<p>i applied to 7 of the 8, excluded dartmouth because I just don't like it and wouldn't go there. I found something I like in each of the other 7. I was accepted at Brown, Cornell, and Columbia. Waitlisted at UPenn, Harvard, Princeton, Yale. No rejections. I am surprised.</p>
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Personally, I think that each of the Ivies is so different that anyone who applies to every single one must be a trophy hunter and nothing more.
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Agreed. At my high school, the shotgun applicants are some of the most boring philistines you'll ever meet.</p>
<p>School size makes a huge difference... Penn and Cornell dominate over tiny ole Dartmouth.</p>
<p>And I really don't get what you mean when you say you like their locations. Seriously- Ithaca is not a fun place in the winter.</p>
<p>Hold on a sec</p>
<p>I think the OP is like me, someone who feels confident in their ability to fit in in any locale, someone who isn't sure what type of student body they want to spend the next 4 years with?</p>
<p>Then, why can't prestige be the defining factor? Why is it so much more honorable for someone to pick all their schools in terms of location than it is for them to pick based on prestige? I've seen a lot of prestige-bashing, but any teenager who walks in and talks about an arbitrary "feel" that they had for a school is given unanimous approval to apply to said school.</p>
<p>If over half of college students can't even pick the correct major the first time around, then how can you expect them to pick the correct colleges to apply to?</p>
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the shotgun applicants are some of the most boring philistines you'll ever meet.
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aw, i think I might take a shot at every ivy tho :( perhaps except dartmouth because i dont like it (many reasons). But I will also apply to like 10 other schools. Hopefully I will get in one.</p>
<p>awww, what's wrong with Dartmouth? Even though I don't go there and have only been there once to visit my sister who goes there, I liked it. The atmosphere or feel is "homey" and it's beautiful, especially during winter. Of course, there are MANY things I haven't experienced at Dartmouth, but I think it's pretty good. I even went to one of my sister's Psychology classes, and I really liked it..made me want to go there (I'm actually applying there for transfer). I'm excited to go there again in late May.</p>
<p>I am likely going to apply to every but Dartmouth (too cold for this NY girl ;-))
oh, another Asian going only for name brand. wellll, that plays into like 5%. </p>
<p>as far as top quality academic + research institutions in the Northeast, the Ivies comprise a good majority of what's even available in the first place (with my geographic limitations), and financial aid is a huge big deal for me - the Ivies simply have the best FA packages available</p>
<p>also, you say, but how can you like Columbia AND Brown? Harvard AND Cornell? All so different, how can you possibly find a good fit at all of them? Well, let's just say I am very flexible with few strong preferences. seriously. I see the beauty of both a core curriculum and an open curriculum. I like small towns and bigger cities. I'd like a small university but can see myself going somewhere with up to 15000 students also. It's all good...lol</p>
<p>so yeah...I'll let you know how it goes. haha</p>
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no actually, i've only seen columbia (which i definitely fell in love with).</p>
<p>but yeah i totally get what you mean. right now, other than the name, i know next to nothing about the different, unique aspects of each school.
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</p>
<p>So if you know next to nothing about the different aspects of each school, how can it be a "lifelong dream to go to an Ivy"? You do realize that the Ivies are just 8 out of many fantastic schools, and they don't particularly have a lot of shared commonality besides their athletic league, right? Some are urban, some are rural, some are larger, some are smaller, some have a core, some have no core, their student bodies are all smart but have qualitatively different feels ...</p>
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I've seen a lot of prestige-bashing, but any teenager who walks in and talks about an arbitrary "feel" that they had for a school is given unanimous approval to apply to said school.
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</p>
<p>Because there's a difference between visiting a campus and liking the feel, and just arbitrarily deciding you like something based on the athletic league the school is in.</p>
<p>i agree with ee33ee in that there's a lotttt of unnecessary prestige-bashing here. everyone is thinking short-term college years whooHOOO happiness, but let's face the facts, saying u went to [insert ivy name here] will defff. get u noticed in the real world</p>
<p>&& can everyone lay off the OP. my godd, everytime someone says they want to go to an ivy there are about 10 people jumping down his/her throats. each ivy is unique and, chances are, (s)he'll find something (s)he likes. so lay off, SHESHHH.</p>
<p>most of them are jealous, because they couldn't get in. Don't let them bother you.</p>
<p>I've visited them all and I like every single one of them.</p>
<p>However, I'm not going to apply to them all, because I think that would just make me feel like a ****. I'm applying to prob between 4-6 of them, though I really love each of their campuses and course offerings. Though I don't like rural schools, Cornell and Dartmouth touch something in me, while all the other urban ivies I just love as well.</p>
<p>My best friend applied to 7 of 8 Ivy leagues (24 colleges in total). Got rejected at all except Cornell where he was waitlisted. He's now going to WashU for BME. People seek many things in the college they choose, prestige is one of them and perfectly fair to be the main factor. I don't think it's immoral or worthy of losing respect just because someone puts prestige above all in college choice. But, to each his own.</p>
<p>Prestige is important, for sure. Anyone who says different is just trying to sound cool/'holier than thou' but isn't.</p>
<p>I don't see why people have to worry about where others are applying. I will apply to all of them, because I can see a part of myself in each of them. I also will apply to other schools that are slightly less, and quite less prestigious than the Ivies. I can see myself at all of them, really.</p>
<p>I feel like alot of people don't know exactly what they want in a college. I am one of those people. </p>
<p>I don't see anything wrong with "shotgunning" the Ivies, because after a first round of college visits, I don't have a first choice of ANY of my schools. I want to see where I can get in, and then I can make a more in depth decision of where exactly I fit best.</p>
<p>It's better to figure out your first choice college after you've been told you can go there rather than figure out your first choice and find out that you can't go there.</p>
<p>I must admit I choose schools for prestige too. There's nothing wrong with having prestige as a factor, but you can't choose a school purely for it's prestige... I mean if you want to do engineering, you wouldn't apply to U of chicago even though it's one of the best schools. </p>
<p>And anyway, ivy league is for atheletics, not prestige... I mean I bet more people in the world has heard of stanford or MIT than Brown, dartmouth, cornell Upenn or columbia. Until about the time I registered on this site, I've never even heard of the ivy league. The only 2 schools I heard of were harvard and MIT. So ivy league doesn't even equal to prestige.</p>
<p>The reality is prestige isn't there to impress kids in your hometown, it exists to serve you at the highest levels of business, medicine, politics, etc. Thats the true measure of a strong degree's name value. How many in our nation know Obama went to Columbia and Harvard Law? Prob less than a third. But his days at Harvard are part of the reason he got to speak in 2004 at the convention, which led to his nomination.</p>
<p>Barack's</a> Big Night</p>
<p>All the Ivies are prestigious in the eyes of people in the know, that's what matters.</p>
<p>i know two people who applied to all 8 and were rejected from all 8. one's now at a good LAC, and the other...had no safeties. </p>
<p>i find it annoying when people post college lists and others say they obviously haven't done research because the colleges are dissimilar. everyone has different selection criteria. my top two are brown and columbia. i picked based on 1) prestige 2) urban campus 3) liberal arts focus 4) neuroscience major 5) early decision option. so they're actually really similar, in my mind. i'd pick the columbia core classes as electives anyway.</p>
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All the Ivies are prestigious in the eyes of people in the know, that's what matters.
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<p>MIT or stanford isn't any less prestigous than brown or dartmouth to those people. Not all ivies are good at everything, and if you major in something they aren't all that good at, well, it's not really prestigious to the employers.</p>
<p>My best friend's brother applied to 6/7 .. he was only accepted at Cornell (off the list of ives).</p>