Young Scholar Program Allows High School Student to Skate Competitively

Young Scholar Lauri Bonacorsi relocated to the Philadelphia area to train at the Aston Ice Works. Penn LPS also has several BA students who are training at the Aston Ice works; the flexibility offered by the program allows them to focus on a competitive skating career while obtaining an Ivy League education.

Radnor High skater's odyssey takes her to world championships

Radnor High School student Lauri Bonacorsi is thinking about going to her senior prom this spring. If she does, it will be only the second time that she has been to the school.

That doesn't mean the 18-year-old Bonacorsi isn't getting a grueling education - one that starts for this world-class skater every morning at 7 on a chilly sheet of ice at the IceWorks in Aston. For most of the next seven hours, the 5-foot-3 Bonacorsi and her 20-year-old ice-dancing partner, Travis Mager, push themselves to the brink of exhaustion and more than occasional pain under the watchful eyes of their hard-to-please Russian coaches.

It is only after the marathon skating practice that Bonacorsi's academic day begins, with classes at the University of Pennsylvania as part of its Young Scholars program - a perfect way for this straight-A student to finish high school while scooping up medals in international competitions.

"I went to a public high school for most of the last two years, so I had that experience," said the doe-eyed skater, who is as slender and rock solid as a blade, and who plans to study international relations at Penn next year.

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