During the 325th commencement on Monday, 14-time Olympic medalist Katie Ledecky was awarded an honorary degree by Yale University, one of the highest honors the university confers.
Since 1702, the board of trustees at Yale has selected recipients of these honorary degrees. This year’s recipients include Ledecky, Columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah, anesthesiologist Emery Brown, Canadian activist Ingrid Mattson, playwright and professor Lynn Nottage, political scientist Robert Putnam, former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke, and medical researcher JoAnne Stubbe.
According to a report from Yale, these honorary degrees are awarded to “preeminent individuals in the arts, science, philosophy, athletics, and public service.”
Ledecky and fellow recipients join a long and distinguished list of notable figures to have received an Honorary degree from one of the oldest Universities in the world. That includes the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Hillary Clinton, Willie Mays, Meryl Streep, and Elizabeth Blackburn, among many others.
Ledecky grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, which is about 300 miles southwest of Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut.
Ledecky is no stranger to high honors, having previously been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024 (the only swimmer ever to win the award), twice being named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the year (2017 and 2022), on top of a decorated medal haul that includes 14 Olympic medals (Nine gold), 23 long-course world championship titles, and eight NCAA Championship titles with her time at Stanford, where she graduated in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a minor in political science.
She also served as the commencement speaker at her alma mater in 2025, becoming the youngest commencement speaker in the University’s history. Her speech included a recollection of her 800 freestyle race at the 2012 London Olympics, the race that won Ledecky her first career Olympic Gold at the age of 15.
Earlier this month, fellow American Swimming legend and multiple-time Olympic teammate of Ledecky, Michael Phelps, was honored with an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan.
Why would she want one? She has a real one from Stanford.
She did not graduate. We went to Stanford, but fell short to actually graduate
Read the article and educate yourself.
It’s an honor dong dong
Yale’s description of Ledecky…
Katie Ledecky
Olympic swimmer
Doctor of Humane Letters
“A streaking comet in water, you are the most decorated woman swimmer in history, widely regarded as the greatest woman swimmer of all time, with a total of twenty-three World Championship titles and fourteen Olympic medals, including nine golds, to your credit. A student of the sport, you were also a dedicated student in school, finishing a degree at Stanford despite many lucrative lures to do otherwise. Characterized by an unquenchable competitive drive with a relentless work ethic, you are also known to be humble, kind, and gracious, a genuinely nice person, admired and liked by all.
“On behalf of Yale’s varsity athletes who have worn the Yale… Read more »
At this point it feels like each establishment racing to see what honour they can bestow on the most famous athlete for greater self promotion of how great that establishment is.
I feel the sporting careers of both Phelps and Ledecky has cemented their post sporting careers to the point where no institutional accolade would be the determining difference of either one being employed somewhere, so the accolades, whilst nice and deserving, serve as not much more than fluff on the collar of these legends.
She has a real degree from Stanford no less, some fake degree means nothing
Doctor of Distanceology
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
2x hypsm periodt 💅
I’m 64. I wish I knew what this meant.
I’m 25 and idk what it means either
I’m 15 and I also don’t know
But it gets upvotes.
Any 9 year olds here?
I’m 61 and I know how to Google – HYPSM is a common acronym in college admissions referring to five of the most prestigious and highly selective universities in the U.S.: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT.
But why should I have to google in order to understand a comment?
And how does that explain the other half of the comment?
2 degrees. 1 x Stanford + 1 x Yale = 2 x hypsm. Simple algebra that even old folks can now understand 🤣😂😁.
Teamwork makes the dream work, well done to all “ye old code crackers”.
I was there. She received the last of the 8 Honorary Degrees awarded and the loudest round of applause by far