A Stanford Victory

Katie Ledecky (right) will be attending Stanford in the fall. And, yes, Janet Evans (left) went to Stanford too. And, yes, that’s Brian of our firm in the middle.

The most highly selective colleges across America compete for the students we shall hereby deem the headliners — the students whose achievements are so remarkable that colleges covet them. No, Stanford is not coveting the student with perfect grades and perfect SAT scores who is the president of her school’s Key Club. No offense to the presidents of Key Clubs across America. Those key collections just don’t cut it.

So who are the headliners? Well, Malia Obama, the daughter of the sitting President of the United States, is certainly a headliner. Harvard is proud to have Malia Obama joining its ranks in 2017. Who else is a headliner? Katie Ledecky. Ledecky is a grand prize in highly selective college admissions. You bet that every Ivy League college and the very best swim schools too (like University of Texas, Auburn University, and of course Stanford University) wanted Ledecky, who still retains her amateur status and is thereby eligible to swim collegiately, on their rosters. But even if she went pro and wasn’t eligible to swim collegeiately, they’d want her in their incoming class. Colleges love to brag that they have Olympians in their ranks. And what an Olympian Katie Ledecky is. She is the star of the 2016 Olympic Games. She is not just winning gold medals for the United States…she is destroying the competition.

Katie Ledecky is surely a headliner of headliners for any highly selective college.

And if anyone is wondering which university secured Katie Ledecky as a headliner, it’s Stanford University. While she has family roots at Harvard (her brother and her uncle who happens to own the New York Islanders went there), Stanford boasts one of the best collegiate swim programs in the world. Harvard’s swim program is great…it’s just not in the world of Stanford’s. So congratulations are in order to Stanford University, the university Katie will be attending in the fall after taking a year off between high school and college to train and swim for Olympic golds in Rio. Now that’s how you spend a Gap Year!