Angela McAuslan-Kelly is a normal sixth-former at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen. Her dad is a bus driver and her mum works in a coffee shop. ‘They are not very wealthy,’ explains Holly Cram, a former captain of the Scottish national women’s hockey team. Angela, though, is off to Princeton in September.
‘I completely get why students want to do it. They are sold on the dream of getting a scholarship’
The reason is American universities’ extraordinarily generous scholarships, especially for sports. ‘She is very bright and she is very good at chucking a heavy thing on a wire,’ laughs Cram. Angela’s love of hammer throwing means she will soon find herself rubbing shoulders with the scions of American business.
‘University sports is close to a $5-billion-a-year industry in the US,’ says Cram, who set up Aspire, a company that specialises in getting sporty kids to an American university. ‘It’s not just the obvious sports like soccer.
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