<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously – yalemom – it means he found them not to be all they’re cracked up to be.</p>
<p>sally, In My Not So Humble Opinion. :)</p>
<p>As LBowie says, it’s easy to get caught in the game of SAT prep and paid counselors and all the rest of that nonsense. But plenty of kids get into one or more of those particular schools who don’t do any of that. And it’s sort of derogatory to assume that’s what happens in every case. I live in a mostly lower middle class town where that kind of approach to college applications barely exists. Yet kids from our middlin’ high school get into Ivies every year. There just isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and I sometimes think that people, like that young woman with the recent WSJ column, are probably shooting themselves in the foot by believing there’s some sekrit formula.</p>
<p>D started out with a few Ivies on the list - and over time one by one they all came off. All for valid reasons. It doesn’t have to be a love-hate thing. It makes sense to consider any school that you a qualified to attend - but apply your own filter and apply where it makes sense for you as an individual. It doesn’t make sense to collectively trash all Ivies.</p>
<p>Once again, certain posters expect any student with an Ivy League school on his list to demonstrate THEIR definition of consistency in his choices–a consistency not demanded of other students. So according to them, if the kid has Dartmouth on his list–a small, undergraduate-focused school in a rural area–he can’t also have UPenn, because it’s a large urban school. But what if the student doesn’t care one whit about size or location? The only size criteria my kids had, was that the college not be smaller than their high school. Haverford was eliminated on that basis. As for location, they also didn’t care unless the location presented a noticeable problem. One urban school was just really noisy and had poor air quality when we visited, so that one got nixed.</p>
<p>S chose to attend Dartmouth, but not because he liked ice hockey and skiing. He also would have given very serious consideration to Wharton, had he gotten accepted, since it’s fairly unique as far as quality among undergraduate business schools. Had we lived closer, he likely would have applied to UTAustin for the same reason. However, outside of Wharton, he felt he would receive better preparation for his chosen career studying economics. I see nothing inconsistent about that. After all, I have friends who are night and day different from each other, yet I like them each for their special qualities.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while the students who can get admitted to an Ivy League school are all very hard-working, they all don’t necessarily have to give up their childhood or play any games. S didn’t want to take any math senior year (wanted to double up on social studies), and so he didn’t–despite warnings it might hurt his chances at top schools. D refused to give up her summers to classes or her active social life to study non-stop like some of her peers, so she–gasp–did not graduate in the top 1% of her class. She still was admitted.</p>
<p>The OP makes no more sense than those posters who apply to all the Ivies just to get into one. The Ivies are not all the same and if you can’t see that, obviously there will be no way to persuade you that your rant is based on a faulty premise. My son looked at five of the Ivies and immediately dropped two, applying to the remaining three. He was not
He led a normal teenage life doing activities that he enjoyed. Yet he still was accepted. Go figure. Oh, BTW, he received not one mailing from any of the Ivies prior to expressing an interest in each. His admission didn’t cost them anything, other than their fabulous financial aid.</p>
<p>Thank you Sally for taking up the flag while I sat idly by watching responses roll in. Restraint isn’t really in my genes. It took some effort to watch the thread unfold. I agree with everything you’ve said.</p>
<p>When my father went to MIT, one of his classmates failed out, not once, but twice. On both occasions, he went to Princeton to get his grades up high enough to be readmitted into MIT.</p>
<p>When I went to school, we all took the PSAT with little fanfare. There was no pre-announcement, no preparation. If your scores were high enough, you could get into some state schools without the SAT. That’s what I did. No one really even knew what a National Merit Scholar was. Some kids got it, but the next day was the next day. Otherwise, finding you wanted a smaller, liberal arts environment, you took the SAT, once, and applied to the schools you thought fit you best. I had classmates at WashU, Colorado College, Carleton, Amherst, Ivies, many of the small schools that were good then and are good now.</p>
<p>Along came a magazine, a half generation or full generation ago, when we were becoming more engaged in our children’s lives than our parents had been, and we were looking for data, data on what’s “the best,” the best for our young charges, the ONE that would give them the best opportunity to succeed. All the while, we forgot, we were successful, maybe wildly successful and nobody sought out that path for us. We made our way, no matter where we went to school. Significant debt from tuition was unheard of. A Social Worker could pay off their Swarthmore debt.</p>
<p>Now, we have a self perpetuating ranking system that’s driving 30,000 or more applicants to a very small number of colleges and universities based not on fit, but based on the myth that has been created that if you don’t go there you will not be successful. You will not be worthy.</p>
<p>This has a price. </p>
<p>Others want to be seen in that limelight too. They build new dorms, new gymnasiums, new cafeterias, new labs. They offer 100 foreign exchange options. They have 300 clubs and if they don’t have one you like, you can start your own. They spam thousands of kids to get them to apply, just so they can reject them. And all that stuff is free with your tuition, your tuition that’s rising so fast it is pushing the total cost of attendance up over $60,000 per year.</p>
<p>The problem is, everyone is trying to push their institutions towards the Emerald Palace, a place that really doesn’t exist. No school can ensure future happiness and success and there’s literature to prove it. No school is perfect, not even the Ivies. Some of them are in disrepair. Some of them have bizarrely amoebic campuses. Some have notoriously poor undergraduate instruction. They all have many strong merits and things to offer. They all, in their strong areas have very good grad schools. No school is perfect unless you are capable of making it perfect in your mind. That can happen anywhere.</p>
<p>My original post was provocative, but not meant as a jab at anyone who has been through an Ivy. It was making a proactive statement. The statement is this: those of us who pay full tuition will continue to drive the cost spiral upwards until we say no. It is our tuition that enables the heavy discounting for others. It is our tuition that pays for the building sprees that institutions everywhere feel they must do to attract more students. It is our tuition that pays the postage for the mailers that will soon go to toddlers. Our tuition is the fuel of this madness. It may not happen at $250,000, maybe not at $350,000, but at some point, the bubble will burst and it won’t happen until a critical mass of people make a principled stand that they won’t play the game anymore.</p>
<p>As for my son, thanks for the concern. He’s finding quite a few prospects that would suit him. He did visit some Ivies, just the ones he thought might fit. Like with ANY school, they all have their pros and cons as viewed through his filters, non of which is a magazine rank based on shaky methodology.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>If I were to pay a quarter of a million dollars in tuition, I’d rather it be for an an Ivy, or an Ivy-caliber school, than for an OOS public or some mediocre private meant for, and attended by, kids whose parents have more money than sense…</p>
<p>In other words, if I’m going to say NO, it’ll be first and foremost to schools that cost like the Ivies, but won’t offer you a smidgen of the advantages that any of the Ivies (or their peers) will. And they will offer significant advantages. Let’s not kid ourselves that they don’t.</p>
<p>@consolation </p>
<p>I sure did.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>M - It is not only full-pay tuition that enables heavy discounting for “others”. It is primarily the size of the school’s endowment - from alums (who are obviously successful) and other “sponsors”. Let’s face it, most private schools regardless of rank all charge a premium.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. katliamom, what are the significant advantages you speak of? Please, use evidence and not anecdotes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So this is what it’s really about: you think you are smarter than other parents, in addition to your kids being smarter than their kids? What an offensive statement…especially in the absence of evidence supporting your position.</p>
<p>Katliamom, you can apply my sentiment to any $250,000 school that doesn’t offer any merit aid. </p>
<p>As for the Ivies, it’s not that the emperor has no clothes, they’re just not as spiffy as you might think they are. There’s very solid research evidence that shows that kids who have the specs to go to Ivies, but go elsewhere, ANYWHERE ELSE, including the state schools you malign, have the same chance at success as kids who go to Ivies. The point being, it’s the kid, not the school that makes the difference.</p>
<p>The myth that you have to attend a highly ranked school is what is driving the race for every institution to try to move up. That is what’s driving tuition escalation.</p>
<p>Think it’s not a game? Research Washington University’s work to raise their rank. The only significant difference between them in 1980 and now is their tuition and some pretty fluff. They were a good school then, they are a good school now.</p>
<p>The families willing to pay the full, non-discounted price are what is driving this up.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>
Actually at least one study shows that mailings are surprisingly effective at recruiting low income students. [A</a> Low-Cost Way to Expand the Horizons of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/A-Low-Cost-Way-to-Expand-the/138227/]A”>http://chronicle.com/article/A-Low-Cost-Way-to-Expand-the/138227/)</p>
<p>katliamom:
</p>
<p>Forking out $250,000 for ANY undergrad is…well inexplicable…IMHO… …Forking out $250,000 so that someone else has the opportunity to receive the same product for $20,000 is just plain…inexplicable.</p>
<p>If ya got it…spend it as you wish…If you choose to spend a huge premium for a product…enjoy and go forth…if you feel you will need to justify spending a huge premium for a product…then reconsider your options.</p>
<p>My D would agree with you Eye. She tested into a selective enrollment high school which is #1 in our state. She constantly tells me to ‘get over’ the school - it is the kids that want to succeed that make the difference . So she credits her highs school doing a great job of selection and not much else. I think that her view is a bit harsh.</p>
<p>I love CC!! The opinions are priceless! Keep 'em comin…</p>
<p>Hey OP, I see that your son is interested in engineering, so yeah, the Ivies are less likely to be his thing. One of the sweetest kids I know from D1’s high school class wanted comp sci, and Yale was trying its damndest to recruit him, meaning they flew him out from California to tour. Not a senator’s child, or an athlete, or a developmental prospect, or even an URM. Anyway, he’s a sophomore at Stanford now. That’s a fabulous school (I say through gritted teeth as a Cal alum :)), but it’s also in the big-bucks category. Ditto MIT and Caltech. Is your beef just with the Ivy label, or is it with any quarter-million-dollar undergrad experience? Because if it’s the latter, you should really stop referring to the Ivy brand as shorthand for “good but expensive”. </p>
<p>For all your railing against the USNWR ranking system, I notice that you yourself used their rankings to identify schools that might work for your son. Which is a bit confusing–if you feel so strongly that those rankings are causing such angst, why use them at all? You might argue that picking from the top 65 or 75 or whatever schools means that you’re just establishing a big pool of possibles. I’d say that as soon as you draw a line, you’re being arbitrary. </p>
<p>Did kid #1’s college search without once referring to USNWR. Doing the same with kid #2. No college spam, via the simple trick of, ahem, just saying NO to releasing their names and contact info via their high schools/testing/summer programs/whatever. ;)</p>
<p>I’m not applying to any Big East schools. Where’s my prize?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, that’s been researched and the results are interesting. Ivy students’ future earnings are comparable to those of students who were accepted at Ivies, but attended less selective schools. In other words, the advantage lies within the student; it’s not magically conferred by the name of the college.</p>
<p>The exception is disadvantaged students. They do realize a significant premium by attending an elite.</p>
<p>Mailings aren’t completely worthless. I’m low income and I would have never applied to Cornell had they not emailed and mailed me things.</p>
<p>Slithey, point well taken. I’m railing against the concept that turning your most precious cargo, your child, over to any school other than the Ivies, Cal Tech, MIT or Stanford, the latter two of which DS is a legacy, is dooming them to a life of mediocrity. This perception was created by USNWR and fueled right here at CC.</p>
<p>The engineering question needed a baseline. Since rankings seem to be the language we all speak these days, I used it. In reality, they are meaningless. Do you really believe that in the span of one year schools can move like they do in USNWR? Me neither, but it is the currency we trade these days.</p>
<p>M</p>