Need advice! Ivy league or not?

College Search & Selection
121

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe all this.

The same could be said of thousands of kids across the nation, and no Ivy is “vying” for them on that alone.

How on earth do you go about determining this? Okay, maybe she was a Presidential Scholar. That still doesn’t make her the number one student in your state.

What, are you a Nobel laureate or something? Did you supply your email with her PSAT/SAT/ACT form? Again, there are plenty of professors with kids with lots of ECs and high SATs.

The OP is a college professor who has an older kid in school and has never heard of NPCs or EFCs? Seriously?

Unless this girl has some extraordinary hook or is the top-performing URM in the nation or the parents are extremely wealthy and this is a development case or something, I just don’t buy it.

122

What is she the #1 student in the state for?

123

That’s a good question and highlights how vague OP’s description is.

And, the few bullets she did provide, eg, " most active student in her school," is what suggested to me that she has a lot more exploring to do, if she wants her kid to have a fair shot. By exploring, I don’t mean visits and sampling the food. I mean learning how the actual dept programs fit, what the targets look for, other opportunities, etc, which is more than parental pride and some hs standing. Plus, we have no idea of her rigor. Nor, any impact from her activities. For all we now, she’s just racking up hours.

We do know OP doesn’t want her far away. And it seems they decided what’s too stressful based on, eg, one kid’s alopecia. Their understanding and rational thinking seems incomplete.

124

To clarify, it is the girl losing her hair at Yale who she described as the “number one student in the state,” not her D.

My S was one of the semifinalists for the Presidential Scholar in our state. I don’t recall how many of them got that far…maybe 4 total? He was also the 1st in the state on the national exams in both French and Spanish at his levels junior year. Would that make him one of the top four students in the state? No, it would not. I can assure you that Ivies were not vying for his applications. Although he did attend one, he was ultimately rejected at three others.

This whole thing is just nonsense.

125

BE HAPPY. If you need Ivy League to be happy, go for it.
There are some really competitive schools that are top in their fields, too, that are not Ivy league. Ivy league is only a label. It is a proud label, but it is like brand-name clothing - quality is still present in other smaller brands.
Even NYU Stern isn’t Ivy League! I am one of the most ambitious people in my school, and still I want to go to Stern. It has intensive programs that leave students with more work than most of their peers, but it is rewarding.

If you watched Gossip Girl, even Blair Waldorf went to NYU. That’s not Ivy League!

126

@Consolation , no one is asking you to buy anything. I asked a question and several people have thoughtfully responded. Others, who most likely do not even have higher education degrees, seem to think they know it all. Several, including your post, are simply rude. Rather than being helpful, your comments are simply mean spirited. . Spend your time being helpful and not judgmental. Don’t waste other people’s time reading your useless comments. And, to those of you who have provided thoughtful and insightful feedback on here o via r pm, I am most grateful. Thank you.

127

I have another idea : if people keep asking and you’re not really friends with them, just say she’s applying to Harvard… It’ll keep them off your case for most of the year. And on March 30, say that alas, like 95% applicants, she didn’t get in, alas, alas. :wink:

Look with her at CTCL colleges: there are several levels of selectivity but all are student-focused.

128

“…who most likely do not even have higher education degrees…”
Just wow.
Some here have considerable experience with the process, ongoing, and are trying to get you to refine your thinking. We’ve seen nearly every assumption out there and how fruitless they are.

Your D can do whatever she wishes. But on an anonymous forum, there’s no promise you’ll like every response. And with the immense competition for some colleges mentioned (eg, Rice, Vandy. WashU,) it’s absolutely worth becoming better informed, checking those assumptions. The colleges hold the cards. Think about it.

129

@lookingforward, my comment was in response to a very rude statement. I am confident that there are many people in this forum with a great deal of experience in the app process. However, I have been in higher education at two Big 10 universities for over thirty years, I have won numerous awards, published extensively, etc. Therefore, a comment which attacks my achievements (and my daughter’s), needs to be addressed. I was hoping CC would be a helpful forum. You are correct that as commenters are kept with anonymity, there is freedom to write whatever one wants. One parent pm’d me a while back that some people on this forum are arrogant and rude so be prepared. He or she was spot on! So, my Wow is for those who are rude and not helpful. Numerous people have private messaged me some very helpful tips. That is what I most appreciate.

130

I wasn’t attacking your or your D’s achievements, I was “attacking” what appear to be your very unrealistic interpretation of whatever contact you and your D have had with colleges. When you claim that a friend’s D was the “number one student” in an entire state, well, that is a judgement that no one can realistically make. NO one.

131

She was given an award ranking her #1 student in state. She was presented the award at our statehouse and a beautiful article was written about her achievement in our newspaper. The plaque is hanging in our high school.

132

^But you’re not telling us the criteria.

Nor do we have an idea of your D’s actual achievements. It’s not uncommon for parents or students to sometimes protect identifying info. But they will reveal categorical info. Eg, volunteered with a city agency, state level MUN.
All we have here is your assessment.

For reference, eg, being the most active will convey differently if she’s taking on real responsibilities that have some impact. (My orientation is to tippy tops, but this can still matter to the next tiers, depending.) We also have no idea of the depth and breadth of her ECs, the focus and the balance.

And your "achievements " are not in question. But you’re not experienced with admissions strategy. Apologies, but for some here, the bullets shared reveal that.

Your D may end up choosing Purdue, a Belmont, or others like them. And that’s fine. But as your readers, the components that make up her strengths are confusing.

Is it fine not to aim for a tippy top? Sure. But one still needs an understanding of the factors for an admit.

133

I’m sure your D is a wonderful girl who does well in school and participates in and excels at a lot of activities that she enjoys. I’m sure she will get into fine schools and pick one that she likes.

I just simply do not believe–based on the information YOU have provided–that Ivies are vying for her and that professors from all over the nation are calling you and begging her to apply. There simply is no reason for that, based on your description. I certainly believe that friendly colleagues have said “Have her see me if she visits campus,” or even “X is a great kid. I hope she considers my U.”

I do believe that you think she is being courted. If your D has some major achievement or hook that we don’t know about, maybe it even IS true.

To answer your original question, sure, if there are any Ivies she likes, she should go ahead and apply. Maybe she would like the atmosphere at Dartmouth or Brown more than that at Yale or wherever, but I don’t think she should allow herself to be put off by the personal troubles of her friend. There are other excellent colleges in the country where subjects in the humanities can be studied at a high level, such as excellent LACs and other good universities.If she is a really strong student, which I gather she is, I think she can do better than Belmont. If she wants to stay in the midwest, consider Carleton or Kenyon, just to name two examples. It depends on her interests, both academic and personal. If she wants to continue cheer at a serious level, that would be a factor to consider: does a school have it, is it at a level she would enjoy, is it so competitive that she might not make the squad, etc, etc.

134

@drjmom I can’t tell from the info you provided, but I assume your statement is accurate because you are a prof at a top school.

The reason some experienced posters doubt it is that we hear this story often from proud, but confused, parents who thing that because their kid has mostly A’s and got a flier from Harvard that the application is just a formality. It really isn’t personal. It just happens often.

135

@drjmom - I do apologize that your introduction to CC was met with incredulity and derision. As @Much2learn points out, it is often the case that parents – especially those new to CC – overestimate their kids’ chances of getting into a top colleges and assume that promotional materials that their kids receive are indicative of those schools “vying for” their kids. It’s easy to fall prey to that way of thinking. My H, also a prof at a top public uni, was flattered, at first, to receive letters from of schools my D was considering. They mean nothing.

As I said in my last post, wanting a collaborative environment and a nice campus are two very valid criteria for picking a school (they were among my daughter’s top criteria as well). I think that amidst the snide comments and derision, there have been some good suggestions made here. There’s a world of difference between Yale and Belmont and there are a ton of options in between. Do searches under “most beautiful campuses” and “happiest students” and see what you come up with.

While not always easy to do, ignore the chatter and assume that most people – even the seemingly mean spirited ones – are well-meaning. That goes double for the reactions to your D’s choices that don’t meet people’s expectations. The only expectations that need to be met are your daughter’s and yours.

And don’t take anecdotal data from one or two kids’ experiences as fact. As they say, YMMV. Some schools are known for having cut-throat and competitive environments, others for collaborative ones, others for partying, others for intellectualism, others for liberalism, and others for promoting conservative values. One kid’s alopecia does not an entire school culture make – for all we know, that top student might have had a similar experience anywhere – even at Belmont. (To be honest, Yale is known for happy students and a great social life that is nurtured in the residential colleges, so that girl’s experience should not color how you feel about the school. New Haven, on the other hand, was enough to send my kid running in the opposite direction).

There are no right and wrong answers to finding fit – only what’s right for YOUR kid. I know one adult who turned down MIT for Ohio State – for social, not financial, reasons – and the kid of a CCer’ who turned down Chicago and MIT for Vanderbilt.

As for finding fit, start with the basics, such as LAC vs. research university, public vs. private, urban vs. rural, geographical and logistical considerations, weather, and, yes, how pretty or ugly a campus is. Last, but certainly not least, consider strength in areas of interest and affordability. The, sit back and enjoy the ride.

As for my $.02, some of the schools I’d suggest your D look at include women’s colleges (Scripps, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Mt. Holyoke), some LACs (Vassar, Kenyon, St. Olaf, Oberlin, Occidental, Lewis and Clark, Grinnell, Davidson, Rhodes), some private research unis (Wash U., Rice, Northwestern, Emory, Tulane), and some publics (UVA, UNC). For many of these schools, it will be very, very important to show interest. If she ends up being so inclined, she can apply to any ivy or two, Stanford, Duke, etc, but assume that they – and some of the others I’ve mentioned – are reaches for everyone.

And, if she falls in love with someplace and knows that it’s a great fit for her, ED might be a great option since finances don’t seem to be a concern.

136

@Consolation - I agree with @djrmom and found your comment to be mean-spirited and rude when I first read it. I know you to be a long-time poster on CC and typically find your posts to be well-thought out and helpful, so it also seemed somewhat out-of-character. Why attack the parent? She came her looking for help because she is not comfortable with the messages she is getting from real-world contacts.

Unfortunately – as I think I have already commented before in response to a comment that it was late in the process for the OP and daughter to be visiting colleges – I think that CC is something of a bubble that leads those who inhabit this bubble to make mistaken assumptions about what people outside the bubble ought to know.

And many who are on CC have inhabited that bubble for most of their lives – parents who were signing their kids up for Duke TIP or choosing private college prep high schools based in part on their track record for Ivy admissions didn’t need CC to start obsessing about competitive admission.

But the OP may be new to this particular race. Yes, she is a college prof – at a highly regarded but moderately selective university that accepts 55% of it applicants. Living in a state where the flagship state U. has roughly an 80% admit rate. So she may very well have been well within her comfort zone, knowing that her daughter was a good student and would easily win admittance any number of perfectly good colleges, without spending much time thinking of lofty goals, because she and her daughter inhabit a world in which a score of 1300 on the SAT is considered to be really good.

And then the kid goes in for the SAT and comes back with a score that is wholly unexpected - I’ll assume around 1550 – and everything changes. It’s way higher than anyone expected, it causes the mom to look at cheerleader-daughter with fresh eyes, and all of the sudden teachers and peer are talking about Ivies, and the mom is confused.

Are the Ivy’s “vying” to get her to apply? Depends on how you define “vying” - they certainly are sending a steady stream of mom emails, and college marketing these days is very sophisticated and personalized. The daughter’s test scores are enough to trigger the emails, and the college marketing apparatus can probably easily connect mom to daughter through a number of resources – for example, information that might have been gathered as part of the mom’s participation in her university’s tuition exchange program. From the OP’s post #5:

Do I believe that she is getting those emails? Absolutely. I remember feeling my son was being stalked by high-prestige schools that he had absolutely no interest in attending. U. of Chicago even sent him a letter after their admissions deadline asking if he had forgotten to apply, and offering to extend their application date for for him.

Does that mean that the daughter has the slightest chance of getting admitted to those schools? No – but the constant barrage of email appeals to confirmation bias, and it tends to get people to indulge in wishful thinking. And this is new to the OP, because her older child was a B student who didn’t attract such an email marketing campaign. Hence the emotional pressure building, along with nagging feelings of praental guilt (is she selling her child short by not pushing?) and the appeal of the fantasy that all those marketing emails create (as parents imagine how proud they will be when they can tell all their friends that their daughter has been admitted to Harvard!).

The fact that OP is a college prof doesn’t make her less susceptible to these emotions with her own daughter.

And the details of examples she provides aren’t really relevant to the big picture. It doesn’t matter whether Yale-friend was #1 in the state for anything or not – it matters that daughter believes that Yale-friend was #1 and has seen her flounder at Yale, and daughter takes that as an indication that going off to the northeast to attend an Ivy not something she wants to do.

Which may indeed be a very good lesson to draw. The point isn’t that friend was #1 in anything, the point is that friend was extremely capable and high-achieving, but has been unhappy in an Ivy environment. And daughter rightfully and reasonably is thinkng that she wants to find a college that will provide her with better balance between academics and social life.

137

@Much2learn , thank you for the detailed and thoughtful message. I will suggest the colleges you noted for her to research. And, I do know that many Ivies are reaches for students including my own child. Best.

138

I don’t always know if my comments come across the right way. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.

I didn’t mean to minimize your D’s accomplishments by my previous comment. It’s just that college admissions has become so competitive and we all need to be realistic in the current environment, which is mostly about acceptance rates and very little about your D.

If you’ve been reading CC, no doubt you see the posts of highly accomplished kids with the highest stats who got rejected at all the schools they’ve applied to.

I say apply for whatever school she likes, knowing that admissions are risky for everyone at schools with low accceptance rates. And then to be safe, include a couple of schools with higher acceptance where her stats put her in the top quarter of admitted students.

139

In fairness, if you mean my comment about it being late in the game, it was not about visiting. I’m consistent in advocating families explore what the colleges want to see-not just what the kid likes. You get in by matching, not falling in love with. And it’s more than stats, some ECs and reputation in the one hs. Ime, getting a good read on what the colleges value starts as simple as reading what they have to say, looking for the sorts of kids they tout.

Of course, it all depends on what the D decides she wants. But if there’s a bubble, it’s not in researching, learning what one can, trying for an accurate read. It’s in the assumptions.

140

@calmom , thank you very much for the kind post. I truly just posed the question as I needed some insight. Maybe my use of the word “vying” was not the best possible choice. She scored a 1560 on her SAT. Last night I was with a friend who went to Duke and worked in admissions there. She stated that she was part of the interview process and said what she looked for was “who would be a good fit at Duke?” It wasn’t just grades, SAT, etc., it was also looking at the individual applicant. She has now made it very clear that she does not want to go to Harvard, Yale, etc., but I will still encourage her to apply as you never know what she may do if she just happens to be accepted. At any rate, thank you again for your support and guidance.