Relative strengths and weaknesses of Ivies

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>The most important thing to know about the “defining characteristics” of these universities, and of the dozen or so peer universities, is that (a) generally, they are large, extremely complex institutions that cannot even remotely be characterized accurately in a slogan or two, and (b) their overwhelming similarities completely swamp their relatively small differences. People overvalue the differences, especially when they are choosing between two colleges, but the kinds of differences the OP talks about in the first post are the equivalent of comparing equivalent cars from Lexus, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes.</p>

<p>Also, very, very few people get to choose among these colleges. Most people are thrilled if they are offered admission to any one of them.</p>

<p>There are three differences that DO matter, and that extend to peer colleges as well:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Liberal arts-only vs. specialized schools. Penn and Cornell offer a whole spectrum of specialized schools, Columbia has a separate engineering school, and the rest offer only a core liberal arts education (albeit with an engineering option everywhere). If you are interested in the liberal arts curriculum, it doesn’t matter much which college you choose, but if you are interested in nursing, or business training, you can’t get that everywhere.</p></li>
<li><p>Size matters (somewhat). Bigger communities mean more opportunities, more diversity, more stimulation, but at a loss of intimacy and focus on undergraduates. Each of the colleges strikes its own balance.</p></li>
<li><p>Location, location, location. The effect of the college’s surroundings can be fairly important on what it’s like to be a student there. Columbia is a very different place than Dartmouth, and it’s not really because it has a core curriculum. For starters, there’s an awful lot more to do off campus at Columbia (and that can be good or bad, depending). Plus, wealth means a heck of a lot more in Manhattan than it does in Hanover.</p></li>
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<p>What’s really not very different is the kinds of students they have. Not everyone applies to all these colleges, but the same set of people tends to apply to various of them. And the colleges often deliberately admit against the college’s “type,” in order to get a less monolithic student body. So Yale may be somewhat artier than Dartmouth, but Dartmouth takes care to admit many, many arty kids, and Dartmouth is full of arts opportunities. You could switch the student bodies of these colleges in the middle of the night, and not more than maybe 10% of each would be significantly more or less happy at the new college.</p>

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<p>FightTheTide11 ,
That’s an excellent link you provided - comparison of Princeton and other colleges. Great insider information! I’m wondering if there’s similar posts from other schools.</p>

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<p>I did not put down Cornell. I left them out originally, but only because initially I thought they were not a school that meets 100% of need.</p>

<p>Anyway… now looking at some of the better (top 50) LACs.</p>

<p>Thanks to those conscientious souls who did try to help.</p>

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<p>FWIW, I’d say Princeton and Yale are similar in their overall undergraduate quality, but Harvard is more sui generis. The ‘halo effect’ of Harvard’s undeniably stellar and comprehensive array of graduate programs is pervasive in the public mindset. And Harvard’s made considerable strides in recent years to address this, but it remains the weakest of the three when it comes to undergraduate teaching quality. YMMV.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, you’re definitely doing the right thing by casting your net a tad more broadly. Even if you’re intent on having a ‘24-karat-gold’ diploma for your kid, Stanford, MIT, Swarthmore, Williams, Caltech and several more definitely qualify without being Ivy League. One of them might turn out to be a better choice, even. The comments just above from JHS are, as usual, on the mark.</p>

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<p>Is Princeton good for pre-med?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1365139-chance-me-princeton.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1365139-chance-me-princeton.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Ivies smivies. in 20 years, those unborn will be going to virtual schools at UW-Madison and Belmont.</p>

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<p>Casting your net broadly … for a child not even born yet. Life has a way of waylaying the best laid plans. Your child could turn out to be a brilliant musician or actor, in which case he’d have a completely different list from Ivies. Or he could turn out to have special needs and his life path would put him on the road to learning how to bag groceries and live in a group home. Or he could simply be (gasp) an average student and be just fine at your local directional state u. It’s arrogant beyond belief to think that you are “selecting” or “investigating” ANYTHING at this point.</p>

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<p>As the parent of a rising senior who will go to one of the many outstanding schools that are out there, I have to tell you to cool it for awhile on college for your kids. Enjoy your time together with your spouse. Once you have kids nothing will be the same. If you’re fortunate enough to have kids, love them and live in the moment with them while treasuring it for it will pass. Expose them to all that you can and let them follow their passions.</p>

<p>When you begin to get an idea of how your kid’s high school grades and test scores will come out, probably around sophomore year, you will begin to understand not the specific school but the ball park of the specific schools that you will be looking at. If you apply then the diligence you are showing now you will be fine.</p>

<p>Relish the ride.</p>

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<p>Or he’d go to Yale ;)</p>

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<p>excellent advice.</p>

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<p>It is so unbelievably difficult to get into a top ten school–you really might have to start planning far in advance (maybe not prior to the birth of your child but at least once s/he begins elementary school). As an example, my daughter was a national merit finalist, member of NHS, top 1% in her HS class, was an AP scholar (took 7 AP tests got score of 5 on all but 1 test), long term involvement, including leadership in several ECs AND had a grandfather and uncle graduate from Princeton and she did not get in. Nor did she get into Duke or Northwestern. The problem–there was nothing special about her. One of the app essays for Princeton asked what she had done for her summer vacation–she truthfully said “visited colleges”. How boring! A better answer would have been “started a business” “did in-depth research at the local university/hospital” “founded a charity” “traveled to an exotic location and lived with the natives for 2 months”…you get the idea. If she had had a talent (musical or athletic) that we could have spotted in elementary school and nurtured so that she could have said “starred in the state All Star game and lead the team to victory” or “performed with the all state symphony/band/orchestra as first chair” then a top 10 college might have looked harder at her.
To the original poster–if you can’t nurture a top talent (like best in the state or close to it) or can’t instill a passion that can be shown through years of significant participation in a charity or starting a business revolving around that passion or high level research involving that passion then you might want to investigate other universities that also will meet 100% of demonstrated need–the Ivies are not the only ones that do so. Good luck!</p>

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<p>College admissions are gonna suck when your kids are 17. I mean, Harvard is already at 6%. How much lower can it go? 2%? Maybe 1%?</p>

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<p>Yale has pre-law? I thought those don’t exist in almost every college/university in the nation!</p>

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<p>AFAIK, There’s no “pre-” anything at any Ivy League school, except maybe Penn ;)</p>

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<p>I would say whatever advice you get today won’t apply 17 years from now.
In the “olden” days, the way to an Ivy was thru a good feeder prep school. Now it may not be the best way in. Instead, it may be better to graduate top of your class from a good public school. Times change. Legacy and first college admits for a family are both good now. I think it’s better to focus on their happiness rather than where they will go to school. Good Luck.</p>

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<p>Very interesting. I don’t put you down for thinking ahead; I did for my kids, too. My eldest decided on St. Louis University, which was not on my radar at all, but she loved it and is now in a PhD program. My youngest has 1 more year before college. He is very interested in the very selective small liberal arts colleges: Carleton, Williams, Amherst (those are his top three) and a few others. I’d suggest you look into these, too. They attract VERY bright students, are tough to get into, but give a fantastic undergrad education and much more teacher-student contact and small classes. Then they can look to larger schools, like Harvard, for grad school. Just a thought, but every child is different!</p>

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<p>OP - why are you trying to “get” the ivys? That presupposes that you think your kids will be very smart/athletic indeed. What if they are born with problems of a mental or a physical kind? What if you and your wife are unable to have kids? How will you deal with your plans?
Enjoy your life as it happens, not the planning of something that may never be.</p>

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<p>I think it’s maybe too late. You should start this process before picking a spouse. Your spouse should have an undergraduate from Ivy league to give your kids a legacy boost as well as the smart gene. Next criteria is your spouse should be also athletic, boost your kids chance of being an athlete. And perhaps move to Idaho. Legacy, athlete, with top grades from Idaho would increase your kids chance at Ivies.</p>

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<p>Sorry,but Harvard is NOT known for its undergraduate work! That is definitely not their primary focus.</p>

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<p>Just hosted two Chinese exchange students for two weeks, and thought I’d give you some insight into what life is like over there, and also what can happen if a child’s life is decided by a parent from day one.</p>

<p>These two kids were about to enter 7th grade. They tested into the elite middle school in their city (metro area 30-million or so). I’ve heard that admission to elite middle schools is difficult over there, which sounds like a Saturday Night Live joke in this country.</p>

<p>They go to school six days a week, ten hours a day, and study all day Sunday. They get one gym class a week for two hours. </p>

<p>While in the USA, they had English language class in the mornings and did something fun in the afternoon (they never had school that easy before). They visited UMASS while over here, and when I gave them a choice of doing anything on the weekend (including whitewater rafting, hiking the mountains, chair lift to the top of a mountain, playing basketball or just hanging out with other Chinese kids in their group locally, seeing the basketball Hall of Fame, swimming in the 95 degree heat and many other choices ), they chose to look at more US colleges.</p>

<p>We wound up taking them to Dartmouth and to MIT. One wants to be an engineer, and the other wants a science major, and both want to go to MIT. My daughter (10th grade) visited China as part of a school program (a non-profit funded the trip for 20 kids), and the high school kids there were shocked that she hadn’t chosen a major yet. They decide early on (or their parents decide early on) what they are going to do – Yao Ming went to the sports academy when he was 9 or so after doctors projected at that age that he would grow to 7’ 3”.</p>

<p>The Chinese were also shocked at how diverse our kids were. To be selected for the program, our kids had to do reasonably well in school, plus be able to perform. They had to sing, dance, do skits and most also played an instrument. Bear in mind that our local, small town high school has a total of 250 kids, so there was not a humungous pool to draw from. The Chinese were shocked at this diversity – they do only one thing, from an early age. Creativity is squelched.</p>

<p>This may seem off the thread topic, but please read on, and you’ll see the connection. The kids over there are under incredible pressure. They have a 1-child policy, so each child is expected to support their parents in their old age. Those who don’t ace their college boards don’t go to college – there aren’t enough slots. The rich ones want to come to the US for college, and overall, our colleges are easier to get into than theirs.</p>

<p>These kids were doing homework in their spare time – I saw one of them working on an advanced quadratic equation that was part of 11th grade math in this country. This is in July, in 7th grade.</p>

<p>The kids were in lousy physical condition, and wouldn’t keep up with our kids here – a Dartmouth 1-hour tour and miniature golf wore them out (we sneaked golf in).</p>

<p>The result of all this pressure isn’t great. One kid had a bad temper, and in a fit took a hammer to our 175-year-old front door, which didn’t make us very happy. Restoration won’t be simple or cheap.</p>

<p>The moral to the story: trying to push a young kid in one direction or another (or towards an almost impossible goal, like getting into an Ivy), will give a kid a miserable childhood and probably create an unhappy adult.</p>