<p>how would you compare Oberlin to the Ivies?</p>
<p>in the same way that you would compare a pulitizer prize winning author or a world-class concert pianist to hedge-fund manager or a CFO at a Fortune 500 company—which is to say a kind of hard comparison to make....</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an NCAA athletic conference that consists of eight separate universities that each have their own distinct atmosphere & culture. It is perilous to compare another school to eight different universities as a group, when these universities are each different from each other.</p>
<p>My daughter was a legacy at Cornell and Princeton. Despite high stats she chose not to apply to either because she preferred the environment of schools more like Oberlin- e.g., LACs.</p>
<p>Compared specifically to Cornell, some of the differences she perceived:
1) Cornell has a heavily-frat dominated social scene. Oberlin doesn't have frats. (With Princeton the issue was eating clubs). My daughter doens't like the idea of frats, or people who would seek to exclude others on social bases.
2) Cornell has a good number of huge classes, with TAs teaching sections and labs. Oberlin doesn't.
2) Cornell has more pre-business. pre-professional type students; Oberlin has a greater proportion of future professors, and fellow travellers.
3) As far as escape, Oberlin is 40 minutes from Cleveland. Cornell is an hour from Syracuse.
4) Oberlin's culture is influenced by the presence of the Conservatory.
5) Cornell has NCAA division 1 sports teams. My daughter doesn't like sports. Or people who are very into sports.
6) Cornell has all sorts of people going there, who often have virtually nothing in common with each other. Some of these people didn't base their decision on "fit"- connection with the school's environment and culture -at all, beyond that it is in the Ivy League. At Oberlin hopefully a larger proportion of students applied there because they affirmatively want to go there, and the campus culture may be more in accord as a result. Potentially.
7) Cornell has freshman year Bio and Chem classes that are carefully curved and designed to give many talented students bad grades so they will be weeded out from pre-med.</p>
<p>These are just some of the differences.</p>
<p>She did apply to Brown though.</p>
<p>I was thinking of Princeton and Harvard, but what you say is helpful too. The big draw of Oberlin is the conservatory and the intellectual climate, but it might take a really "fearless" kid to resist the allure of the more famous alternatives. I was also hoping that Dave72 might chime in -- I recall he said that he chose Oberlin over Harvard way back when and is still there.</p>
<p>Can't speak for others, but these other schools had no "allure" for my daughter. She affirmatively did not want to attend these schools, for various reasons.</p>
<p>She feels, I think, in the long run she will ultimately achieve according to her own capabilities. So whatever atmosphere actually nourishes those capabilities the most is the best environment for her. </p>
<p>As far as reputation, first of all we think Oberlin has a great reputation. Moreover, some sort of grad or professional school is probably in her future, and its the reputation of that future grad school that will be the most relevant for employment purposes down the road. Given that, it did not make sense in her thinking to go to a place she did not prefer, in an environment that did not seem optimal to promote her personal success or well-being.</p>
<p>I had no interest in Harvard either--or in any university, for that matter. I was specifically attracted to the educational model of the liberal arts college, where I knew my professors would be entirely focused on me, and not on graduate students. There was nothing "alluring" for me about Harvard. For my money, an Ivy League university is a great place to go to grad school, but an inferior place to get the kind of undergraduate education I wanted. I have never regretted my decision.</p>
<p>I got into some of the places mentioned and also Juilliard; for me, it isn't that I don't consider the other possibilities -- it is a hard decision, because of the great reputations of the schools, which are better known where I live than Oberlin is. Right now I am leaning toward Oberlin because of the double degree program, which seems one-of-a-kind. I just worry about making the wrong decision...</p>
<p>No offence to anyone, the Ivies are pompous, IMO. I wouldn't choose an Ivy over Oberlin, even if they gave me full tuition aid. Oberlin is well.. Oberlin. I love Oberlin.</p>
<p>edit: I agree completely with dave72.</p>
<p>Please, no one attack me because I said "pompous". It was the first thing that came to my mind. Especially when I think of Harvard.</p>
<p>Hey forte2x, this is how it works in my experience:</p>
<p>You make your best guess now. Then either one of these two things happens:</p>
<p>i) you find nirvana there, wind up first in your class, head of three clubs. Get accepted to every grad school. Also meet your future spouse, freshman year. Later you become one of those perfect people who are running for the Board of Trustees, maybe donate a building or two;</p>
<p>-or-</p>
<p>ii) You spend the rest of your life second-guessing your decision, and wondering how your life would have been different if you went to the other place.</p>
<p>As for me, all I saw was a big name. I frequently think about I should have attended the lesser-reputed school I almost went to. I know the instruction would have been better, at least. I would have undoubtedly done better too, and felt relatively better about my college experience. As for where I would have eventually wound up, who can say. People who do well from that lesser school do just fine, from what I can see.</p>
<p>My wife, she went to the place that gave her big $$; that's all she saw. She's always longingly talking about the place she couldn't go to because they stiffed her with financial aid. And the LAC she thinks she would have loved, but couldn't apply to because of her school's application limits.</p>
<p>So who knows...</p>