<p>“1. What this implies is that if we were to take away the top 200 most compelling applicants, then the student bodies at HYPMS vs. the lower Ivies would be indistinguishable from each other.”</p>
<p>Well, yeah. What’s so difficult to believe about that? It’s only in Pretentiousness-Land where there are felt to be differences between “upper Ivies,” “lower Ivies” and for that matter the rest of the top 20 or so schools. In the real world, you aren’t going to “suffer” in any meaningful way because you only went to Dartmouth instead of HYP.</p>
<p>In fact, if you’re out of college and the words upper Ivy / lower Ivy escape your lips, you’re pretty much branded as a loser, LOL. It’s an overeager hs senior / college freshman way of thinking, not an adult way of thinking.</p>