Are the Ivies worth all the bother?

College Search & Selection
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<p>There’s not really much mystery to the path to admission to selective colleges: do very well in school, and get involved in ECs and excel in them. It doesn’t really matter that much what they are, although I think it helps if it’s something you can get individual recognition for. In my opinion, choosing ECs that are likely to look good for colleges makes it less likely that a kid will excel in the EC, as opposed to one that interests him.</p>

<p>The wild card in this, though, is the standardized test. Some people do very well on these without much prep. Others, even though otherwise highly accomplished, don’t. For the latter, test prep might make sense, even though it is (obviously) solely for the purpose of looking good to colleges.</p>

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<p>Not much mystery?
Consider these two sets of outcomes:
[Stats</a> Profile](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=263556]Stats”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=263556)
[Stats</a> Profile](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=263617]Stats”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profiles/member_stat_view.html?user_id=263617)</p>

<p>Poster … GPA UW … GPU W … Rank … SAT M/RW … School Type
MN_Lax … 4.0 … 4.50 … top 5% … 750/800/800 … sends many grads to top schools
Judill … NA … 102.84 … top 5% … 800/720/800 … sends some grads to top schools</p>

<p>MN_Lax ECs: Lit. mag. editor-in-chief, varsity football 4 years, varsity lax 5 years, Habitat for Humanity 4 years, MN Boy’s State Speaker of the House</p>

<p>Judill ECs: Newspaper editor-in-chief, choir & theater (no sports), math tutoring, Mock Trial President, Science Olympiad & Odyssey of the Mind President, research activities. Hispanic.</p>

<p>MN_Lax Outcomes: Rejected by Yale, Princeton, Stanford & Brown; waitlisted at Harvard; accepted at ND (attending), Georgetown, Carleton …</p>

<p>Judill Outcomes: No rejections. Accepted at Harvard (attending), Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Georgetown, NYU …</p>

<p>Grades and test scores do not appear to account for the very different results. Judill had a somewhat richer variety of ECs and a URM hook. However, these things are a mystery to me:
*how much<a href=“if%20at%20all”>/i</a> did the URM factor matter? How much did the research activities matter? Was it these factors, or something else (LORs, essays), that really made the difference?</p>

<p>(I did not have to search for more than a minute or so to come up with this pair in the Stats Profiles).</p>

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<p>There’s still no mystery to the path. MN_Lax was on it–there’s no indication that he should have done anything different. Besides, I said selective colleges, and he got into Georgetown and Carleton, as well as being WL at Harvard (maybe he would have gotten in to Dartmouth, or Penn, or Cornell).</p>

<p>Judill has no mystery–excellent stats and URM.</p>

<p>I can’t tell anybody what the magic key is to Harvard–but the path to selective, even highly selective colleges is pretty clear. You just have to remember that there are more than 10 selective–even highly selective–colleges.</p>

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<p>Who do you think employers recognize more in Dallas - SMU or (fill in the blank)? Anyway, why do you treat “employers” as one monolithic group of people who are monolithically and uniformly impressed by all the same schools no matter what? Industries are different and different regions of the country are different. Sorry, it continues to come across as naive and unsophisticated and untraveled to believe that because an Ivy degree is important in breaking into Goldman Sachs or McKinsey in NYC, that therefore every single employer in every single city across this land values those degrees as much? It’s almost as though you’re actually not aware that employers come from all kinds of colleges and positions.</p>

<p>I sat next to a man once on an airplane (and at the time of the conversation, I had NOT revealed that I had gone to Northwestern or had a son there). He was chatting with me about how he’d gone to Middlebury, then went to NU for grad school and had stayed in Chicago ever since, and he said - “It was really amazing to me - all the places that so impressed us in the east coast just aren’t as meaningful here. You can get any place in Chicago from Northwestern just like you could get any place in Boston from Harvard.” It was a learning experience for him. I don’t want to argue the merits of NU specifically since that’s not the point - but my point is, the supposed “sophisticates” of the Northeast seem absolutely unable to comprehend that the colleges that impress there aren’t necessarily the colleges that impress elsewhere, or that there are different competitive sets by region. There isn’t a place in Chicago you couldn’t get to from NU, U of Chicago or even Notre Dame for that regard, and the U of Illinois will get you to 95% of those places. The same is true with regional variations in every city across the country.</p>

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<p>Sure there is. He did not get the results he wanted :)</p>

<p>Who knows, maybe one too many high-stats lacrosse players from MN applied to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale that year. If he could have predicted that 5 years in advance, he could have set his mind to excelling in some more obscure sport. But then, it still would be a mystery whether excellence in jai alai or excellence in tuba-playing is preferred in any given year … or if perfecting the art of playing the tuba while playing jai alai would trump being Hispanic.</p>

<p>But yes, I basically agree with Hunt’s main points.</p>

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Michigan has an honors program and not a college so its not like these honors students only mingle with each other. Its diluted by the fact that they are exposed to plenty of unaccomplished peers who may distract them all over campus.</p>

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<p>^^judill is a musician, too (choral and bass). Musical aptitude or accomplishments almost always trump sports, in my experience–except for recruited athletes. As for the URM status, he calls himself “half Puerto Rican.” And he is from Long Island. It’s anybody’s guess whether he is typical of most kids applying to college who fall under the “URM” umbrella. The URM thing sometimes pays off for kids who don’t need the “edge,” as in several cases in our school where one parent is from Argentina or Spain but the family is in a high socioeconomic bracket where presumably being a “minority” has never been a limitation (if people even knew he/she was one).</p>

<p>But back to the point, if you look at the experience of both of these kids, or countless others, in almost every case you will see a sustained commitment to developing the child’s academic and extracurricular interests at a high level–as others have pointed out. Whether it’s hockey, ballet, viola or martial arts, or working in a cancer lab or law firm during the summers, kids do not just become highly proficient without a lot of support and “breaks” that start early and cost a lot of money. Which is also probably why so many parents feel “entitled” to having their kids get into the top-tier schools–they have been investing resources toward this outcome for many years. Telling them the Ivies aren’t “worth the bother” is like telling a child there is no Santa Claus.</p>

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<p>^ Exactly, sally; and it’s so sad that so many resources and so much psychic energy is invested in something of ultimately so little marginal worth.</p>

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<p>The biggest entitlement mentality I see on this sight is – good lord, you got into Georgetown AND Carleton - two of the top colleges in this country, highly selective, awesome opportunities - and you’re “disappointed”? Sorry, to me that’s “give me a break” time. Any kid who gets into even ONE school at this level should be jumping for joy and dancing on the tables at his or her excellent fortune, not grumbling that they didn’t get into a whole host of these schools. I would not stand for my kids to have this attitude. (Not saying that MNLAx did - I don’t know the poster - but just using it as a jumping off point)</p>

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<p>I can’t believe that you guys don’t seem to recognize that at this level, it’s the essays that make all the difference. It’s what makes the kid interesting and stand out. All the EC’s and grades and SAT’s blend together after awhile.</p>

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<p>Agree with Hunt - and also, in hindsight, when I took the wise advice to back off, they came up with EC’s that were more authentically and genuinely them - and that shone through (IMO) in apps. They were right not to listen to me say, “You write well - you should go out for the school newspaper” or whatever.</p>

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<p>What bother? They all accept the Common Application, so applying to them is no more bothersome than any other selective college.<br>
I think there is a lot of rationalizing going on because so many students are rejected by these colleges. Yes, many students get fine educations and wonderful career opportunities from other colleges. But that does not alter the fact that these schools have a long history of providing both.</p>

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<p>I’m tired of people who always complain about the cost of some highly selective schools. I’m talking about people WHO HAVE NOT BEEN ADMITTED that complain about the price. You should at least GET IN and see the financial aid package you receive before worrying about whether or not you can afford it.</p>

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<p>“If you have a degree from Harvard or Yale, you’re going to get a high-paying job”</p>

<p>Seriously? you think its a magic ticket? What about people who go to Harvard or Yale who become teachers? or nurses? or hundreds of other careers that don’t pay in the six figures? It all depends on how hard you work and the opportunities you take advantage of, and what you want to do. Sure people might be impressed by the name on your resume, but after your first job, its all about your experiences that matter.</p>

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<p>@MAsteve: It’s not “just” checking a box on the Common App. Most colleges have a supplement with unique questions and essay prompts. All of this takes time.</p>

<p>And it is hardly “rationalizing” to use facts to disprove the “Ivy-is-better” list. Remember, there are eight schools in the athletic conference (yes, let’s call it what it is–a loose affiliation that has somehow attained mythic brand status). In addition to the kids who have their hearts set on an Ivy each year, many, many students turn down one of them for another college or university that better fits their needs and interests. Hard to believe, I know–but true.</p>

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<p>“If you have a degree from Harvard or Yale, you’re going to get a high-paying job”</p>

<p>I highly doubt that all the history, sociology, and english majors at both schools are landing at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. </p>

<p>Although some employers can hire smart people with unrelated degrees and train them, there are a lot more employers that need to hire people with degrees in accounting, nursing, engineering, and computer science for jobs in those fields.</p>

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<p>I don’t agree with this but you might be surprised by the large number of history, sociology, and english majors that are getting Goldman Sachs and McKinsey type jobs from these schools and other top tier universities and LACs. These employers value the liberal arts model and find that they can easily train a bright person with good critical thinking skills.</p>

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<p>^^Actually these companies aggressively recruit Yale and other Ivy grads:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/sep/30/even-artichokes-have-doubts/[/url]”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/sep/30/even-artichokes-have-doubts/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Maybe around NYC these companies’ names impress people, but for a lot of us they have some pretty strong negative connotations. I’d be pretty disappointed if that was where my child ended up working after receiving a liberal arts degree, ginormous salary or not.</p>

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<p>I work with a lot of McKinsey people in the course of my job. I could have easily been one myself if I had taken turn A rather than turn B in the course of my career. They’re great people and one of them is my absolute BFF in the world. But they are just people. They put their pants legs on one at a time. They have good days at work and bad days at work. They have good days at home and bad days at home. Could we all please stop idealizing those positions? To listen to CC talk, you’d think that all these people do is go to work in glamorous offices, apply their minds to stimulating, exciting intellectual problems all day, and then watch the money flow in. It’s work. That’s why they pay you for it. There are innumerable excel spreadsheets, unreasonable clients, tight deadlines, conflicts with co-workers, blah de blah blah – these are just jobs. That’s all. They are well paying jobs and do have a lot of intellectual stimulation - but frankly the last 10 exchanges my McKinsey counterparts and I have had regarding a given project we are working on have been along the lines of “get a load of this client” and “can you believe this nonsense” and “who’s buying whom a drink after this is over”?</p>

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<p>I must have missed the prestige boat…never heard of McKinsey :)</p>