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I would take that bet Xiggi. My 2 Ds both declined to apply to any Ivy league school though their stats would have made them competitive. Contrary to many HS student’s opinions on CC, the Ivies are not the be all and end all.</p>
<p>I don’t know, if a kid got accepted to MIT or cal tech I’d say he/she is pretty darn intelligent</p>
<p>@erins dad Declining to apply to an ivy league school and declining to attend are two completely different things.</p>
<p>I would like my kids to apply to several Ivy’s only because for us, they would be the least expensive option for them, they have other ideas however and have no desire to apply. There is a strong faction here, however, that believe that if you don’t go to a “tippy-top” school, you pretty much can forget getting a job which is 100% false. Even in so called “investment banking” careers, there are other places to do that outside of Wall Street and they make the same money, or better, there. I can’t think of any school that holds the lock on any one degree and if you don’t go to “THAT” school forget it. Oh wait, I take that back, wasn’t there a story a while back about some kids getting a degree in puppeteering and wanting to sue the school because he couldn’t find a job. I think that was the only school that offered that degree.</p>
<p>“If you graduate from Harvard and don’t grow up to be the Attorney General or a CEO, people assume there’s something wrong with you.”</p>
<p>They do? Who are these people? The ones I meet are hiding this assumption well.</p>
<p>The Director, President, and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman-Sachs is an American University graduate.</p>
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<p>This was well put, glido.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t trade my sons experiences at their respective Ivy League schools and MIT for any other school and neither would they. There is a reason they were admitted and there is a reason they have done so well since graduation. Could they have done just as well elsewhere…probably…but would they have had everything that their schools provided? NO WAY</p>
<p>I tend to think it’s sour grapes when I read these sort of articles.</p>
<p>The author of this article and many of the people in this thread misunderstand the reason people a</p>
<p>The logic of this article has persuaded me that the next time I am deciding whether to buy a BMW or a Kia, I will not let the preceived prestige of the nameplate impact my decision.</p>
<p>The author of this article and many of the people in this thread misunderstand the reason people apply to elite schools. It’s not the college, nor the “prestige”; it’s the people. In my 1300-student high school, there are mabye six or seven people that would qualify as legitimate intellectual peers, roughly two per class. All have different interests, which makes for a very lonely and painfully boring existence. Of students admitted to elite colleges, on the other hand, about half meet that qualification. Going from an environment with a handful of similar people to an environment with thousands constitutes all the justification necessary; these other factors are minor by comparison.</p>
<p>Snipersas- My D certainly agrees. We were talking about applying to a certain well know regional school and she said “I wouldn’t go there. There are too many *John Smiths.” </p>
<p>*John Smith being a neighborhood kid who is a decent young man and gets ok grades but isn’t intellectually stimulating and doesn’t value learning more than having a good time.</p>
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Actually in this case they are not. Xiggi stated the author of the article would take an acceptance to an Ivy. If a student has no interest in applying then it is extremely doubtful an acceptance would get them to change their mind. I know that to be true in my Ds’ cases.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, you had it right the first time. Actually I speculated that the student would jump at the chance to attend an Ivy League school. </p>
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<p>Fwiw, I commented on the article and what was written by this young person. This is very different from commenting on the millions of students who have zero interest in applying or attending a prestigious school, and also very different from commenting on the thousands of students who use their qualifications to apply at a different set of schools. There are many reasons why someone would not apply to an Ivy League school, but I found that the reasons cited in the article were hardly compelling. Not that I would expect a high school senior to be able to offer a comprehensive list of more plausible reasons. </p>
<p>In the end, there are plenty of reasons why a student should not apply to the most selective schools. Just as there are plenty of reasons why other students find that the Ivy League represents the … best fit. That is the just the way it is, and there are no reasons to believe one group is “more right” than the other. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl has often written about the decision made by her children. Mini has often written about the decision that prompted his daughters to attend Smith/Princeton and American. Your daughters made the best decision for them. And so did Gadad’s daughters and a few others who commented on this thread. </p>
<p>PS I did not apply to an Ivy League school for the UG as I could not imagine spending four years on the East Coast. I have no idea if I had a chance of being admitted. Never cared to know! That elusive quest for the best fit can be overly simplistic!</p>
<p>When I saw that article featured on a news web site, I thought, “Oh goodness, here we go again on CC.” :D</p>
<p>My reaction was, “Stop the presses!!!”</p>
<p>Just because someone didn’t apply to a school doesn’t mean that they would never want to go there. For instance, I had Princeton on my list last year, but I removed it, figuring the very slim chance of getting accepted wasn’t worth the work when I had another dozen school’s applications to do. But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to go there anymore if I magically got the chance.</p>