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[quote]
As for your comments about the student quality, do you really think that the Ivy students are materially different than what you find today at Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, etc? A very large percentage of the students who go to these colleges likely had Ivy acceptances or resumes that would have gained them admission if they had chosen to apply. They, too, are great debaters, are great newspaper workers/writers/publishers, are great musicians, etc. As you note, such talents are definitely not limited to those who attend Ivy colleges. The fact is that these are the same students who were high school classmates of the Ivy matriculates, but who chose a different non-Ivy college for personal fit reasons, not because they were inferior students (or debaters, musicians, etc.).
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Hawkette, whatever the relative quality of the students at each of these schools may be, it's simply a factual statement that many of the Ivies have better opportunities in a lot of extracurriculars. Perhaps my perception is skewed on account of the fact that Y+P were the only Ivies I applied to, and thus looked at in depth, but it's true that in a wide range of areas, they easily outperform schools like Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, etc (and even Stanford and Duke to an extent).
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I think you will agree that college selection should be about the combination of top academics and personal fit. If a good athletic life is something that a student thinks would be nice and fun to have as part of the undergraduate experience (not to mention the lifelong connections that it often provides), then these colleges could well be the better choice.
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Perhaps we disagree less than I sometimes think - your final statement that "these colleges could well be the better choice" is something I agree with far more than
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For many, many students, the best overall undergraduate experiences will be found at:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>U Virginia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>U Michigan</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>U North Carolina</li>
<li>Wake Forest
[/quote]
Frankly, other than Stanford (and perhaps Duke), the non-academic opportunities at the schools on that list don't really come close to HYP. If you think that athletics should put Stanford ahead of HYP for many students, perhaps you're right (though I made the opposite decision at least in relation to Yale v. Stanford in my college choice). But to say that it makes USC, Notre Dame, or Georgetown a better choice is not only to degrade the importance of academics, but to ignore the other non-academic non-athletic opportunities at HYP. Similarly, while Columbia or Penn may not have quite the level of opportunities of HYP, for most students they will easily exceed many of the schools you listed above. Obviously for the things I'm talking about, being a member of the Ivy League doesn't matter (in fact, athletics, your primary focus of discussion, are the only thing for which being in the Ivy League matters), but many of the Ivies happen to do better than some of your favorite schools. </li>
</ol>
<p>I guess, when it comes down to it, what I don't like about your posts is that you present your "ranking" as some sort of compilation of the best undergraduate experience. If you want to call it an academic ranking of the schools with major athletic programs, perhaps I could agree, but for most students, I don't think your list correlates with overall undergrad experience any better than the US News rating. And your list doesn't just shortchange the Ivies, which from what I've seen on this board could use a little shortchanging anyway, but also denies well deserved respect to schools like MIT and Caltech, UChicago, WashU, Emory, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, William and Mary, etc. There are so many factors that should go into choosing a school, that to make athletics a central factor - even if you do admit it comes behind academics - when for most students applying to schools of the caliber we are discussing it is more like a nice bonus (a "tip factor" if you will) produces a skewed ranking. And I'm not saying this because I don't understand the passions that college sports produces; I was a huge sports fan growing up, I've been to bigtime division 1 football games, I get excited when UCLA beats USC in football or makes it to the Final Four in basketball. But, it was not important to me in choosing a college, and for the vast majority of students who care about sports less than I do, it is probably even less important. And I realize that sports events produce a big social scene (though at most schools this is mainly tied to football and thus only relevant in the Fall) but if you think that Ivy League students sit around doing nothing on Friday nights because there's no big game the next day, you are completely wrong.
But, as I said, perhaps we disagree less than I think. Fetishizing the Ivy League is certainly silly, partly because each school in it is different, partly because there are plenty of other great schools, but I think we should be careful about going too far in the other direction.</p>