepted. And he cannot do that in his junior year of high school. This story is weird.

[ricepig]

Maybe the kid was invited to apply to Yale + coach said he would be welcome on the football team. But they can't offer him an academic scholarship without him applying and getting accepted. And he cannot do that in his junior year of high school. This story is weird.

Correct, only the admissions office can admit you to an Ivy League school. And the info cannot be submitted before July of your Sr year. The coach can make an "offer" but it's not committable. These coaches know all the ins and outs, of this process, so I'd say he's a very intelligent player, with a great future ahead of him.

[Paul]

Technically, neither Yale or any Ivy League school offers athletic scholarships. All scholarships are need based.

officially yes u r correct but they have ways of covering everything.  I went to a very expensive liberal arts college but the athletes were well taken care of with "academic " scholarships

[ricepig]

officially yes u r correct but they have ways of covering everything.  I went to a very expensive liberal arts college but the athletes were well taken care of with "academic " scholarships

There are only need based scholarships to Ivy League schools.

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/information/psa/index

[nationwish]

You don't got to Yale for the education. You can read the same books any kid at Yale is reading.

You go to Yale because you'll probably be friends with the son of a Senator, so later on in life when you accidentally kill a hooker you can get it cleanly swept under the rug and potentially net a job at the State Department. AMURICAHHHHHH!!!

This is the truth. That's really why these schools are so expensive. The education isn't going to be worlds better than what you'll get a decent state school, but the networking is. You can get a job on Wall Street out of Arkansas, but the opportunity to do so is much more restricted than it is out of the Ivy League.

[Inhogswetrust]

The connections he'll make will repay him 100 times over.

Not always true.

[Inhogswetrust]

This. You are what you make of yourself regardless of where you went to college. Top, hard-working, smart people open their own doors and that's not arguable.     

My son is a VP of a high tech silicon valley company. Those companies hire quite a few people from "ivy league" type schools but not all in the ivy league. They also hire a LOT of people not from ivy league schools. So much of their stuff is overseas now they also hire a lot of graduates from schools not in the USA. My son is in charge of their office in Taiwan and he is the only one there with a degree from a US school.

[Biggus Piggus]

This is the truth. That's really why these schools are so expensive. The education isn't going to be worlds better than what you'll get a decent state school, but the networking is. You can get a job on Wall Street out of Arkansas, but the opportunity to do so is much more restricted than it is out of the Ivy League.

At an Ivy you won't have giant lecture courses for your initial credits. You won't have flunkout courses designed to weed out the unworthy. You stand a chance to have more than one or two truly great professors in your college career. You get to enjoy facilities and programs fed by endowments that would eat a normal college's as a snack. Other than that... *eye-rolling thingy*

[WorfHog]

Not always true.

Ok, usually true.

[cosmodrum]

Arkansas is a fine school, but...um...it's Yale. Drop a Yale on your resume and see what happens.

[WilsonHog]

Success in this world still depends a great deal on who you know. In the context of college destinations, the "who" greatly increases at an Ivy League school.

[Paul]

There are only need based scholarships to Ivy League schools.

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/information/psa/index

that's window dressing.  My little brother was offered a scholarship at Yale which covered about 70% of expenses. Believe me, it wasn't need based.

[Oklahawg]

At an Ivy you won't have giant lecture courses for your initial credits. You won't have flunkout courses designed to weed out the unworthy. You stand a chance to have more than one or two truly great professors in your college career. You get to enjoy facilities and programs fed by endowments that would eat a normal college's as a snack. Other than that... *eye-rolling thingy*

Can't overlook the peer-challenge influence - you learn from other students and the smarter they are (not to mention the more they are engaged with the learning process) the more you learn from them. It is an escalating spiral at Ivy League schools. (It is the genius behind "honors programs" at state schools.)

[whosiskid]

At an Ivy you won't have giant lecture courses for your initial credits. You won't have flunkout courses designed to weed out the unworthy. You stand a chance to have more than one or two truly great professors in your college career. You get to enjoy facilities and programs fed by endowments that would eat a normal college's as a snack. Other than that... *eye-rolling thingy*

That isn't accurate about the giant lecture courses. Yale has those just like any other school. I was in grad school at Yale, but my girlfriend / later fiance / later wife was an undergraduate at Trumbull College (all students at Yale are a member of some college, where they live - If anyone saw GILMORE GIRLS, Rory was in Branford College and for the show they had an exact replica of the courtyard as a set.

But it is accurate that at Yale you get maximum access to world class professors. I think Yale is a better place to get a bachelors than Harvard because of that access. Yale is about 80% undergraduate, with a slightly smaller graduate school population. Harvard is about 65% graduate and professional school students. That means that the big name professors primarily give their attention to graduate students. Some go to Harvard with the agreement that they will teach grad seminars only. Harvard students get some access to major professors, but not to the degree that Yale students do.

One thing Yale does extremely well is make kids feel prepared for life after school. You get a lot of self-confidence after your time at Yale. The school is just incredible. You go to the Yale Repertory Theater (which is both independent of the theater department but also is lightly connected with it). When I was there I could have seen productions with Meryl Streep and Samuel L. Jackson in them. And you see world famous scholars all the time. I remember one day when I saw Paul de Man one minute, Jacques Derrida a few minutes later,Fredric Jameson after that, and Harold Bloom walking down the sidewalk after that, talking to the poet John Hollander. I stopped in a diner one morning just a couple of blocks from the campus and realized that the guy at the table next to me was Thorton Wilder.

As far as access goes, that isn't as prevalent as you might think. It is more like you know other people who go on to do well. Connections come through friends and family. An Arkansan is less likely to get connections through friends than through family, but if you don't have the family, you aren't likely to get into the major secret societies, where the real influence takes place. Most kids who are invited into Skull and Bones, for instance, were invited because of family connections. George W. Bush, for instance, was considered a genial idiot. He took the lightest weight courses he could take and didn't do well in them. He was at Yale because 1) he was a Bush and 2) more importantly a Walker. The Bush family is upper class, but the Walker family is upper, upper class, which the descendents of Walker daughters celebrate by giving Walker as their children's middle name. Hence, George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush. I mention all this because that is how Yale works. Most kids from Arkansas will be something of outsiders, unless they went to Choate or Exeter or Phillips for 5 or 6 years.

Going to Yale is really incredible. You'll go to the library to study and you'll notice that they have a new exhibit. You'll walk over and you'll see it is on George Washington's financial management of the Continental Army. And you'll see things like letters to people like James Madison, pleading for more money from the colonies. Or you'll see a display of drafts of famous poems by William Butler Yeats. It is absolutely unbelievable.

Still, one thing to keep in mind is that Yale doesn't really have a business school. I forget the name of the department that has business courses in it. You can probably get a better business school preparation at Arkansas. Nonetheless, you are constantly being reminded of how central Yale has been to the nation's history. You'll go to the graveyard that borders the campus (the first cemetery in the world that was conceived as a "garden for the dead" that was not attached to a church. Or I think of the day my then-girlfriend checked to see who had lived in her dorm room before her. The results? Cole Porter and Dick Cavett. Or one day when I was in the office of the Baptist Chaplain of Yale. I noticed a couple of really, really old bankers boxes in the storage closet. I opened it up and there were all these letters from the 1930s and 1940s, and many of the letters were correspondence between John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the Yale Baptist chaplain (the Rockefellers were at that time Baptist). Stuff like that happened all the time.

And the Yale-Harvard game has to be experienced to be believed I wish Arkansas had a rival like that. Arkansas-Texas in the old SWC was about 50% as intense as Yale-Harvard. Doesn't matter that neither school is no longer a football power house. To alumni from the two schools it is more important than the Super Bowl. The football team plays in the Yale Bowl, which is a below ground level football stadium made by scooping a huge hunk of dirt out of the ground.

Let me answer two questions. First, are people at Yale smarter than people at University of Arkansas? Yes. But I mean that the average person at Yale will be much smarter than the average person at U of A. There will be people at Arkansas who would be among the smartest at Yale, but there will be far fewer truly brilliant at U of A than at Yale. Also, there will be very few dumbasses at Yale. The ones who really are not smart enough to be there will be people like George W. Bush, whose powerful family connections will get him in despite his lack of prowess in the classroom. "Old Blues" they are called. I never knew if that was because they were perceived to be "blue bloods" (a term that referred to the bluish hue of many people in the royal families in Europe, among whom - due to passing along genes to one another through rather intensive intermarrying - hemophilia was rampant - I suffer from Thrombophilia, a propensity to clot rather easily, hence the need for blood thinners; I guess that means I am the opposite of royal) or because the Yale colors were blue and white. But Bush is a prime example of what someone with connections and not much else can do. It is people whose grandparents were named Walker and who were members of Skull and Bones who find that the way before them is nicely smoothed out for them.

Second, is it connections or education that helps you get along in the future? Depends. Like I said, people who an elitist social position like Bush who benefit from connections. People like myself had to rely more upon succeeding in school. But the education you can get there is exceptional. And there is an emphasis less on intro classes. You tend to have far more focused classes that delve more deeply into subjects. I had considered briefly after getting two masters at Yale of applying to Arkansas as a back up school, since I was pretty well qualified to study philosophy and I was a native of the state. But I looked at class schedules and I did not find the kind of in depth seminars at U of A that I did at places like University of Chicago (where I ended up) or University of California at Berkeley (where I should have gone) or Columbia (where I'm glad I didn't go) or Cornell or University of Michigan (I did not get into Harvard's Ph.D. program or into Princeton's). I also got into Stanford and Wisconsin, but I didn't think their programs were very good at that time. I liked it OK at U of C, but it was nothing like Yale

Best five years of my life.

[cosmodrum]

Success in this world still depends a great deal on who you know. In the context of college destinations, the "who" greatly increases at an Ivy League school.

1000% correct.

[whosiskid]

Can't overlook the peer-challenge influence - you learn from other students and the smarter they are (not to mention the more they are engaged with the learning process) the more you learn from them. It is an escalating spiral at Ivy League schools. (It is the genius behind "honors programs" at state schools.)

This is absolutely true. You really feel like you have to stay on your toes all the time and you really have to be prepared to back up what you say. At a school with a less challenging student body you can BS people and perhaps get away with it. But at the elite schools there are a host of people willing and able to put others in their place. It is great for getting a solid education.

I do think the honors programs at state schools are comparable to Ivy League schools, though you won't have that stellar Ivy League faculty. But if you are a self-starter and can continually push yourself, honors' programs are great. They didn't have them when I came out of high school.

Oklahawg, you have a quote from Giamatti (Paul's father). He signed the first of my two diplomas. He had left to be baseball commissioner by the time I finished my time at Yale. Not surprised he died of a heart attack. He had a perpetual gray cast to his skin. Not a healthy looking guy at all. But a nice person and a great baseball commissioner.

[Oklahawg]

Whosiskid, great posts!!

de Man, etc., running around in proximity to one another - be thankful the college is still standing. Most of those names thought they had a substantial enough gravity to cause planets to change orbit.

And, that is one of the seldom thought of benefits of the "liberal education" - guest lecturers and intellectual symposiums that students attend because it is the hip thing to do. Being smart is cool. Some of my fondest memories from grad school reside in that realm.

[whosiskid]

Oh yeah, and the public lecturers were amazing. Eudora Welty reading from a short story one night, Jurgen Habermas giving a lecture another, and people like Ernst Gombrich and Quentin Skinner and Bernard Williams. I got to talk to Charles Taylor, the Canadian philosopher, for two hours once. I got to talk with Norman Malcolm, one of Wittgenstein's best known students, for a half hour about Wittgenstein's film going habits (disappointing, because I learned that Malcolm knew next to nothing about film and therefore had a bit of a tin ear for what was good and what was not, so the passages in his memoir about Wittgenstein were probably unreliable, where he implied that Wittgenstein was especially fond of Carmen Miranda, which was proven when Ray Monk published his biography of Wittgenstein, and we saw that Wittgenstein loved most of all classic comedies and musicals with Fred Astaire). You really do get a sense that the world is descending upon New Haven.

But there are some negatives. New Haven is an extremely dangerous place to be. Much of the heroin for New England is brought in there and there is a lot of addiction as a result, which in turn means that there are a lot of muggings. There is an enormous amount of hostility between "town and gown," the near opposite of Fayetteville, where the town depends on the university for its identity. Almost everyone has been mugged at least once. I had a very good friend who would have been car jacked/ kidnapped, except that the abductor couldn't drive a stick shift. I would have been mugged myself except I figured out what was happening just in time. I noticed that two guys were walking - one in front of me, one in back - along the same path that I was. When I turned, they turned, and they would look at one another from time to time. So I turned down this one street and was happy when I saw that a friend's German Shepherd (a dog that she had rescued from starvation) was, as she often was, inside the wrought iron gate, with her tennis ball in her mouth, which she would drop when people walked by, trying to entice them into a game of fetch. As I came to the fence I merely vaulted over it and started playing with the dog. The two guys froze for a second and then walked away, meeting up a block away, which confirmed to me that they had intended bad things for me.

One thing I'm dead certain happened was that I probably saw a lot of movies with David Duchovny. I used to study during the day, and then as a reward would either go to one of the many file societies on campus or to the Lincoln Theater, a dingy movie theater that showed double bills for 99 cents and changed their bill three times a week. I saw an absolutely absurd number of movies when I was at Yale and I've remained a hardcore movie buff ever since. Anyway, I read an interview with Duchovny in which he said that he did almost nothing when he was in the Comp Lit graduate program except see movies in the evening. Since we overlapped in our time at Yale, we had to have been at the same movies on numerous occasions. But I have no memory of actually having seen him. Still.

[Nipsey Mussle]

Whosiskid, great posts!!

de Man, etc., running around in proximity to one another - be thankful the college is still standing. Most of those names thought they had a substantial enough gravity to cause planets to change orbit.

And, that is one of the seldom thought of benefits of the "liberal education" - guest lecturers and intellectual symposiums that students attend because it is the hip thing to do. Being smart is cool. Some of my fondest memories from grad school reside in that realm.

Agreed, good sir.

I'm doing my doctorate online and I can't help but think of the good times, and good friends, I met while doing the master's the old fashioned way.

[WorfHog]

Thank you whoiskid for the definitive post on the advantages and disadvantages of a Yale education.