<p>Top public schools ftw. Georgia Tech engineering all day: selective but not unreasonably so the point of completely arbitrary decisions based on race, major sports to root for, dem starting salaries, and no guilt of giving your parents a bill for $250,000. And no one assumes that I’m a prestige ‘lady of the night’.</p>
<p>Never wanted to go to one…</p>
<p>fin aid+hang around smart/elite ppl+usually ivies have best campuses and museums+…i can go on forever</p>
<p>I’d go because #yolo. </p>
<p>If you only live once, why settle for anything less than the best?</p>
<p>Harvard [Not really] here I come!</p>
<p>Because I lost all my stuff due to baggage difficulties while visiting Dartmouth (I had to gate check my carry on and was stupid and left my money, ID, laptop, and phone charger in there :/) and they set me up with an awesome hotel room, good food, a bunch of kickass Dartmouth attire :D</p>
<p>But seriously, because Dartmouth’s awesome and gates lets me go for pennies :)</p>
<p>Because if you come from anywhere less how are you expected to go into politics.</p>
<p>Cuz I deserve it. It’s my birthright, if I wasn’t alive there would be no such thing as Ivy League.</p>
<p>MIT isn’t technically a member of the Ivy League, but given HYPSM and all, who cares?</p>
<p>I’d love to meet some of the people who work there, like Tim Berners-Lee and Richard Stallman, and learn as much from them as I could. I’m sure the school teaches undergraduate classes in general very well, but I’m more interested in the hacker culture that began and seems to dominate there.</p>
<p>Basically, I’d love to be a part of that culture, know some of the people who pioneered the Web and the free software movement, and just absorb the knowledge and brilliance of those people without necessarily enrolling in classes. (Nothing against classes, though, I would like to see what classes are like at MIT. Very informative, I bet.)</p>
<p>Because my top school’s programs, course requirements, size, reputation, and athletics program fit me perfectly…</p>
<p>Oh hey. Its an ivy? I didn’t notice. Haha</p>
<p>It’s not really an Ivy League school I want to go to, but a school that is full of intellectual people that are engrossed in what they’re doing. Plenty of non-Ivy Leagues have an environment with these kinds of people - Stanford, UCB, USC, U Chicago, Georgetown, etc…</p>
<p>Think you can add Tufts to that list, KingshukR. Some of the smartest, savviest, and most “out-of-the-box” kids at our local high school have gladly chosen to be Jumbos.</p>
<p>My husband is an IT staffing recruiter in NYC, hires for Bloomberg, et al.; reading resumes and interviewing is his thing. He has to admit that interviewees with Ivy degrees are not in and of themselves the cream of the crop. In fact, he is—more often than he would like or have expected—unimpressed; he finds a certain lack of initiative/ drive/ on-the-spot resourcefulness, as if the Ivy degree is enough to get the person hired, so he/she does not have to make the effort. </p>
<p>And herein lies a problem: heightened expectation on the part of hirers, complacency on the part of interviewees. Such is the fall-out of the widespread groupthink that is the desire for “Ivy”. This also includes the deterioration of nuanced discussion, so you have either aspirants who are unequivocally supportive of one/ any of the vaunted 8, or others who do everything to tear the schools down. The pluses of the schools are either overstated or dismissed. </p>
<p>I feel for kids who are under pressure from family, community, peers, or even themselves to wear the Ivy mantle. It doesn’t always wear lightly.</p>
<p>“Cuz I deserve it. It’s my birthright, if I wasn’t alive there would be no such thing as Ivy League.”</p>
<p>what he saiid B-P</p>
<p>Personally, I think it is ridiculous when students want to go to Ivies merely for the namesake. My top schools are Yale, Princeton, and UPenn, and I have very specific reasons for all of them. When I went college touring my freshman year, I fell head over heels in love with Yale. Their Cathedral of Knowledge (Sterling Memorial Library) is beautiful, and plus, what could represent Yale better than pursuit of knowledge and intellect? I want to go to Yale because their Global Affairs major is everything I could hope for. Recently, Henry Kissinger gave a lecture to the Global Affairs majors and it doesn’t hurt that Henry Kissinger is my favorite secretary of state! Princeton-for their Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs and Public Policy, and UPenn-for their Huntsman Program in International Relations and Business.
Honestly, I am a very ambitious person and I feel as though if I go to a small, obscure liberal arts school such as Kenyon, even though the environment would be intellectually stimulating, the school itself wouldn’t provide as many opportunities for me to immerse myself in the international relations world.</p>
<p>Personally, I would not attend an Ivy League School. First of all, most of them are too small for me. My ideal school would have a student population that exceeds 15,000 undergrad students; that’s why I like schools such as Maryland, Penn State, and Georgia. Secondly, they do not have the social atmosphere that a lot of big state schools have. I would actually like to be the Frat boy who attends all the parties and football games. I would also try to maintain good grades for medical school admission, however. And finally, I only like B1G 10, SEC, ACC, and Pac-12 schools. The only Ivy that fits into that equation would be Stanford.</p>
<p>@FutureDoc</p>
<p>By definition an Ivy school (which Stanford most certainly is not) cannot be in the Big Ten, ACC, or any other conference. </p>
<p>I agree with you though, that college is far more than what you learn in the classroom… Sure, that’s important; but you also need to consider things like the social experience and how you grow as a person .</p>
<p>I would never go to an Ivy. The light-hearted mentality just isn’t there. </p>
<p>For my major, it honestly doesn’t matter as much as many believe where you go to college. </p>
<p>Go BULLS!</p>
<p>@Spencerg011 I’m glad that you do agree with me. I’m surprised I haven’t been bashed for saying that yet hahaha! I simply could not function if I went to college purely for academics. Unlike a lot of people on this site, I had a wonderful high school experience, especially socially! What I learn in the classroom is important, especially since I intend to apply to med school later on down the road, but growing socially is just as important!</p>
<p>While the Ivy name is seductive…its definitely not for me.
I’d love/dream about/would probably get rejected from/HOPE to be on a campus like Duke, Vanderbilt, or even Stanford. Although these schools are competitive and attract brilliant students, they don’t have a crazy level of competition like a Harvard.</p>
<p>Gosh. Why are all these schools so expensive?
I’m in the worst place financially for these schools. Not rich so its like “whatever” but slightly above the “grant” place.</p>
<p>I don’t. Screw paying tuition.</p>