I don't get this Ivy Love thing...

Parents Forum
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<p>I think you need to get out of New Jersey. Look, I think all of the Ivy schools are fabulous (along with a lot of other schools, too). But there are plenty of places in this country where they are not magic-sparkly-schools that all the smart kids aspire to. I concur with bclintonk that there are a heck of a lot of places where Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth aren’t on people’s radar screens. Which doesn’t make them not excellent schools.</p>

<p>Recently on a plane, I sat next to a gentleman who was a classic New England old-money prep who had gone to Middlebury, had moved to Chicago, and was sending two of his children to Northwestern. (At this point in the conversation, I had NOT revealed my own Northwestern affiliation.) He made the point that in moving from Boston to Chicago, he was really amazed how little the “traditional” east coast LAC’s of his youth (Middlebury, Amherst, Williams, etc.) meant out here, and he made the comment that anywhere you can get with Harvard in Boston, you can get in Chicago with Northwestern. Now, whether or not that’s strictly true, I don’t know; but the point is, there is this continued assumption on CC that the desired set of schools and the schools that form the loci of power are the same everywhere. And that just isn’t true. It’s not true in Texas, where UT-Austin, Texas A&M and SMU often have more desirability than 'better" schools, and it’s not true in plenty of other places either. </p>

<p>Now, that wouldn’t prevent me from sending my kid to one of those schools. My D attends one of those east-coast LAC’s that is simultaneously an excellent school AND little known by John Q Public out here! But so what? The decision to make is one about quality, not recognition. Because recognition and the “p-word” of prestige are still regional in nature. </p>

<p>I just spent time with some South Side Irish friends (very highly educated). if you asked them to rate the best universities in the country, they’d bow down to Notre Dame; then, maybe NU or Chicago after that. Brown? Dartmouth? Columbia? Not on radar screens. What are those? Their opinions for their social circles are just as valid as the opinions of the Ivy-chasers in Greenwich or Short Hills.</p>

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<p>While many may understandably not ‘get this Ivy love thing,’ I don’t get this Mutually Exclusive thing. It’s the same theme that keeps coming up on other threads, too. (Well, OK, it has for years here.)</p>

<p>Ivy admits = privileged, bratty, arrogant, lazy, prestige-seekers (or children of same)</p>

<p>State schools = hard-working, superior-achieving, humble students of integrity (with implication that the IQ’s are actually higher than those of Ivy admits)</p>

<p>Do some of you hear how childish this all sounds with such schoolyard divisive categories? Adults are supposed to have already experienced the nuances and blurred lines of life. Categorical absolutes are for unformed adolescents. It’s the developmental stage they go through as part of ‘finding their own middle’ and of entering into the extremities of perception and experience.</p>

<p>I don’t get the “Ivy love thing” as an absolute, but I get the “Ivy hate thing” (as an absolute) just as little.</p>

<p>There is no “absolute value” of a school. It’s entirely personal. The much more important journey between age 17 and 22 (or 25) is the process of self-discovery. Whenever I meet (and I do in my work) parents who want to make all the college decisions for their child, or “prevent” them from applying to School X, or “force” them to apply to School Y, I go through a mini-grieving process. Such parents are thieves. They are robbing their children of the biggest Lessons Learned in the journey, more important than the campus itself. It is the student’s effort, introspection, decision-making, adjusting, coping, and resultant self-realization – the good and the bad of it combined – which is the key Passage of this watershed stage in a young person’s life.</p>

<p>Thus, when I hear of MOWC’s and Pizzagirl’s children’s self-discovery, I rejoice. PG’s children went through that whole introspective and dialoguing with others process that enabled them to arrive at a “fit” that works. (She has emailed me more details about that, which are very uplifting.) Undoubtedly Miami’s did, too. (And maybe there was quite a lot of left-brain analyzing in her D’s decisions as well, which is also perfectly fine.) MOWC’s son learned invaluable lessons in perseverance, adjustment, flexibility, and --by default-- learned what he does and does not value in a campus experience. That’s huge.</p>

<p>A lot of what we learn in life we learn negatively – not just via “mistakes,” per se, but by passive negative surprises. It’s how we respond to that which counts, which helps shape an identity for a young person and makes us more resilient as long as we reflect constructively on our experience and use that gained information to grow.</p>

<p>The categorical absolutes are believed by too many people on this forum. The evidence of that is another thread in College Admissions forum, peppered with some very hateful-sounding posts, driven entirely by a Do-or-Die mentality of What Counts in life and how to game the system and sell your soul and identity in order to achieve that. That is precisely the opposite of what late adolescence is designed for. (Double-grief when I read that thread.)</p>

<p>No college name, no ranking, can “give” a student an identity. Only the student can create that. The “opportunity” is not Campus X. The opportunity is that of self-actualization. Their professors and their (and your) decal won’t actualize them. Nor even that supposedly prestigious first job – that is, as a title or a position. </p>

<p>End of rant. (Sorry. guys.)</p>

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<p>Impressive rant, epiphany. But I wonder who it’s directed at. There’s been precious little " ‘Ivy hate thing’ (as an absolute)" on this thread. Go back and look at what the skeptics of extreme “Ivy Love” are saying. It’s not based on “categorical absolutes,” as you put it. Actually, most of it is very close to what you’re saying. I don’t see anybody arguing the Ivies are terrible places; I think there’s general agreement here that they’re great schools (though perhaps not for everyone). Nor do I see posters here attacking the students who attend Ivies; there seems to be general agreement that they’re outstanding students and their admission to Ivy League schools is a signal accomplishment–but I and others would quickly add, by no means the sole measure of student merit and accomplishment. </p>

<p>The debate, as I see it, is between those who seem to be claiming that the Ivies are such a unique world apart that they’re just not even comparable to other schools, and those who say that’s bunk, that there are many other comparably excellent schools, and even more schools that while perhaps not as extraordinary as the best of the Ivies in all regards, are nonetheless places where talented and motivated students can get an outstanding education. There’s nobody here trashing the Ivies. And more generally, I’ve seen precious little of that anywhere on CC.</p>

<p>I think you’re arguing against a straw man here.</p>

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<p>Impressive rant, epiphany. But I wonder who it’s directed at.</p>

<p>I wondered the same thing.</p>

<p>I think you’re arguing against a straw man here.</p>

<p>And I came to the same conclusion. He set up the straw man in his first few lines, and then he proceeded to tear it down over a great number of paragraphs. It was a typical epiphany post, although perhaps a bit more incoherent than usual.</p>

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<p>I find it funny that people are listing as their counterpoint to the Ivies top-flight schools like Northwestern, Caltech, Michigan, Berkeley, Chicago, Middlebury, etc… </p>

<p>As an Ivy grad myself, I have to wonder whether there are people out there who honestly think these schools are inferior simply because they’re not part of a middling athletic conference. I’ve never met any such individuals.</p>

<p>I suspect “Ivy” is a catch-all phrase used by many who don’t know it’s just a well-branded athletic conference of 8 schools.</p>

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<p>Applejack, I think Ivy is used exactly as Sewhappy described it. A belief that those particular 8 schools are universally revered as the unique “signalers” of smart students “anywhere in the world” in a way that the other comparable schools just aren’t, that there is some cachet to Brown that Duke just doesn’t have, or some cachet to Dartmouth that Caltech doesn’t have, etc., and that gosh, golly, everyone in the country, the smartest students elevate those 8 schools to some golden pedestal. And that’s what I don’t believe, at all. I really don’t think those people who haven’t lived anywhere but the northeast get that the Ivies as individual schools don’t have the mythical magical branding everywhere that they seem to think. I GET the northeast mentality. I grew up there and I lived it!! But there is a decided provincialism to the notion that everywhere throughout this fair country, those 8 all enjoy elevated status.</p>

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<p>I would extend PizzaGirl’s comment to “top n USNWR” listings. “Gosh, golly, everyone in the country, the smartest students elevate those n schools to some golden pedestal.” - that there is some cachet to Northwestern that UIUC doesn’t have or to Stanford that Berkeley doesn’t have or to Rice that UTAustin doesn’t have or to Duke that UNC-CH doesn’t have or to Vanderbilt that Tennessee doesn’t have, etc.</p>

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<p>I quite enjoyed epiphany’s post, which was generous in spirit and rich in common sense. The only point I’d add is that there is, here and elsewhere, also an opposing theme that Ivy admits = kids spectacularly deserving of inevitable lifetime success while state school admits = kids bound for obscurity after enduring an inferior education. The two themes make equal amounts of sense (which is to say, none). </p>

<p>How hard is it not to insult a class of school, or any particular school? I don’t really think it’s all that difficult. Happens a lot, though.</p>

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<p>annasdad, when it comes to <em>cachet</em>, as opposed to intrinsic merit, I certainly would argue that Vanderbilt has it and Tennessee doesn’t (unless we’re talking about people in East Tennessee and/or the NFL). I didn’t think there was any disagreement that inter/national cachet does vary from school to school. The disagreement was about the value of that cachet, and whether or not it is an accurate signal of the intrinsic value of the school.</p>

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<p>uh, Pizzagirl, you seem to think I’m from the Northeast?</p>

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<p>We moved to New Jersey just over a year ago. Have lived all over – Southeast, West Coast, Pacific Northwest, Midwest – and now NJ. Also lived 18 months in Asia in the late 80s. DH travels to Europe frequently on business. </p>

<p>It was moving around a lot that drove home for us the value of an Ivy education in terms of name recognition. If we’d stayed put, we would have undoubtedly sent our kids straight to our very solid state U, as we attended. </p>

<p>My younger one just went thru this early admissions season. She’s an open minded kid and we emphasized to her all the great schools available that would be a little bit more attainable in terms of admissions rate. In the end she applied to an Ivy. She liked the age of the institution, the sense of history and also the amazing FA. Not because she would qualify for FA but because the incoming class would pull from every segment of society. </p>

<p>I must say some of the Ivy-disparaging posts on threads like this make me wince a little at the cartoonish caricatures of what Ivy’s are like today. These institutions led the entire concept of FA. They now have half or more of their students on significant FA. They are not bastions of privilege. They are bastions of fierce intellectual engagement. They are the epitome of intellectual meritocracy. Being really cool on these campuses is not about being rich and connected – it’s about being extraordinarily bright and working ridiculously hard. Now that can be its own topic of discussion as to whether it’s a good thing or not – but to try to insinuate these schools are about privilege and wealth is just preposterous.</p>

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<p>Sewhappy, the bigger point is - the Ivies <em>aren’t</em> all that different from a lot of other top / elite schools. There is nothing you can’t say about the individual Ivies in your previous sentence that you can’t also say about, say, Stanford, Duke or MIT (just to pick on those three). Which is why I think it’s dumb when people say “I want my kid to apply to an Ivy.” No, you want your kid to apply to an excellent school - and chances are high that a member of that specific athletic league will be in your list, because they are excellent schools. </p>

<p>The Ivies are no higher on the scale of “bastions of fierce intellectual engagement” or “epitome of intellectual meritocracy” than a handful of other schools. It’s the “but they are super-de-duper-y special and elevated among top schools” that is what is being objected to – not that they are not, in the absolute, excellent schools.</p>

<p>BTW, one thing that the Ivies were particularly late to the party on was co-ed education. They were major laggers in that arena, with the exception of Cornell.</p>

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<p>Oh, please. This is rich from the person who was disparaging some “lower tier” Illinois school recently and questioning why anyone would send their kids there! The fact that the difference between Brown and Duke isn’t meaningful just because Brown happens to be in the Ivy League and Duke isn’t, doesn’t mean that everything equals everything else down the line.</p>

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<p>In the southeast, most people have no idea that Brown, Cornell, Pa, Columbia and Dartmouth are considered Ivy League schools unless they, themselves, went to an Ivy. Of course, everyone has heard of Harvard, Yale and Princeton but that’s really it. But they all consider Duke to be one of the best schools in the country. They’re just as impressed with Vanderbilt, Emory, UNC-Chapel Hill and Washington & Lee. No one’s ever heard of Northwestern or Middlebury down here and when my son decided to apply to University of Chicago we had to explain over and over again why it is such a great school, even falling back to saying it was USNWR top 10 school because they just didn’t understand what the draw would be to the school. It’s a lot more regional than people think, if for no other reason than people who go to the Ivies come from all over the country and then either go to large cities after graduation or go back to their hometown. With schools like Duke and Vandy, there is a more regional draw, so you are much more likely to know people who attended those schools and therefore, have some knowledge of them.</p>

<p>I think the Ivies are great and the kids who are there are there because they’ve earned it. Good education, good contacts, extremely motivated kids can shoot for the moon and often reach it with the help of an Ivy education. My only ‘beef’ is when people whose kids attend Ivies or other top school imply that their kids would have received a mediocre education and would have been slumming it had they had to settle for a lower ranked school or god-forbid a public university. That is a pretty short-sighted view of the world. There are only a very limited number of slots at the top schools and yet, there are people from all sorts of colleges who are highly accomplished and do truly outstanding things with their lives. They get into top ranked professional and graduate schools. They work for top notched companies, they become CEOs of the fortune 500 and with the one exception of Wall Street (which is simply a ‘good old boys’ network) even the kids who attend those ‘half-@$$ flagships’ can accomplish a lot if they choose. This is America for crying out loud. :)</p>

<p>To give you an example, my son is considering medical school. Out of curiosity we went on the Harvard School of Medicine website yesterday to look at the stats. The 165 students who were last admitted came from 88 undergraduate institutions , 33 states and 7 foreign countries…obviously not all of them came from one of the Ivies. In fact, one of my son’s classmates (they are honor college students at one of those ‘half-@ass flagships’) was offered a full ride to not only Harvard Medical School but also Stanford (he’s there now). Apparently even the top medical schools feel there are highly desirable, intelligent and accomplished students at universities all over the country and that they have received UG educations worthy of the most highly selective medical schools.</p>

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<p>As opposed to WHAT? Please find me an elite / top school that is not Ivy that <em>isn’t</em> going to pull from every segment of society. They ALL are like this. Aren’t you getting that you could basically exchange the student populations at all of these schools for one another?</p>

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<p>Exactly. But there’s that silly provincialism of “these particular 8 schools are universally elevated and revered by everyone, everywhere just as much as they are in my backyard.” Which AGAIN, is not Ivy bashing in the least! It’s just that the competitive set for “super high quality colleges / universities” is not the same everywhere.</p>

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<p>Oh, suggest that Northwestern isn’t the cat’s meow, and listen to her howl!</p>

<p>Yes, there are some schools that are not worth the money - I questioned why anyone would send their kids to a school with an mid-50% ACT range of 15-19, a sub-20% graduation rate, and a COA of $37K.</p>

<p>I’d also question why anyone would send their kid to a Northwestern with a COA approaching $60K when an equivalent education can be had at UIUC for less than half that.</p>

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<p>Once again, you’re equating “quality” with “prestige,” with absolutely no evidence to back you up.</p>

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<p>^ Oh my.</p>

<p>I really think the over-the-top resentment of people who pursue Ivy admissions and think it’s cool to attend an Ivy is not enhancing your argument. In fact the more you and others on here bash away at the issue, the more the overall take away is that going to an Ivy is really, really fantastic – otherwise grownups on CC would not be gnashing their teeth over people thinking Ivies are cool.</p>

<p>Try this instead – just be secure in your kids’ choices of non-Ivy schools. Over time it will impress much more than trying to “prove” Ivies aren’t better.</p>

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<p>Ivies are definitely “cool” - and I can’t recall a single post where anyone has ever said that “Ivies are not cool.” If your college selection criteria have coolness at the top of the list, then Go Ivy!!!</p>

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<p>UIUC:
Test Scores – 25th / 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading: 530 / 660
SAT Math: 680 / 770
SAT Writing: 570 / 670
4-Year Graduation Rate: 65%
most of them had a high school average of B+ or higher, an ACT composite score of 22 or higher, and a combined SAT score (CR+M+W) of above about 1600. </p>

<p>Northwestern:
SAT Critical Reading: 670 / 750
SAT Math: 690 / 780
SAT Writing: 670 / 760
4-Year Graduation Rate: 87%
Most students who got into Northwestern had “A” averages, SAT scores (CR+M+W) above 2000</p>

<p>A school’s “prestige” is derived from “quality” of education.</p>