The excessively disappointing Nature of "Ivy Day"

Applying to College
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This is a more narrow version of a common discussion on this board (had one several months back along the lines of when, where, why and how did US admissions go awry). Many of the same things said here, by the same people replying here, have been said in the other myriad of discussions about the broader subject (large overlap with another common discussion here: Is X school worth it?). Always interesting to me that there are certain conversations that are repeated here so often.

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of its all the kids/parents issue to its all the schools’ faults and they need to change (or anywhere in between), I don’t expect the schools to change. They are all doing what they view to be in the school’s best interests. They won’t change based on negative reactions from any group of applicants/parents unless the schools determine it will be better for the schools (rather than what some group of applicants/parents may prefer).

To me, best approach is to look at what you can control and not worry about what you can’t (or at least not pushing for change of that which you cannot change). There are a lot of teaching moments in the process. Doesn’t mean your kid will learn from all of them (I didn’t from my parents, my kids didn’t from me). But you do what you can. Good doses of perspective are often helpful.

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For instance, I am really shocked when I saw this post

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No way of knowing if it’s representative but she does work in the ninth largest school system in the country and it is really common here. My sense is larger districts are similar. We’re in FL. The district is the whole county (over 1M population). When we lived up north (MA) each town was its own district. Typically one high school per town (public). Some were better than others but in general I’d say the overall education was more rigorous and perhaps less inflated in the smaller districts. The problem with these large county wide districts is they are massive inefficient bureaucracies that are way under resourced. They have general metrics of how many kids should be AP, gifted, etc. It’s part of the school grading system. Anyway, leads to a lot of watered down education. How is it that so many kids can get an A in an AP class but a 2 on the AP exam? Probably shouldn’t be in the AP class to begin with or they’re not being taught well. I know the CC community is full of kids who get 5s but that is definitely not the norm.

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How about we go with: There are no others?
There still is nothing inherently wrong for being the only.

But then the key is, whether the coordination is indeed “impermissible”:

  • Let’s go with your assertion, that the motivation behind coordinating the date indeed is increasing/maintaining “brand recognition”.
    Someone can be self-serving and BENEFIT from something, without having DAMAGED any other party!

  • The practice is not exclusionary: any other colleges could individually or as a group declare themselve "ivy-equivalent, then “adopt/hijack” Ivy Day, rename it to their liking, thus watering down the “advertising value”.

  • The coordination of dates does not limit available choices for the consumer, nor does it reduce competition between the Ivy League schools.

  • The final presumption is, that being rejected by multiple colleges on the same day is clearly more damaging to the psyche of the majority of individuals, compared to the cumulative effect of being strung out and being repeatedly rejected for days.
    I submit that this allegation has far from been determined to be a fact at all. I admit to not knowing the answer either, or if there even is one, but it could (at least) be diametrically opposing for different individuals.

So from a perspective of “antitrust and CP law” that you try to invoke (but more so, even just my moral/ethical standards), I don’t see that coordinating dates is yielding an “impermissible” benefit, nor is it established that factually there are any “damages” to the consumer, competition, or the market place as such.

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While the SAT was recentered, it isn’t like it would radically change your score if you’re thinking you got a 1150 in 1987 and it compares to your child’s 1550 today, because it doesn’t. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. From what I saw digging around a couple months ago, it is score dependent, but at best it’s about a 100 point offset. The top kids in my high school, the valedictorian, salutatorian, top 10, the NMF? I think 2 of them scored over 1400 and a handful scored over 1300. This was at a public school and a class that sent kids to Duke, Brown, Columbia, UVA (oos), Penn, and a bunch of other top tier schools.

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I agree with Saillakeerie- we’ve all read this thread before. I will say however- it is still shocking to me that people link events like college admissions, suicide, parental pressure, mental illness and anxiety, etc. in such a casual (and potentially non-causal) way.

When you hear about a suicide in the armed forces (yes, many believe it’s an epidemic) do you think “Gosh, why did her parents pressure her so much to graduate from HS and enlist in the navy?” When you hear about a suicide of an elderly widower do you think “Wow, our society must really be broken and we need to fix it so that people don’t grieve after the loss of a spouse?” When you read about another suicide of a physician are you thinking “Why must hospitals put so much pressure on doctors to heal their patients-- who could withstand that pressure cooker- why can’t doctors just do what they think is best?”

So many posters (and folks IRL) don’t seem to WANT to understand that suicide is a tragic, poorly understood phenomenon which (contrary to CC religion) is NOT confined to kids who wanted to go to Harvard and rather than face the shame of ending up at U Mass take their own lives. Poor people kill themselves. Rich people kill themselves. College bound kids kill themselves; kids working on factory floors in dead-end jobs kill themselves.

We don’t help the problem by assuming there is a causal link if/when none exists, and we CERTAINLY don’t help our own kids by taking such a black and white approach to such a complicated phenomenon. (If parents push their kids too much, the kid might become suicidal. Ergo, stop pushing your kids and you will have kids who are healthy and never experience suicidal ideation).

I think there is a lot that particular communities can do to normalize the need for mental health intervention-- that will help. I think there is a lot that parents can do to foster an attitude of “I am beautiful and loved because of who I am and not because of what I achieve” in their kids, kids’ friends, classmates, etc. I KNOW that kids growing up in homes with unsecured firearms have greater risks for dangerous behavior (suicide, accidental shooting, executing a mass casualty event on classmates) than kids whose parents don’t own guns or secure those guns appropriately. And there seems to be a lot of evidence on both the genetic side and the environmental side that having a parent with substance issues increases the kids risks for accidental or intentional overdoses (“the pills were in mom’s tote bag” or “Dad keeps his Oxy in the medicine cabinet”).

But changing “Ivy Day” is such a trivial band-aid which makes people feel good but does nothing- why not have the brains on these threads start to fix some of the non band-aid pieces of the puzzle.

In your state- would a parent face jail time if their kid got hold of a parents weapon and went to school and shot a classmate? Let’s start there. Sensible gun safety laws.

And that is one reason why researchers believe that the problem of military suicide is going to be intractable- access to a weapon increases the risk factor meaningfully. But how do you run a military without weapons???

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Any smart/hardworking student who believes he/she cannot enter IB simply because he/she did not attend a so-called “target school” is being silly. If you are clever enough and resourceful enough to do IB, you will find a way to get there. Period.

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If^infinity isn’t a good way to pick a school.

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Unfortunately, lots of people commit suicide over things that, on the outside, may seem trivial or passing. Keep in mind that we’re talking about 17 - 18 yr olds who’s emotional intelligence and ability to deal with disappoint/failure probably aren’t fully developed.

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I’m in no way diminishing any issues-- trivial or passing. But I am pointing out that drawing a straight, causal line (Kid didn’t get the lead in the school play and kid killed himself- ergo, the suicide was a direct result of the play) is what trivializes the issue.

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True, because it implies that it can be easily solved “intellectually”, e.g., simply by addressing whatever “initial cause”.

Unfortunately, there is infinitely more depth to the way we all function on an emotional level, that any suggestion of a “quick fix” is (at best) not helpful. Worse, it might lull many of us into “moving on” – after all, “some” preventative “solution” had been enacted.

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I believe the reason for same-day release is so that they don’t compete with each other to be first and pressure students to commit – or cultivate a feeling of belonging and loyalty to that school – before others send their results.

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@blossom, I don’t think the OP intended to get into an in-depth back and forth on the complex reasons behind this or any suicide. As I understood it, the point of the anecdote was to emphasize the emotional toll that the admissions process has on applicants, especially those applicants aiming for admissions at highly rejective schools. In other words, the thread isn’t about solving suicide, it is about the admissions process, and the stresses, pressures, expectations, and disappointments that go along with that process.

As many have pointed out, the schools aren’t solely responsible for this. But the schools do ask/expect an awful lot of these kids, yet provide little in return. For example, some schools pretty much require applicants to express their undying love and devotion to an institution for the kid to have a shot. Students are expected to research the schools, study them, visit them, carefully craft essays about their desirability, etc. And in the process many students fall in love with them. In return for what? A one-in-10 chance of getting the opportunity to pay 80K a year to attend? And this doesn’t even get into the amount of effort and focus that is required in the years before applying. It seems there is a power dynamic at work here that may be emotionally predatory. Too much is expected of the students, and little is given. It seems like there must be a more humane way, although I don’t know what it is.

And I’m not sure changing Ivy Day would do much to address it.

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I couldn’t agree more. Trying to fault “Ivy Day” for a child’s suicide ignores that mental health issues are poorly understood and under treated.

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I agree. All of the reasons listed above why Ivy Day “isn’t the problem” are correct.

My thought in writing this was that change has to start somewhere, so why not with the Ivy League doing something that I can’t imagine helps the massive numbers of kids who get rejected. The process provides absolutely nowhere to hide. The day after, there are a handful of kids floating around the school for winning the lottery, and 20 times as many hiding from everyone and pondering what will become of their second-class lives.

It’s all BS, and we all know those kids can still go on to do amazing things. They ocassionally don’t, and that’s the problem.

It doesn’t matter if I’m right… what bothered me was the idea that these schools knowingly steamroll so many kids. It’s not really their fault, but that doesn’t prevent them from doing something to lessen the blow if possible. Small steps.

There are algorithms that target these kids smallest weaknesses…why can’t somebody write an algorithm to alert them that they aren’t getting in? Oh…wait…the schools have those…they just wait until 7 pm on a specific day to release all of that into a pressurized world. They know 75% have no shot by January 15th. Tell them. Let them get used to the idea. Let the stories trickle out over the winter.

What does Harvard have to lose by telling 50,000 of the 61,000 kids early that they aren’t getting in? The remaining kids still have less than a 20% chance…but you’ve A) let the vast majority of kids move on at their own pace, and B) told the kids who don’t get in later that they have a ton of merit to play at that level, but there just isn’t enough space.

Or not.

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I agree–not just ivies–but all of these highly -rejective schools: a pre-read or an early read to screen out a large chunk, OR, have these schools decide earlier on (aka MIT, as someone else suggested), or even Fall Round, as another suggested. It would be much better to end the season with less rejective schools, and maybe then those schools wouldn’t have all of the yield protection issues.

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A quick Google search of “chances of getting into an ivy league” brings up a single digit chance.

Numerous posts about “How can I increase my chances of getting into an Ivy?”

Kids know they don’t have much chance. And I dont think knowing they were “close” but “not quite” is going to help ease the blow of a rejection.

Im very sorry for the loss of such a young life. Its easier to deflect blame to some organization with less emotion.

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Acceptance to the Ivies is not just about stats.