Calling schools the “New Ivies” gives credit to the wrong group.

Applying to College
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<p>Top schools are like the New England Patriots in that their record is better than they actually are.</p>

<p>Going into the Super Bowl the New England Patriots were 18-0. By their record they looked invincible. But if you put the record aside and looked at the inherent qualities of the team, they weren’t as good as their record indicated. </p>

<p>The same goes for the top schools. By their record, and specifically I’m talking about the average SAT scores and GPA of admitted students, the top schools look as dominant from an education perspective as the Patriots did in football. But if you put the record aside and look at the inherent qualities of the schools, have they really gotten that much better over the last several years? I don’t think so.</p>

<p>I don’t mean to knock the schools in any way. Without question they’ve earned and deserve their high academic rankings, and they’re not resting on their laurels either. They’re always looking for ways to improve their course offerings, teaching techniques, professors, infrastructure, everything. That’s part of the reason for their continued success. I’d be proud to have my kid go to any of them. </p>

<p>But we’ve all heard the real reasons for the current super-selectivity of many colleges: There’s a surge in the population of college age kids, as well as a surge in the percentage of those kids who are going to college. </p>

<p>Is it really true that the only kids who can survive at some of these schools are the ones with the 4.0 unweighted GPA and 700+ on all three SAT sections (to exaggerate only a little)? Again, I don’t think so. I think the same kids who got in there 10 years ago, with lower average scores than today’s, would do just as well today as they did back then.</p>

<p>So what I’m saying is that calling a group of schools the “New Ivies” gives the false impression that the schools are inherently better, when in reality it’s their clientele that has improved. It’s not that the colleges are turning out better students, it’s that the students are improving the colleges.</p>

<p>By focusing our attention on the “New Ivies” we’re giving credit to the wrong group. The Newsweek article by that name was all about the colleges, and dedicated only a paragraph or two to the kids who are attending them. Instead, the article should have focused on the high schools that produce the kids with soaring SAT scores, the kids who work to achieve those scores, and the parents who support both. The New Ivies are merely a by-product of what I’d call the “New Intellectuals.”<br>
What I’d love to see is a Newsweek story about them, with a cover photo of college freshmen standing in front of their parents, taken in front of an American high school.</p>

<p>And to all the kids, their parents, and their high schools: Congratulations.</p>

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<p>^^^: So you want to point out that Stanford has not improved quality of its education standard, facilities and opportunities for its student body. It still lacks somehow with that of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
I think that is not correct.
In my view Stanford has been doing many things right and should be considered as good as HYP if not better. It leads in Engineering, Medicine, Law, MBA. While none of the HYP has been strong in all of those.
Harvard is good at Law, Medicine, and MBA but not good at Engineering. Both Princeton and Yale only good at one or two.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion, but I do agree that it’s the quality of the student population that primarily makes a school a top school. Whatever causes them to go there, once the quality of the student body improves, the school’s prestige and ability to attract top faculty also improves. My personal rule of thumb is that the top schools are the ones that have been getting the best students for the last 10 years or so. It may make some sense to call these new top schools the New Ivies, because they have achieved the same feat: they are good because people think they are good. To clarify: because people think they are good, they become good and really are good.
(By the way, ParentOIH, HYP are strong in everything, relative to the vast majority of schools.)</p>

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<p>Winchester/OP & Hunt, I agree with you completely. As the private prep high school my son attends continues to expand their program of giving scholarships to kids who score highly on SATs they take in the eighth grade, the reputation and cred of the school continues to rise, as these kids are now being selected to elite universities. And, as far as the education goes, very little has changed. It was a brilliant move by the school - as they are now getting attention from these top colleges, the school has increased its pool of paying, highly motivated bright students.</p>

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<p>I would add that I think the education changes, too, when the quality of the student body changes, even if the faculty and curriculum stay the same. I think bright kids learn more in classes with other bright kids, and many teachers teach better when they have bright, engaged students.</p>

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<p>Hunt:“(By the way, ParentOIH, HYP are strong in everything, relative to the vast majority of schools.)”
The question was not about vast majority of the schools but the new Ivies.
So if you compare the standard of the faculty in Stanford/MIT for Engineering to that of HYP, you will find much brigther mind at Stanford/MIT.
Quality of student body at Stanford beats any college. There are more Google/Yahoo or other fortune 500 companies that have been produced by Stanford than HYP combined.
So what contribution in recent memory HY has to engineering while you can match Stanford contribution to that of HYP in LAw, Medicine and MBA.</p>

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<p>That’s the idea behind this little concept (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/491616-wild-crazy-idea-student-admission-unions-students-world-unite.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/491616-wild-crazy-idea-student-admission-unions-students-world-unite.html&lt;/a&gt;) I came up with. I don’t know how feasible it is, but I think it merits looking at.</p>

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<p>“Quality of student body at Stanford beats any college. There are more Google/Yahoo or other fortune 500 companies that have been produced by Stanford than HYP combined.”</p>

<p>Um, I can almost be 100% sure that isn’t true without looking at the statistics.</p>

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<p>aspasp: Better lookup.</p>

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<p>Someone said Boston College is a “New Ivy”</p>

<p>is that true?</p>

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<p>It’s a subjective term anyway.</p>

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<p>“So if you compare the standard of the faculty in Stanford/MIT for Engineering to that of HYP, you will find much brigther mind at Stanford/MIT.”</p>

<p>MUCH brighter? This is just silly, honestly. The top schools–probably the top 50 or 100 schools–have very bright faculty and students in all fields. Stanford is a great school. Running down other great schools doesn’t make Stanford any better.</p>

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<p>Oh man… not this Ivies/Stanford discussion again…</p>

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<p>I am pro “New Ivies”. I think colleges like UCLA and UC Berkeley are on par with the “elite eight”.</p>

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<p>Just for fun, what 8 schools do u guys think deserve to be called the new Ivies? I think it would be Stanford, MIT, Duke, UChicago, but then it gets difficult to add 4 more.</p>

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<p>Swarthmore, perhaps?</p>

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<p>If you think Stanford is truly better than HYP combined in terms of alumni then you are truly a bigot.</p>

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<p>Wait, is the OP calling the NYGiants, the HYP of the NFL?!?</p>

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<p>^^Not directly but…Go Giants!</p>

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<p>Schools like Swarthmore and several other liberal arts colleges have long been seen as academically equivalent to the Ivies…just a different kind of school.</p>