<p>You see my obsession haha? ^</p>
<p>The Ivy League is just an athletic conference. There are probably 50 top schools in the country, 8 of which are in the northeast and play sports against each other. Anything beyond that is just marketing.</p>
<p>swish14, can you elaborate?</p>
<p>rbouwens, what swish means is that there are many Ivy League peer institutions in terms of academic excellence, intellectual intensity, reputation, resources etc… I would conservatively estimate that there are at least 10 LACs (Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Davidson, Haverford, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Wesleyan and Williams to name a few), 10 private research universities (Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Rice, Stanford, Vanderbilt, WUSTL to name a few) and 5 public universities (Cal, Michigan, UCLA, UNC, UVa to name a few) that are in the same “league” as the Ivy League. Some of them may be better then some Ivies (MIT and Stanford are arguably slightly better than non-HYP Ivies) while others may be a notch below the Ivies, but overall, those universities are all excellent.</p>
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<p>Technically yes, but since the term “Ivy League” was in common usage in the US for at least several decades prior to the formation of the athletic league it’s clear that the term has a wider meaning in US culture beyond college athletics.</p>
<p>But I certainly do agree with the point that there are many schools beyond the eight Ivy schools where one can get a wonderful education. The Ivy schools may be great, but as was said above, they are still just colleges and not subdivisions of Heaven nor versions of the Garden of Eden. Ivy students have more or less all the same challenges and hassles that college kids everywhere have to deal with.</p>
<p>“subdivisions of Heaven.” I love it haha.</p>
<p>Yes, but that is not New Heaven!</p>
<p>I can totally relate.</p>
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A little obsessing about the hallowed ivy covered halls is ok, as long as it doesn’t detract from you enjoying and making of the most of the experience/school you actually are attending. Because in that case you have neither - not Yale, and not Beloit. Which is just sad when you consider how fortunate you are relative to most of the rest of the 7 billion persons on the planet…</p>
<p>As the saying goes - Love the one you’re with. :)</p>
<p>^ Yeah, that makes sense. I just think that maybe “education” is where I’m supposed to be. Maybe I’ll work for a uni some day or something…I mean, if I’m THAT obsessed haha…</p>
<p>I mean, I just love the whole idea of college an what comes out of it. In general, colleges fascinate me. That’s why researching them is fun haha.</p>
<p>Also, I was deferred from two “top unis,” so I must have “what it takes” :P</p>
<p>I love college admissions, loved visiting schools, loved researching schools and trying to find if I would fit there, loved writing my essays, loved helping my friends find schools, loved interning at a private college counselors office, loved working with my high school counselor and discussing the field of college counseling. I even wrote about the college application process in an essay to Yale! 
My dream is to be a college admissions officer at a prestigious school such as the Ivies, UChicago (where I’m going next year), or any of the top schools or LAC’s. I really enjoyed reading “Admission” by Jean Korelitz about a Princeton admissions reader and her life and how she reads applications and must deal with the stress of her job and home life.</p>
<p>Yup, I freely admit that I am obsessed with the Ivies. It’s everything about them that I love - the prestige, academics, students, architecture, exclusiveness, the “wow” factor, the students’ pride/loyalty, residential colleges (in the case of Yale,) the towers, the fireplaces. I know this is SUPER shallow and all, but I’m telling the truth. I’m only human.</p>
<p>It’s not shallow, but do recognize that there are non-Ivy universities that have similar qualities - other elite universities like Stanford and MIT also have similar characteristics, many small liberal arts colleges have those characteristics as well, and even some prestigious public universities have them (like the College of William and Mary or University of Virginia). Also recognize that some Ivies don’t have what you think they do - for example, I go to Columbia and I wouldn’t say the undergrad students have a whole ton of “Columbia pride” or loyalty. It’s more to the city of New York, I would say. Perhaps I’m wrong - I’m not an undergrad, after all - but that’s my perspective. (I would also say that compared to my top 100 but not-an-Ivy SLAC, their social life is mediocre at best. They’re super stressed out!) We also don’t have too many towers or turrets. The architecture here is nothing like Princeton’s, Yale’s, or Harvard’s.</p>
<p>I attend an Ivy League university for graduate school (Columbia) and please be warned, the graduate experience is NOTHING like the undergrad experience. I do love Columbia as an academic institution - it’s a great place to be a graduate student, academically speaking (administratively, not so much) but don’t shoot for Ivies for grad schools because you want the undergrad experience. You won’t get it. More importantly, you won’t <em>want</em> it anymore. And I actually work very closely with the undergrads as a graduate hall director and live in the undergrad residence halls as part of my job. ALso recognize that the best graduate schools in your field may be at flagship publics or other non-ivy private schools.</p>
<p>^ I always wondered if grad students could live with undergrads haha!! And now that I’m going to a small school, I’ll probably always wonder what life is like “on the other side.” I mean, Beloiters have talked about taking trips up to UMadison for the social scene (that’s what I call it) and I’ve mentioned making trips to UChicago, but I guess I’m trying to find that “magical” place. I mean, my friend visited Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, and MIT and the only place he was excited about was MIT. he didn’t even apply to Dartmouth or Cornell! I thought he was nuts for a while. I think Beloit will be that magical place, but I also think a school like UChicago could be that place as well. I had my heart set on them until I was rejected in March, but I knew I wouldn’t get in anyway.</p>
<p>And since I’ve never stepped foot on an Ivy school or sat in on one of their classes, I think I’ll always wonder. Even my horrible night at UChicago didn’t stop me from goggling over it, though. The girls I stayed with were rich snobs and all they wanted to do was go to a stupid party.</p>
<p>I honestly think I’m searching for something that doesn’t exist: perfection. That’s gotta be it.</p>
<p>The ivies that I actually see myself at are Brown, Cornell and Yale. There other wonderful colleges just like ivies, like Amherst, John Hopkins, WUSTL, Caltech, MIT, Wesleyan, Williams, Duke, Bryn Mawr, Banard, Wellesley, Northwestern, U Chicago and many more. These colleges have many of the same qualities as ivies, but I don’t why people have to be so obsessed with them on this website. MIT provides same academics and alumni connection as Harvard. You don’t have to settle with an Ivy League college just to be happy. You can be happy at any college like those still get almost the same or more opportunities as any Ivy League at any of those schools.</p>
<p>^ I wonder how many Ivy students would say that…</p>
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<p>Untrue. Lumping all these together weakens your point that you could get an Ivy education elsewhere. HYP, Columbia, Penn, and Brown are of similar size to schools like Northwester, UChicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and WUSTL. Dartmouth is small and isolated enough to be in many ways more like the LACs: Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, etc. Cornell is comparable to a large public and is the most different from the other Ivies.</p>
<p>And I don’t know why you and so many other people on CC lump MIT and Caltech in with the other universities. They’re tech universities. Your statement comparing MIT and Harvard is utterly useless for someone majoring in English.</p>
<p>blckmgc, MIT is not a “tech” university and should not be compared to Caltech, which is almost entirely a tech school. Anybody interested in majoring in Business, Economics, Linguistics, Political Science, Philosophy and Psychology shopuld seriously consider MIT. The Institute is ranked anywhere between #1 and #10 in all of those Humanities and Social Sciences. The only majors that are not strong/offered at MIT are the Anthropology, Classics, English, History, Languages and Sociology. Those majors attract what? 15%-20% of undergrads at most LACs and universities?</p>
<p>Secondly, I am pretty sure that suprafreshkid was referring to quality of education, not to identical overall campus feel, when he rightfully stated that there are many universities that are just as “wonderful” as the Ivies. As I posted above, I can think of more than 25 LACs and universities that offer a similar quality undergraduate academic experience.</p>
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Alexandre, MIT might have a strong reputation at the graduate level in this areas but it doesn’t have the neccessary concentration of undergraduates interested in this area for a prospective undergraduate to turn down universities like Columbia and Duke who have equally renowned departments in these areas and provide a much larger peer group who are interested in these subjects.</p>
<p>Business and Economics are a different story. For the humanities, I would recommend high school seniors to stick with the Ivies/Stanford/Duke/Northwestern/UChicago of the world.</p>
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You just spammed the UChicago forum by saying, in what appears to be an attempt to trash the school’s academic standing, you got deferred with a 22 ACT score. So, no, I don’t think you have what it takes.</p>