Scotty McCreery: 'American Idol' chooses NC State
Though he has a platinum album and was just named the Academy of Country Music's New Artist of the Year, Scotty McCreery is still a youngster. After touring the U.S. with Brad Paisley last year, the 18-year-old reigning American Idol winner has chosen to keep it local when it comes to college — less-than-15-minutes-away local. According to the AP, he'll attend North Carolina State University, where his father is an alum.
EW reached out to N.C. State to see about McCreery's matriculation to "the Wolfpack." Director of admissions Thomas Griffin admitted that McCreery's admission was an unusual experience for the school, which has more than 34,000 students. "I don't know of anybody coming in so well known initially. Most 18-year-olds don't have the kind of exposure that someone like Mr. McCreery has," he acknowledges.
N.C. State saw a record number of applications (more than 20,000) this past year, says Griffin: "It's our most competitive year for admission that we've ever had."
But will a busy guy like McCreery have time to interact with those people? He told People last week that he plans to schedule touring around his education. Will there be room to join one of the campus's 33 fraternities or 54 club sports? Or maybe he'd like to join a cappella group Grains of Time or the Singing Statesmen men's chorus?
Juggling fame and education isn't unprecedented: Julia Stiles graduated from Columbia University, Natalie Portman made it through Harvard, and Brooke Shields completed her schooling at Princeton — all while they were still working. Then again, Emma Watson completed only a few semesters at Harvard before deciding to return to acting, and Joseph-Gordon Levitt ultimately left Columbia without graduating for the same reason.
What do you think, country fans? If McCreery could handle the exhaustion of Idol, will college life be a breeze?
Read more:
Comments have been disabled on this post