Photo courtesy: Michael Marsland, Yale University
Hypathway's Notes: A brilliant high school senior from Oregon won the second place of this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. In the efforts of competing the talent pool each year, elite colleges usually offer attractive packages to the top award winners of major science contests to influence their decision making process. As a result of this award, he was accepted by Harvard, Yale and Princeton for the class of 2014. However, this Chinese-American student attracted the media attention beyond his strong stride in the academic competition, his unique Chinese name and his subsequent college decision by choosing Harvard over Yale were more interested.
His initial Chinese name was Ye Fan as “Ye” was part of the given name of Shiye, and of course, Fan as his surname. His parents thought that “Ye” was too short so they inserted two letters of “al” in the middle to transform his given name from “Ye” to “Yale” that eventually led his official name to Yale W.Fan. There is no place for us to verify if Yale was in his parents’ mind when his name was formally changed. Putting this into a perspective of a traditionally rivalry between Harvard and Yale, he would be the only Yale Fan among Harvard students who will be attending the fall Harvard-Yale football game.
While parents have the right to name their kids anything they want, but Harvard, Yale and Stanford in the end are pretty much peoples’ surnames, particularly the noted individuals of WASP background (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). That is why Yale is also the name for a place or a security company. Actually Yale as a name per se is not easy at all, we still remembered that our daughter informing her friends that “my brother is going to jail” when her brother decided for Yale. Traditionally, common America’s given names were derived from Bible, such as John, Peter and David. In contrast to the Chinese culture, these names do not have the same notorious meanings as Chinese names for 聪 (smart), 勇 (brave) or 强(strong) imply. One of the local Chinese parents named their son“Intelly” to mimics their wish of 聪. You would image how socially awkward this kid would be as he is trying to be fitting into America's culture. This kid was indeed a smart student with a perfect SAT score and has a promised career down the road, but what if he is only a mediocre student? For civilized individuals we should not judge a book by its cover, but you hope that your ambitious in naming your child would not be counterproductive. For example, when your son or daughter is ready for a serious job interview, a senior member of the search committee would not tease out that “I never knew someone who named their child a famous university.”
Yale Fan Chooses Harvard
The Harvard Crimson's Fly By blog, Jun 9, 2010
Despite what his name might suggest, Yale W. Fan will be joining the incoming class of 2014—at Harvard.
Curious, we asked Fan about his interesting name and wise decision.
"I don't think my name is that interesting," said Fan, who told us that"Yale" was just phonetically close to his Chinese name, "Ye"—which is part of "shiye," meaning "undertaking." His parents decided that two letters was just too short for a name (how unfortunate for this Flyby correspondent), so they added "al" in the middle and made "Yale."
"When I introduce myself to people, people like to ask, 'Do you want to go to Yale?'" Fan said. "I had never really seriously considered it until this year because I had only thought of [Yale] as a law school...and I only decided to apply to Harvard last year."
Fan, a competitive science researcher from Oregon, was accepted to Yale,Princeton, and Harvard, among other universities that were "similar in academics." After visiting these three in that order, he decided on Harvard.
"I chose Harvard because it combines the different aspects of what these schools have to offer," Fan said. "I like the flexibility of the curriculum. It provides the opportunities to do a lot of different things."
Other than perhaps not knowing where to sit at The Game, as Fan told the Yale Alumni Magazine Blog,Fan doesn't foresee many problems with telling new people his name. He too thinks it's funny—at least, for now.
"If I constantly hear jokes about my name for four years," Fan said, "it might not be funny anymore."
Fan assured us that he is still a fan of Yale. We'll see about that in the fall.
Harvard’s Only Yale Fan
By Michael Sewall, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 21, 2010
An Oregon high-school student named Yale W. Fan will be rooting for the Bulldogs' biggest rival this fall when he starts at Harvard University.Despite reportedly having been accepted to Yale, Mr. Fan opted for Cambridge over New Haven.
Maybe he didn't want to be "that guy," with his name sewn on his sweater. Or maybe he just preferred Harvard's science and math program.
We wouldn't know. He wouldn't talk to us.
The blog of the Yale Alumni Magazine first pointed out the irony after spotting an Oregonian articles that highlighted Mr. Fan's second-place finish in a national science competition. After talking to the magazine and to The Harvard Crimson's Fly By blog, Mr. Fan told Tweed that the situation had been "blown out of proportion" and that it was"non-newsworthy."
That is precisely why we were interested.
As Harvard's admissions director, Marlyn McGrath, observed in an e-mail message, Yale Fan is a "very snazzy" name. But once you cleave the student's given name from his boosterish surname, things get less exclusive. At least two Yales attend Cornell University, a couple Yales teach at Penn, and of course Cornel West is a professor at Princeton.(Perhaps somewhere a young woman named Ivy League is puzzling over which prestigious Northeast university to attend.)
After checking Harvard's online directory, we found one more Yale who's enrolled at Harvard: Yale Michaels. Unlike Mr. Fan, he applied to Harvard but not to Yale. Here's why, or at least his joke about why, he didn't apply to the university with which he shares a name:
"The first thing everyone asks when I introduce myself is why I didn't go to Yale," says Mr. Michaels, a rising sophomore. "So I usually say I had a dream of going to Yale, and they would get my application and see 'Yale' on it and think, 'We already know the name of this school; this kid's an idiot.' And because of that, I say I didn't even bother applying."
Mr. Michaels recalls one memorable day in which heplayed against Yale in a rugby game and later attended the Harvard-Yale football game.
"I never had so many people cheering for me," he says.
But his fellow Harvard fans, perhaps cursing his name?
"I think it's hilarious." —Michael Sewall
Two Catlin Gabel students bring home top Intel international science awards
Published: Friday, May 14, 2010
Wendy Owen, The Oregonian
Yale Fan and Kevin Ellis celebrate their Intel International science fair win this afternoon. Two Catlin Gabel students were awarded $50,000 each for their computer science projects today at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose.
Yale Fan, 18, of Beaverton and Kevin Ellis, 18, of Vancouver, were the second-place finishers out of 1,611 competitors from 59 countries, regions and territories.