I don’t have much to contribute in the way of conversation, but I’d like some more information on how I can found a chapter of the SPLHG in my high school. 
Why do we have to have such nonsensical thread titles? Was it ever in question that 2400 rejects from Ivies could still continue to have some kind of future not involving fries?
@compmom second that. If you watch the shark tank episode the guy seems very indecisive.
The SPLHG needs to be more inclusive and allow hamsters in. SPLHGH.
This has been discussed all over the place, the big problem with all the threads on the ivy league, or on success, are generally attempting to have one dimensional dynamics prove something. Part of the problem with the college admissions process is that it increasingly has become one dimensional, in the sense that it seems to have become a numbers game, ie get in the X percentile of the SAT, be in the top Y% of your class, take N AP tests, do Z ECs, and you are on the miraculous track to an elite school and an elite life…and the colleges are playing this game, too, it is reducing what a person is to statistics.
The ivy league schools are great schools, but in a sense they are selling the brand they deny they are selling, that someone going to an ivy league school means someone is a superior person, and then they sprinkle stardust on them and they became first class legends or something. The irony to me is their selection process even more is selecting out a lot of the things that can make someone into a bright light, the admissions game is so much a game of numbers to me, about having the perfect SAT, the perfect number of AP’s, the perfect EC’s that show your character, I have to wonder were these kids have the time to develop character…if the path to the Ivies and other schools is seemingly being perfect, where is the time and place for curiousity, for the willingness to take chances, to do something that doesn’t have value on an elite school CV?
The other thing that makes it ludicrous is that the number of people who can go to these elite schools is small, given how big the college population is (now global), so the idea if you don’t go to a school like these is the end is ludicrous. Sure, the elite colleges have turned out amazing people, amazing ideas and thoughts have come from them, but amazing ideas and thoughts and so forth come from a lot of places. State schools have turned out a lot more people who have achieved things, a lot of great ideas and inventions came out of nowhere (packet radio, the basic bones of wireless networking, came about at the University of Hawaii because the guy who invented it loved to surf…).
The real answer is that in the end it all comes down to human beings, and despite attempts to do it, whether it is the ‘success track’ programming, the tiger parents, authoritarian regimes like the Chinese, one thing that history has shown is that trying to package human beings into orderly, nice packages, whether it is success or other things, is doomed to fail. One of the things the elite colleges seem to be grappling with is maybe, just maybe, having a college full of kids focusing on ‘success’ may backfire, if as the guy who wrote the book about educated sheep is right, 60% of Elite college students are studying Economics and Finance, they may end up self selecting themselves out of the creativity pool, much the same way that royalty with their obsession about blood ended up yielding a group of idiots for the most part.
"The ivy league schools are great schools, but in a sense they are selling the brand they deny they are selling, that someone going to an ivy league school means someone is a superior person, and then they sprinkle stardust on them and they became first class legends or something. "
I actually disagree. I think that it’s others who have projected onto the Ivies that the Ivies think they are selecting only “superior human beings and sprinkling stardust on them.” I think the Ivies are more than aware that there are other great schools. Other people project the mystique IMO.
I agree with Pizzagirl. Both Ivy idealization and Ivy bashing seem to be more about projection than reality.
A bit hard to believe actually.
I agree with @lostaccount. Ivies routinely do recruiting campaigns to get low-income and/or URMs applying to their school. Unless he completely failed his essay or failed to convey his circumstances (which is also unlikely since Ivies will have known the quality of his school)… this is likely fake. The article sounds like a marketing ploy to get people interested in his SAT books and other things
Gee- my son didn’t study for the SAT to get his 2400, nor would he apply to any Ivies. He was supposed to retake the math subject SAT but signed up for the SAT instead (don’t ask why, I did- that was ten years ago). His later HS grades weren’t perfect- try to get a kid under 16 to do the work, apply to some more schools. All of that is ancient history. Waiting to see where he’s at at 30. It sounds to me like this kid (getting old- I mean young adult) will end up in business or be a wheeler-dealer physician. As a (retired) physician I hope he lets someone else use his spot in medical school.