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If you want to better understand the differences between HY&P I would start by getting your hands on a couple of good college guide books (ex. Fiske, Insiders Guide, Princeton Review) which do an excellent job of describing the different colleges.
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This is at least your sixth post asking about Ivy (particularly HYP) colleges. Right now with a 3.0 HS GPA and having failed college classes in the past I would not spend time and energy focused on these few hyper-competitive schools that you may or may not qualify for in the future. It is good to have dreams and aim high but I strongly suggest that right now you put 100% of your focus and attention on doing as well as possible at your CC. When you are ready to transfer out of CC THEN you should see what colleges you qualify for – but be sure to look not only at prestige but also at affordability since you hope to attend law school. IMO right now you are just spinning your wheels with all these questions about Ivy schools.
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Have you researched the possibility of transferring into HYP? If you had looked at the common data set for each school you would see the transfer acceptance rates are tiny.
Harvard accepted 17/1547 transfer applicants (1.1% acceptance rate)
Yale accepted 27/1254 transfer applicants (2.2% acceptance rate)
Princeton accepted 13/1429 transfer applicants 0.9% acceptance rate) -
I don’t mean to discourage you, but I think you should focus completely on the job at hand which is excelling at CC rather than some long-shot possibilities for two years or more from now.
I completely understand, thanks for your articulate response. I’m gonna work on getting back into the college I was admitted to originally in Florida, and I fell in love with it because of its geography, location, environment, and Political Science program. My mental and emotional health is very important.
But I will say this: even though I am not qualified at the moment for top colleges, I will attend my dream school eventually. My story and perspective is extremely unusual, I have no doubt. The best intellectual institutions are not about prestige, they are about prioritizing innovation and defying the conventions of society.
I intend to epitomize that.
Not quite. Harvard hasn’t stuck around hundreds of years and grown its endorsement to mammoth size by defying conventions. Nor by defining them either.
Even a perfect applicant doesn’t get accepted without the match.
@LZHope: One way to get acquainted with a variety of colleges is to obtain & read a copy of The Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020.
You might consider this reply from a prominent respondent as he took the Proust Questionnaire in a Boston Globe interview:
If you Google “Harvard Geography” you will find that Harvard does not offer Geography - and the story behind it will give you some insight into Harvard’s culture.
https://www.thoughtco.com/geography-at-harvard-1434998
By the way, Harvard, Yale and Princeton were founded to propagate the social norms of their respective religious groups -not creating new ones.
You can get an excellent education anywhere. What Harvard provides is a) a superb learning environment, b) an outstanding student body, c) a tremendous network once you’re out and d) a “stamp of approval” of sorts - when someone finds out you went there, they will not have to wonder if you have some modicum of intelligence.
What it will NOT provide is any kind of guarantee. The comment occasionally heard is “set for life.” That could not be more false. Harvard provides the training and the network and opens some doors, but you still have to prove yourself. Many Harvard students don’t realize that. In 35 years on Wall Street I never once hired a Harvard grad right out of college. I waited a year or so until the real world shrunk their egos back to normal size.
The original post appeared to be about relative prestige between certain Ivy League schools.
A few other points about prestigious schools:
- the work is hard: it is not all about getting in but doing the work
- if you are uncomfortable being surrounded by people smarter or more talented than you, think twice
- there is competition to get into clubs and to get into certain courses (say, photography) you have to already be accomplished
4)many classes are large lectures by star professors with sections led by grad teaching fellows - in the real world, there can be prejudice against Ivy grads, high expectations, and nicknames like “smart girl” at work; that is why many Harvard grads say they went to college “near Boston”
- there is still an assumption you come from wealth, even with so many on financial aid
@NascarFedex I can’t really compare to Princeton, as my son didn’t apply there, but Harvard gave him more than what Princeton’s Net price calculator suggested that they would. I am not sure what you mean by donut hole families but we are firmly in the middle class and Harvard basically is covering full tuition. It’s costing us less than our flagship public school would (no grants from them) and the other private schools suggested we could pay 70K out of pocket which is insane.
You seem to spend quite a bit of time thinking about Ivy League colleges. I’m not sure it’s healthy. There’s nothing wrong with attending a community college. Lots of people do. When you’re closer to graduating you can figure out the next step, but you’re just starting classes. Maybe you should focus on trying to enjoy the journey you’re on.
Who say Ivy League is “everything”?
Cite/data?
It’s not working.
What’s “hollistic”?
Harvard has a total cost of attendance at $70k. For families with income lower than $70k, its completely free; lower than $170k its tuition free and above $270k its full cost. So the donut hole for Harvard is about $250-$500 before tax income, especially for families in the high tax and high cost of living areas, where the medium house price is above a $1m and $70k/year after tax can feel a lot after the cost of living adjustment.
I’ll put in another good word for community colleges. They are wonderful resources for many reasons and purposes.
The great majority of students at Ivy League schools are in fact brilliant and accomplished students. The number who are “mediocre” are minimal.
That said, a very large percentage of the students who get rejected from Ivy League schools are also brilliant and accomplished, and there are many schools whose student bodies are just as amazing as those of the Ivies that so many people put on a pedestal. Students should never make getting into an Ivy the main focus of applying to college–all the more so given how different the Ivies are from each other.
I’m a loyal alum of an Ivy League school, but frankly I think I would have been better off at a LAC, and I made sure that my kids didn’t fall victim to Ivy-mania when they were applying to college.
I guess my main message for the OP is that resisting (or actively fighting) Ivy-worship is laudable, but it doesn’t warrant belittling the students who do attend those schools.
I appreciate your constructive responses, everyone. Thanks for being civil.
I can understand your perspective. It’s just that when I see so many people on websites like this with the “Chance Me” threads, it honestly feels to me that they may be insecure and are seeking external validation. When situations like the Cornell gorge suicides happen, (I know that’s an extreme example) we need to realize that there is way too much pressure on youth to attend institutions simply because they are prestigious; they’re just colleges.
I had a classmate in high school whose mother seemed very insecure and was always pressuring her daughter to attend an Ivy and involve herself in extracurriculars at the expense of her well being. Her daughter was a sensitive and intelligent person who had a remarkable academic record, but the ended up dropping out her freshman year of college due to that. I don’t blame her.
LZ- the suicides at Cornell (and Penn and everywhere else) are sad and tragic.
But you are making a somewhat illogical leap. Suicide among non-college students is also increasing (and likely at a higher rate) than among college students, and there is zero evidence that the Ivies have higher suicide rates than other colleges.
The highest rate within this age group is among young men in the military btw- and the hypothesis is that they experience depression and suicidal ideation at aprox. the same rate as their cohort in college or working- but being in the military means easy access to a weapon. So a perfect storm. There are some recent studies comparing the US military to that of other countries and the hypothesis appears to be holding up. Soldiers can kill themselves with much less planning and effort than anyone else (except for police officers- who are typically older, but also have high rates, and physicians- also older, but easy access to drugs of all kinds and substantial knowledge of how to use them. Physician suicide- VERY under-reported btw…)
If there is extreme pressure on anyone to do anything, young people should realize that there is help available. Whether the manifestation is an eating disorder, anxiety, depression, etc. there is help.
But this is not a problem unique to the Ivy League.
@LZHope There is no reason to disparage Ivy League colleges nor is there a reason to think any one college or group of colleges is the “be all and end all.” At this point you have over a half dozen posts about Ivy League colleges (first hoping to attend, now putting them down).
I would stop thinking about Ivy League schools at all and I would stop concerning yourself with what other people are doing. Your time and energy would be best spent focused on your needs and on doing as well as you can with the opportunities you have.
@jzducol just want to make sure the info on financial aid is exactly accurate. This is for parental contribution. From the Harvard site:
"For families with annual incomes below $65,000, the expected contribution is zero. Families with annual incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute between 0 and 10 percent of their income. Those with incomes above $150,000 will be asked to pay proportionately more than 10 percent based on their circumstances.
Families who have significant assets will be asked to pay more, but home equity and retirement assets are not considered in our assessment of financial need"
Harvard eliminated the student summer contribution but still has a standard amount for term time contribution.
They also work with special/unusual circumstances.
The average parental contribution is $12k.
FWIW, so far as I can tell upon a quick read, the linked article does not single out the Ivy league. Nor should it, IMO.
I agree that, depending where one draws the line, the referenced truly extraordinary students do not constitute a majority, outside of maybe the top few schools (all of whom are not even in the Ivy league). What replaces them instead are, for the most part, an unusually concentrated group of very students who are very intelligent, hard-working, and/or gifted in some other way.
Yes there are undoubtedly equally intelligent and hard-working students who do not join them there, possibly directly or indirectly due to being less advantaged. Yes there are likely a (very few, IMO) duds who sneak in due to fraud. (However, they then also have to get out).
That does not mean that the people who are there are, as a group, “mediocre”.
It’s not perfect. It is, IMO largely a meritocracy, but within the rules that have been established, which, by results, do favor the wealthy. Because it isn’t cheap, somebody has to pay. But it isn’t random either, or merely about cashing a check.
And it isn’t just the Ivy League. it’s a systemic problem in American education, because private colleges- virtually all of them- cost a fortune and somebody has to pay.
From that article linked by OP:
"At 38 of our most selective colleges and universities, including five in the Ivy League (Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, and Penn), there are more students from the top 1% than the entire bottom 60%. "
IMO the top 1% should be over-represented, since in many cases it is smarts that helped these people get there, and that is, IMO, somewhat genetic. But there’s a question as to the appropriate extent of the over-representation.
My nephew died by suicide while he attended Butler. Suicide is not an Ivy League issue. It’s a huge, societal issue.