Ok…I’m not a serious ivy league applicant or anything (too expensive…), but I am curious about a few things:
Harvard wants national or even international achievements- but do they mention in any particular subject, or activity? For instance, will an IPhO silver medalist be prefered over a person who has won an international essay writing competition, if other aspects of their application are similar?
Or… Intel finalist or (inter)national poetry awardee?
I know MIT will, but will ivy league?
Thanks!
Selective schools want all sorts of achievements. National, international, state, local, in all sorts of fields. Sports, science, writing, music, they just like to see students who excel in areas other than academics.
As for seeing one accomplishment over another, it depends on how big the accomplishment was, over what it was for really. So what I’m trying to say is an essay award doesn’t really hold much more against a math award (and vice versa) unless one is simply more competitive (ie one was on a local level and another on a state level).
If I get what you’re asking, MIT is much more focused on the science/math component than the other ivies so they might appreciate math/science award winners even more. The ivies, in general, are looking to have a class with more diversified interests and will therefore not necessarily show a preference for particular subjects as long as achievement is demonstrated.
MIT is not an ivy.
Neither is Duke, Stanford, Caltech, Chicago, WUSTL, Hopkins, etc. Plenty of phenomenal schools outside the ivy league.
@PassionatePoet: With respect, you’re simple wrong to presume that the Ivies (and their peer institutions) are axiomatically “too expensive.” The fact is, ALL of the top National Research Universities provide generous FA, particularly need-based grants. For many families, it is actually less expensive to attend a first-tier NRU (including the Ivies) or LAC than a public flagship school. You’d be well advised to use each institution’s Net Price Calculator to ascertain approximately what you (and your family) will have to contribute to your undergraduate schooling. You may be pleasantly surprised, it may be appreciable less than you suspect.
That’s simply not true. Such achievements might make you more competitive within your region or demographic, but that doesn’t mean that Harvard wants or expects them. Plenty of applicants excel in other ways and are admitted with zero “national or even international achievements.”
Do what you enjoy and do it well, it doesn’t matter what it is.
@iwannabe_Brown for future reference, when people like myself mention ‘ivy league,’ they are in many cases also referring to ivy-equivalent schools like Duke, Stanford, MIT, etc. It’s just more convenient to use a two-word designation to refer to the ‘elite’ schools (simply saying ‘elite’ may be too general in some cases).
@dblazer I 100% know that’s what you’re doing and I hate it. Along with “public ivy,” “little ivy,” “southern ivy,” “hidden ivy,” and these other terms that (intentionally or not) perpetuate this false notion that the best and only good schools in this country are the 8 members of the Ivy League Athletic Conference, and that if the schools outside that athletic conference want to be considered as good they need to somehow get themselves described as some sort of “ivy.”
Bravo, @iwannabe_Brown. While everyone understands what is @dblazer’s intent, he is incorrect factually (not too important) AND he inadvertently perpetuates an erroneous belief that “Ivy” axiomatically equated to peerlessly superior, which it certainly does not.
@iwannabe_Brown @TopTier whether or not the ‘ivy league’ schools and peer institutions are good or bad is irrelevant in this discussion (and I mean to make no implication about this) but the fact is that these schools are the most selective schools in the country and seeing them as such is not arbitrary.
so then why insinuate MIT is in the ivy league? Why not just say “MIT is much more focused on the science/math component than the ivies”? Why use “ivy league” to refer to schools not in the ivy league? Do you ever refer to Duke as an SEC school? Caltech as a PAC-12 school? Hopkins as an ACC school? Do you ever even use the proper athletic conferences?
@iwannabe_Brown I apologize, I think I misunderstood what you were originally saying - I thought you were making a broader comment about the arbitrary nature of grouping selected schools together (like we’ve done for the ‘ivy league’). I have been very well aware of the fact that MIT is not an ivy but I mistakenly implied it was an ivy by my phrasing (in my original post, I think I meant to say ‘the other schools’ but ended up saying ‘the other ivies’ which is not correct). I agree with what you say and I would never intentionally mislabel a school like that.
@dblazer (re post #10): “these schools are the most selective schools in the country”
The problem is, they are not.
You assess the Ivies monolithically, but they are eight quite different – and all outstanding – institutions. Stanford (and probably MIT) is every bit as selective as HYP and Chicago, CalTech, and Duke are arguable as – or more – selective than (for example) Cornell and Dartmouth.
If you want to state that the Ivy League is – in aggregate – the “most selective” NCAA Division I conference, I suggest very few individuals will argue. However, your statement (cited above) means that every one the Ancient Eight must be more selective than any none-Ivy. I suspect we both know that’s not correct.
@PassionatePoet Trying to predict what a college will want is like predicting your lifespan from tea leaves: it’s just conjecture, really. Sometimes Harvard wants national achievements; sometimes it wants leadership, sometimes volunteer work. Maybe the IPhO medalist will beat the essay writer; maybe the other way around. Is one from a disadvantaged background and has shown remarkable tenacity and success regarding that? Is one a recruited athlete? Is one a child of a major donor? Are both just ordinary kids and it comes down to subjective reading of their applications? MIT may not prefer the medalist–a humanities-driven friend of mine was accepted, while a friend of mine with major ISEF and USAMO victories was not.
@TopTier I was referring rather generally to
when I made my statement that they are the most selective schools in the country.
@TopTier the fact that the word “axiomatically” has been used twice in one page of this thread makes me so happy.
@iwannabe_Brown I agree about calling schools “Ivies” that aren’t, but what do you think about grouping schools by region and perceived ambience? For instance, I involuntarily think of HYPS as similar grouped schools… like Caltech-MIT-HMC-Georgia Tech, Duke-Vandy-etc.
@keyboard18 Caltech and Harvey Mudd are quite distant from MIT, and similarly for Georgia Tech, so lets not do a regional thing. Harvey Mudd is also very unlike all of the above as it is a Liberal Arts College. I find it difficult to create a meaningful grouping that would catch on as easily as the Ivy League.
@phospholipase I agree; it just makes it easier to remember/consider all the top ranked schools. It isn’t just geographic; Caltech-MIT is more based on focus and ambience. They’re often used in the same sentence. I find Harvey Mudd to be quite similar to Caltech, actually, although I may be wrong–they’re both small, tech-heavy schools.
