<p>My best friend is killing himself in order to go to an ivy league for graduate school but honestly, I think he is going for the wrong reason and disillusioning himself. He doesn't really have the credentials to get in and I know he is going to disappoint himself just like he did for undergrad. </p>
<p>I know the only reason he is applying to the ivies though is because 1.) his parents have high expectations of him and he wants to prove to them that he is good enough and 2.) he wants bragging rights amongst his crowd of friends because he always likes the be "the best". </p>
<p>Whether I am a bad friend or not, I am honestly getting tired of his defeated talk. Everytime he feels sad, he attributes it to his "lack of intelligence" and although at first I sympathized with him, now I just feel he wants a pity party. There are a lot of intelligent people who do not make it into the ivies; just because he didn't make it doesn't mean he is not "good enough" and he really does not have to prove anything to his friends or family. </p>
<p>Do you think his intentions in enrolling in an ivy for graduate school are pure? What do you feel besides academics is a good reason to attend ivy? Familial or peer pressure, I feel, are NOT good reasons.</p>
<p>So you can be like George W Bush</p>
<p>That said tell him to pick some good grad schools besides ivies for safety reasons.</p>
<p>“Do you think his intentions in enrolling in an ivy for graduate school are pure?”</p>
<p>It’s all about self interest.</p>
<p>"What do you feel besides academics is a good reason to attend ivy? Familial or peer pressure, I feel, are NOT good reasons. "</p>
<p>More prestige and more opportunities.</p>
<p>I think the ivies will give you good connections. Depending on your career, they can help. Law, for example, could be helped a lot by a higher0ranked grad school. However, there are other programs just as good. If I were you, I would just encourage him to apply to some other safeties as well. If he’s bound and determined to apply to the ivies, then I think he’s unfortunately going to have to learn the hard way how hard they are to get into.</p>
<p>Of course, he might just surprise you and get in…</p>
<p>Admissions to graduate school are a bit different than undergrad. Rather than admitting you because you seem like a fit for the school, you get admitted if you are a fit for the program. I read of some people with GPAs of 3.4 and 3.5 getting into Harvard as a graduate student. </p>
<p>Yes, it does pay to have good grades and a good exam score, but in the long run, you can have a 4.0 and perfect exam score, but if you lack any experience – whether it be an internship, research project(s), a thesis, or any hand-on work in the field that you are pursuing, that is more likely to hurt you in the end than intelligence. It isn’t about intelligence. It is majority about demonstration and experience. ***</p>
<p>Oh, and what does your friend intend to pursue in graduate school, if you don’t mind me asking? (sorry if you mentioned it in your post. I probably missed it. Yikes)</p>
<p>*** might I add before someone corrects me, there might me exceptions in regards to the whole good grade/good score =\ Some programs do use GPA and tests to “weed” people out if the program is highly competitive. Law, I think is an example.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t attend an Ivy League school unless the school is well-known for your field of study, or if there is a good alumni network for your intended career.</p>
<p>I chose to attend UT Austin over Cornell (and CMU, Berkeley, etc) because UT is much better than Cornell for chemical engineering. Likewise, the job/internship opportunities are amazing at UT for ChemE.</p>
<p>Don’t just blindly go to an Ivy League school. Think about what you want to do first.</p>
<p>The real reason to attend an ivy league college is because it is likely to have a very strong program in the field you are interested in, which means you get access to top professors and are allowed to do top-notch cutting edge research. You are also likely to be funded.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your ivy league college has a mediocre program in the field you are interested in, which is especially true in grad school, especially in specialized fields, an ivy league college is likely to be mediocre.</p>
<p>I go to a top 50 undergrad school in the US (UW) at best, but there are certainly programs here which are easily top 5 in the world in terms of grad school.</p>
<p>Grad School isn’t prestigious, it isn’t close to worth it. It’s not a smart career path, and the only reason anyone should go to grad school is that they are very interested in their field.</p>
<p>By the simple fact that your friend talks more about getting into an “ivy league” than the field he is and the quality of any given school in that field means that he should be rejected from any graduate school. </p>
<p>Of course, if he is actually really interested in what he’s doing on top of that, then meh. </p>
<p>But otherwise, LOOOL.</p>
<p>Well for Ivy UG the perks are: prestige and alumni network</p>
<p>For Grad programs? I hope he’s not planning on getting a bs Masters degree because he will be in debt and unemployable even with his Ivy credentials.</p>
<p>masters degree = debt?
whaaattt??!!</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t think he knows what he wants to do. He is starting his junior year next year and was a political science major and planned to go to law school. I told him about how I’m interested in business and plan to go onto graduate school to become a CPA. Now he has changed his mind and wants to go to a B-school. But he says that he won’t go for anything less than an ivy. His top choices are Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, Dartmouth, NYU, MIT, and Stanford.</p>