How do we change the narrative around the Ivy League?

Parent Cafe
1

I guess I am asking, is there a way for us as parents, teachers, counselors,etc to change the narrative from “I have to get into the Ivy League” to “I am looking for schools that meet XYZ criteria.”

Is it even possible to change it? Or will there always be a subset of the population that is so status conscious that it will infect any graduating HS class?

As kids seem to work harder and harder in HS, and admission into the Ivy League seems to be the final “good job kid” that many are seeking - do we need a different way to recognize those students who have really worked their butts off in HS? IF we had that alternative - something like an “American Top HS Scholar Award” could it be prestigious enough to encourage kids to pursue colleges based on cost, program, location, fit?

I just worry about all these freshman and sophomores who post on CC “Is this good enough to get into an Ivy League” time after time after time.

2

If you stick around CC long enough, each year you will see a new set of students saying “I have to get into an Ivy League school”. Even worse is the “I have to go to an Ivy League school because I want to study Mechanical Engineering” or “… Computer Science”. The fact that the best schools for ME and CS aren’t in the Ivy League seems to be lost on many students.

As far as I can tell we can just keep trying to offer common sense, and hope that someone is listening.

3

…or else my parents will kill me.

…or else my parents won’t pay for college.

4

My first suggestion would be to check out the Class of 20xx communities. There you will find plenty of top kids looking for colleges based on program, fit, location and cost. And if that isn’t enough, log off this site and talk with kids/parents outside the CC world (which tends to skew towards the Ivy or bust view significantly more than normal). There will always be the Ivy obsessed. Not sure anything will change that. But its still the exception (notwithstanding what hanging out here could lead you to believe).

5

I live abroad and I can confirm that Ivy obsession exists outside of CC as well.

6

Abroad it’s due to lack of knowledge (people just name the big names everyone knows unless they possess knowledge of the subject, be it tennis champions, Pulitzer prizes, 20th century presidents, or American universities). Then add QS and Times, which essentially rank research output (with a few extra factors thrown in) and thus don’t focus on the undergraduate experience at all but whose rankings hold sway abroad even for undergraduate students.
Plus the fact LACs don’t exist outside the US, which makes them invisible to families abroad.
Plus the reality of college admissions being purely numerical and based on a series of tests.
All of that adds up to families abroad all aiming for Ivy+ and ignoring top programs and excellent colleges.

7

As far as CC goes, it would help if posters would quit encouraging this. A kid tells stats and a few glory ECs or titles and too many respond with attaboys and absolute conviction/prediction the kid will get into one (or more!) tippy tops. They don’t see the app or the rest. Like the kid, the responders have no idea what it takes, they just encourage dreaming. Or the old, “You won’t know unless you apply.”

8

I think most CC posters discourage the focus on Ivies. Just look at the Harvard forum.

The saddest posters are the ones who write “I have been dreaming of Harvard since I was 5.” What would cause a 5 year old kid to dream of a college?!

I think the number one reason for chance me posts are kids and families who don’t know that much about the range of options and need more knowledge, and that is how many of us respond. We also caution that focusing too much on college admissions, too early, can ruin high school and skew the experiences that can actually land a kid at a good fit school. (And attending HYPSM means hearing “Boy you must be smart!” the rest of your life.)

One other thing: I think this forum can also go the other way, for complicated reasons. It is also important to acknowledge that for some kids, a particular Ivy (they are all different of course) is a great experience. But universities in general feature larger lectures with TA’s and those considering Ivies should take that into account versus LAC’s. But for some Ivies are a great fit.

With high tuitions and loans, financial insecurity lies behind some of this prestige-chasing but our old aristocracy has been replaced by a meritocracy and people are always going to want their kids to rise up to whatever defines a higher echelon of society. And it is contagious.

High schools could do more to counter the impression that there is some hierarchy of human beings based on stats. And admissions doesn’t work that way anyway. I wish there were no grades at all. Kids should make friends, explore interests and try to grow up a nice person :slight_smile:

9

Some of this is regional. Outside the northeast Atlantic coastal region, it appears that there is less tendency to default to the assumption that Ivy League is the best and only choice of college. In Florida, for example, top students are as likely to prioritize and target schools like Stanford, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Duke, Rice and Vanderbilt as the Ivies. Similarly, the beloved NE LACs are less well known and sought after by students outside that region.

10

And some of the issue is that these preferences are firmly rooted in the minds of the older generation - parents and grandparents - whose college selection process was a much different experience. Many of the specialty fields students are seeking weren’t even invented when the older people who insist the Ivy League is “the best” formed their opinions and went to school. Their bias was formed in a time with little information and even less ability to compare multiple options.

Despite the fact that the world and most colleges have evolved and that young people are looking for different things, the preconceived opinions of a certain age population have not evolved and probably will not. It’s a bias issue and since it isn’t really based on fact, increased information is unlikely to change the bias.

An example was a recent discussion on a thread discussing ED for a college ranked in the top 10 USNWR. In that thread, a parent asserted that by accepting a large portion of its class through ED, that meant that by definition the college was not accepting the very top students. The reasoning was that every single top student out there desired to go to HYP (I think S and possibly M was grudgingly included), so would not apply ED to any college other than HYP since that would mean they had no chance to attend their top choice. Top students only go to schools other than HYP if they’re not accepted at HYP or if the other college essentially bribes them. So the ED pool of any non-HYP school was composed of other-than-top students since applying ED to non-HYP just would never be done. And this person was completely serious. They were unable to even conceive of people who did not have the same regional bias.

11

@MYOS1634 - That is not 100% the case. Most of my friends did their own higher education in the US - not at Ivy League schools. And yet…high performing kids here fall into the same trap as high performing kids in the US. That is why I said the narrative has to change.

12

I find it hard to believe kids or parents rather go to an Ivy League for CS or engineering degree rather than MIT or Stanford. Here in CA, only Harvard has a brand name pull equal to Stanford for overall programs and MIT for engineering. Just talking generally.

13

As a Cornell graduate, mother of a Cornell graduate, and mother-in-law of a Cornell graduate, I feel obligated to point out that there is at least one university in the Ivy League that isn’t half bad in computer science and engineering. :wink:

14

I would say Cornell CS is in top 15. Cornell engineering is pretty tough.

15

College choice appeared as a prominent figure’s “greatest regret” when taking the Proust Questionnaire:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/15/charlie-baker-takes-proust-questionnaire/p2B2GsYFIUnYnVLsZCiX3I/story.html

Though the college chosen happened to have been an Ivy (Harvard), the suggested message seems to apply to the greater principle of independent thought and action, a direction that would neither determine nor preclude the consideration of any particular schools, Ivies among them.

16

Maybe there’s no need to change the narrative around the Ivy League. There will always be people who make different choices. The reasons behind their choices can be viewed as positive or negative - bias, ignorance, insight, advanced understanding, whatever. It’s a big country with many great colleges, maybe it doesn’t matter if a certain subset of the population hold certain beliefs about the Ivy League. Let them fight it out and concentrate their efforts on those few colleges and let the others use different information, bias, facts, ignorance or insight to find the other gems.

17

I agree…it’s regional. I’m originally from the Midwest…and really…the Ivies are not the most popular schools on the planet there.

@CValle these Ivy schools are well known. They have recognizable names. They are also excellent universities.

I think the best thing we can do is encourage kids to NOT look at school rankings, but to look at school programs. Look at qualities of the schools…not rankings. We want our kids to be evaluated for admissions holistically…kids should look at colleges more holistically.

18

To some extent, the narrative cannot be changed. The words “Ivy League” have the allure of a trusted brand name. Some families, domestically and abroad, always will see that as a marker for prestige and success.

That said, I do think that someone new to doing research into colleges may start with the impression that the Ivy League is the only place to go if you are a top student, but quickly can learn that a number of top schools, starting with names most people will recognize like Stanford and MIT, are not part of the Ivy League.

One thing that I have commented on multiple times in these forums is that, as posters, we should stop misusing the term “Ivy” and stop being hung up on comparisons to the Ivy League.

My son will be going to Williams. It is not a “Little Ivy,” and I wish people would stop calling it that. There is no such thing as a little Ivy. The Ivy League is eight great schools, period. Nothing else is “an Ivy.”

One can describe Williams as one of the best small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. without using an inappropriate shorthand.

In terms of sports leagues, it is in the NESCAC league, which is a different sports association than the Ivy League. But “NESCAC” is not a shorthand for academic prestige either. Swarthmore is similar to NESCAC’s Williams in many ways and is in a different sports league. Skidmore is similar to NESCAC’s Connecticut College is many ways and also is in a different sports league. And a student interested in Tufts, a NESCAC member, probably would be happier at Brown or Brandeis than at Williams, because Tufts is a larger school that has more in common with the national urban/suburban universities than with a small rural liberal arts college.

So, I think one thing we can do as posters is to stop exalting the 8 schools of the Ivy League above all others by making everything a comparison to the Ivy League. Stop calling colleges “Little Ivies,” “Public Ivies,” “the Harvard of the South,” “the Harvard of the Midwest,” etc.

And we should stop posting about how the statistics or outcomes of College A are “better” than those of Harvard or Princeton or whatever. Putting down the Ivy League universities does not end people’s obsession with them. It contributes to it, by making them the standard to which all other schools must be compared.

When someone posts, “Is University of Chicago an Ivy?,” the answer should be that U of Chicago is not one of the eight colleges that are in the Ivy League, which is a sports league. The answer should continue to note that Chicago is one of the most highly regarded colleges in the U.S., and then share some information about what is unique and special about U of C. Simple, matter of fact, nondefensive.

Each of the eight universities in the Ivy League is indeed fabulous and among the best in the world. There is no reason not to acknowledge that fact.

That does not mean that other colleges are not equally wonderful. Some new posters will want to know they will be surrounded by top students in college, and they can learn here that they can find that in the league or out of it. All can be guided to explore what is a good “fit” for them personally. A poster may be coming here to learn, knowing only the shorthand for top colleges that they have heard since birth. That’s a starting point.

19

yeah…what he said. Thanks for all the typing @TheGreyKing

The narrative is fine as is… it’s up to the users to believe it, ignore it, or something in between

20

One thing I try to do is suggest the kid get a Fiske guide and find 12-15 schools they’ve never heard of and like. :slight_smile: