<p>The media and student review boards are full of contradictory opinions as to the value of an Ivy League education. Half the time, students claim they "love the prestige, academics, and community at their school" and "wouldn't trade their Ivy for any other college experience." On the other hand, it seems that many students are discouraged and sick of the Ivy League prestige that allows students to act as "stuck up snobs" and "rich b**ches with no sense of reality."</p>
<p>Does anyone have a personal Ivy League experience or comment in support of either opinion? My overall question: Is an Ivy League education overrated (not to mention overpriced), or will Ivy students get the bang for their buck in the end?</p>
<p>Any college really is what you make of it. If you go to an Ivy thinking you’re set for life, well you’ve wasted 4 years of your life and a lot of money. However, Ivy diplomas do have their perks in job applications I will agree. A lot of students believe undergrad at an Ivy is pointless if you plan on going to grad school though, which I do agree on (I’ll still be applying to Ivies anyway- yes, I am a hypocrite).</p>
<p>An Ivy League education is overrated but I wouldn’t deem it overpriced relative to other private schools. I regard similarly ranked non-Ivy universities more positively than the actual Ivy League, however.</p>
<p>I applied to schools dependent on whether I liked them or not, not whether they were Ivies or not. I happened to end up at my first choice, Brown. I feel like people make the Ivy League a much bigger deal than it really is - Brown is much more similar in many aspects to non-Ivies than it is to many Ivies.</p>
<p>Most people who go to Ivy League schools have everything set out for them, going to Princeton just gives them another networking/reunion opportunity. This is not a bad thing, and they do have a sense of reality, their reality. If you do not find yourself in the same straits then you may find it “not all its cracked up to be.”</p>
<p>Bowtie: I think you have the wrong impression. Everything set out for us? Far from it. I’m on extensive financial aid at Brown and wouldn’t be able to attend Brown without it. I’m looking at huge student loans in order to attend medical school. I worked so hard in high school to make it to where I am now that saying I have “everything set out” for me is honestly an insult. My reality is that of many college students. The only difference is that I happen to be carrying out my dreams at a top US university that <em>happens</em> to be part of a historic athletic league called the Ivy League. </p>
<p>In the future, please don’t make assumptions about me and my fellow students that turn out to be so faulty. It hurts us to the core.</p>
<p>My perspective as a U Penn grad from the 80’s</p>
<p>To this day people I interact with in my career are impressed with my Wharton undergrad degree, despite the fact that I didn’t go into business (went on to be a lawyer). My undergrad experience was mostly large classes with little to no teacher interaction. Intro classes taught by TA’s in large lecture halls. Basically, you are teaching yourself. The people that Ivy’s admit tend to be self-starters who can teach themselves. My take is you are paying for the name recognition that follows you later in life, not the quality of the education.</p>
<p>It was a life-changing and once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. It was hard, and fraught with many disappointments along the way, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it’s not that Ivies are overrated, but rather that many non-Ivies are underrated. There are many more than eight colleges in America that can bring you into contact with great ideas, cutting-edge science, brilliant teachers and fascinating peers.</p>
<p>For better or worse, the Ivy League brand is a seal of approval you carry throughout your life. Face it, it impresses people, whether you admit it or not. It automatically identifies you as extraordinary and smart.</p>
<p>I’ll add that I have not encouraged my high-school senior to apply to the Ivies. She has applied to 5 non-Ivy places that she and her parents like, where we feel reasonably hopeful she will have exposure to great ideas, brilliant professors and interesting classmates–even if the football team never plays Dartmouth.</p>
<p>My son is a recent Ivy grad and my daughter attended a highly ranked non-Ivy. My son was not impressed with his school for most of freshman year. He was disappointed in the level of intellectualism and the quality of his instructors. He didn’t like many of his classes and strongly considered transferring. He ultimately decided to stay and changed some things for himself, including taking more advanced, smaller classes. I have asked him several times about his overall impression (now that he has graduated) and if he is glad he chose that school (Penn) and stayed.</p>
<p>He said he really is glad he stayed and that he thinks his education was/will be valuable. He said the contacts he made- both peers and instructors- are amazing. He has a group of peers that are accomplished and interesting. He really misses them now that they have spread all over the country. He was able to get a great off-campus job which led to some good job offers for permanent employment. The degree is highly regarded all over the country (he was not in Wharton). After he got past freshman year and had a better choice of classes, he enjoyed the classes more. He still thought the instructors in some of the required classes were terrible. A lot of his education occurred outside the classroom. </p>
<p>My daughter’s experience at Rice was amazing. I don’t think she had any professors that she didn’t think were great. Everything about Rice clicked for her from the very beginning and she never had any doubt that she chose the right school. My overall impression is that Rice offered the better overall college experience as opposed to Penn, but it probably would not have been as good for my son. </p>
<p>This is a very interesting piece by a Yale alumnus and former literature professor, albeit his views may not resonate with people with less partisan ideas about intellectualism. (By the way, if the first couple of paragraphs sound a little too self-important to you, try to persevere; the essay gathers momentum later on.)</p>
<p>As a management consultant working for thousands of companies over the years, my ivy credentials just kept on giving. I think my college degree was worth multiples of what I paid. </p>
<p>I got a second ivy grad degree but the undergrad degree is equally valuable. The network is invaluable for life.</p>
<p>The irony of everyone planning for that big name degree for grad school is that ivy professional schools are top heavy with ivy undergrads.</p>
<p>Both my daughters went to Ivy colleges, and I think they got/are getting great educations. But the key word here is college, not Ivy. The Ivy schools are among the very best, but they are still just colleges - in many ways like any other college with classes, a sometimes clueless administration, dorms, dining halls, friends, parties, problem sets, football games, reading lists, road trips, term papers, grades, and a lot of hard work. </p>
<p>Getting into Harvard is not joining a country club, achieving automatic success, or getting a free pass into heaven. It means you are going to college to do college things. I definitely think the Ivy League is “worth it” for those who want to go there and manage to get in. Otherwise I wouldn’t be paying for it. But it is by no means the only route or even necessarily the best route to a successful career and life.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree with Coureur (as always). Also:</p>
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<p>I went to Wake Forest way back when. I loved it, but there were clearly a number of my classmates who had a need to make it known that they went to a private college, not a public school, because their father was so and so, etc. It wasn’t a major detriment to the Wake experience, but it was just part of the cost of doing business there. Over the past five years I’ve had the opportunity to get to know dozens of Harvard students, and several of their friends from other Ivies. I’ve seen far less snobbery among them. I have the sense that they tend to have a very good sense of themselves and don’t need the constant external ego gratification that I saw among some of my own classmates.</p>
<p>Many of them may also have had some of that arrogance beaten out of them. When everybody you see every day is a Harvard student, it’s hard to keep thinking you’re always the smartest person in the room.</p>
<p>I was among the top students in my high school. Now at Brown, I’m realizing that I’m just average. It’s amazing. Every day I’m overwhelmed by the intellectualism, passion, and creativity of my fellow classmates. That’s the benefit of any top college, not just an Ivy.</p>
<p>I was a legacy at my Ivy. When I went home for Christmas my freshman year, my father asked how I was doing. I said, “Well, I’ve never felt so ordinary in my whole life.” </p>
<p>He smiled and said, “Oh, yeah, I meant to tell you about that.”</p>