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<p>Yeah, the Ivy League is just so over. Nobody wants to go there any more. That’s why you never see any CC threads titled things like “Are My Stats Good Enough to Get Into an Ivy?” Kids are transferring out of Yale like crazy and Cambridge is practically a ghost town. And the number of applicants each of the Ivy schools gets has been going down every year…Oh, wait.</p>
<p>No one is saying that, coureur. It’s just that the concept that there are plenty of outstanding institutions beyond just the 8 Ivies gets pitched on CC as though it’s some brand new invention – gosh, in the year 2011, did you actually know that there are good schools beyond the Ivies? Who would have ever thought? There are these newfangled schools called Stanford and Duke and JHU and Rice and Georgetown and blah blah blah … gosh golly, what will they think of next? A phone that isn’t tethered to a landline? Kids today!</p>
<p>And what I’m saying is that I find the whole “epiphany” so laughably naive and unsophisticated. People who knew better ALWAYS knew about that whole range of schools. Just because some unsophisticated people finally opened their eyes – golly gosh – does not a trend make. It’s just such old news. Even in the dark ages of the suburban midwest 30 years ago when I was selecting colleges, everyone knew this. The laggers don’t get to define trends.</p>
<p>^^I agree with you. The notion that there are many wonderful colleges beyond the eight Ivy schools has been known for many decades and has always been commonly discussed and promoted on CC. The thought that this is somehow a new discovery is ridiculous.</p>
<p>But what is also ridiculous is the theory that “the Ivy magic is waning.” If anything it’s growing. The rise of the internet and USNews rankings have combined to enormously expand both the numbers and the breadth of high school students who now aspire for Ivy and other high-end schools. Anyone who thinks the popularity or desirablility of the Ivy League is waning isn’t paying attention to the facts.</p>
<p>I have to be honest. I don’t see it as any different from my midwest suburbs of 25 years ago. Smart kids aspired to top schools, Ivy or otherwise. My upper middle class but otherwise unremarkable Missouri high school sent kids to all of the top schools. Parents were very aware of those schools, and had no hesitation to send the kids to either coast. </p>
<p>Indeed, if anything, what I’ve observed is a RISE in the trend of “but state flagships are just fine too, it’s the person not the school.” To give an Illinois example, 25 years ago, elite students did NOT aspire to U of Illinois - it was known as a place that was a slam-dunk to get into, and it was fine for the average student but the better students wanted to do better. Nowadays - there seems to be plenty recognition, it’s far harder to get in, and it’s not the fall-back it used to be. But there is no shame in the hs valedictorian going to U of I, the way there might have been 25 years ago. </p>
<p>Of course, some of this may be driven by the economy.</p>
<p>I do think there has been a shift in awareness, especially in smaller towns. I can tell you that in my small Southern city 30-some years ago, people didn’t really think about the Ivies at all. Smart students went to U.Va. or *maybe *to Duke. I think the Internet has moved people away from that kind of regional thinking. So, on the one hand, it probably does mean that people in the Northeast who would previously have focused on the Ivies are more aware of schools elsewhere (this is how you explain the rise of WashU, I think)–but on the other hand, kids all over the country are looking at schools outside their local areas, including the Ivies.</p>
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<p>I agree. 30 years ago here around almost no smart kids thought much beyond the UCs and Stanford. And it was the same back in my home state of Oregon - nearly all kids went to either Oregon, Oregon State, or maybe a CA school. Occasionally someone would apply to West Point or the Naval Academy, but for the most part east coast schools were out of sight and out of mind. Everyone had heard of Harvard of course, but it might as well have been located in France or on Mars. It just wasn’t viewed as a real option. Today our high school has HYPS applicants every year, and some of them get in. There has been a big change in awareness and the rise of the phenomenon of the National Applicant.</p>
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Only it wouldn’t be the horse’s head.</p>
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<p>If 25 years ago, kids in the Northeast were only focusing on the Northeast, but kids in a similar demographic in the Midwest were looking all over the country, that doesn’t say much about the sophistication of the Northeast :-). </p>
<p>And I grew up there! I totally get the mentality of “this is the center of the universe and there is nothing between here and the west coast” - as I had it myself! But it sounds as though they’re simultaneously behind-the-times and then claiming that catching up with others is starting a trend! </p>
<p>Honestly, when I compare my hs in Missouri and where kids went to my kids’ hs here in Illinois, I think it’s driven more by socioeconomics than part of the country. My hs was more uniformly upper middle class than my children’s hs is and consequently the kids had “farther out” aspirations.</p>
<p>“If you are upper middle class – which let’s not mince words, a LOT of athletes are, to be able to have afforded the training and the coaching and the travel-to-other-cities and so forth that it took to become elite in a sport – it can make a lot of difference.”</p>
<p>Good points, Pizzagirl, but I was thinking mostly of men’s football and basketball…which are the big-money sports. Do these 2 sports really have plenty of players who fit in that profile (not poor enough to get need aid, not rich enough to pay full price without sweating)?The Ivies already compete at the highest level in men’s ice hockey and lacrosse, as well as a slew of women’s sports.</p>
<p>With a nod to Dennis Miller, this thread is like listening to Snooki explain the infield fly rule in Farsi while drunk.</p>
<p>^^^ Best line in this thread which is making me dizzy but I had to scan thru to the end.</p>
<p>Just want to add that when we sat thru the info session at Columbia, the dean of admissions told the audience that Colgate used to be part of the Ivy League (I have know idea if that is true) until “it decided it didn’t want to play football with us any longer” and dropped out. His point being, there are many great schools and the “Ivy” title should not be your main consideration.</p>
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<p>I can’t say anything about your old hometown in the Midwest, but here is an example of the huge national increase in interest in Ivy schools:</p>
<p>I have two daughters. One graduated from high school in 2004 and the other in 2009. In those five years the number of kids applying for the ~1650 slots in the freshman class at Harvard jumped from an already sky-high 20,000 to an astounding 30,000. That’s an astonishing 50% increase in just five years. And the trend has continued upward from there. The other Ivys have also increased every year. I’d hardly call that a “waning of magic” or even the magic staying the same.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know whether that increase is primarily due to more kids in the Northeast (=close to home) or more kids from other states. And, of course, international. I just don’t remember the level of international students that there are these days and I have to believe that floats all elite boats to some extent (of course, some elites more than others).</p>
<p>^^They give the geographic breakdown every year, and I no longer have the exact data to hand, but as I recall the numbers were up across the board. There was no one geographic area that primarily accounted for the huge increase - and certainly not internationals, since that is one of the smallest groups overall (~10%).</p>
<p>Yawn!!!</p>
<p>You know…I’d like some middle ground here. I agree that the “Old School Tie” syndrome is not a good one… but neither is making huge accommodations for sob stories and quotas.
I would like to see the kids with the actual and factual best grades and test scores get admitted… isn’t that really the cream of the crop? Too much appeasement and PC gone wild.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t always work out that way. True story: back in the late seventies, before it had entirely signed on to what would later be referred to as “affirmative action”, Swarthmore received an application from an African-American male high school senior from a single parent household, mostly raised by his maternal grandmother. He had an interesting background and was even from an underrepresented state but his grades were poor and his board scores were not what Swarthmore was accustomed to seeing from its normal pool of applicants. Result? REJECTED. Thirty years later, however, he did become President of the United States.</p>