Are the Ivies prejudiced against Westerners?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>My D got into the Honors Colleges at USC, UCLA, NYU, Tufts, and Berkeley. She got flat-out denied at Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, and (we assume) Princeton. (Her dad and I are delighted with her acceptances, she’s crushed by her rejections.) </p>

<p>At her high school, the same five kids got in to the same six Ivies. It’s not as if Penn accepted four and Yale accepted four and Dartmouth accepted a different and overlapping four. This is apparently a long-standing situation. Are these Eastern schools so lacking in individuality that they all accept the same kids, with the same profile?</p>

2

<p>In a sense, yes – I think they have all gotten so competitive that they want the top, super-star kids. They want to hear that the kid is at the top of his class, has the most challenging courseload, and is one of the smartest kids the teacher writing the recommendation has ever taught. So yes… and it is unfortunate, becuase the kids all seem to apply to the same set of schools - it isn’t just that some kid has his sights set on Yale - every one has to apply to Yale and Harvard and Princeton and Dartmouth. So of course that is partly what fuels the intense competition to get into those schools…</p>

3

<p>Calmom makes aa valid point. I know that Dartmouth’s class of 2008, the largest contigency of kids after NY came from CA. Most of the ivies are looking to get a final class of 1050-1600 kids. from a pool of applicants that is at least 10 times as many kids. There are so many students with so few slots from the same places pretty much knocking each other out of the box.</p>

4

<p>Susu,</p>

<p>In todays Dartmouth Online there is a article about admissions for the class of 09:</p>

<p>Thousands of high school seniors felt devastation or elation on Thursday afternoon with the posting of admissions decisions on the College’s website. Others nationwide will be finding out their fate over the next couple days via mailed decision letters.</p>

<p>This year, a record-low 16.8 percent of applicants for the Class of 2009 were accepted, down from an acceptance rate hovering around 18 percent for the last several years. The admissions office received a total of 12,615 applications, and admitted 2,149 students.</p>

<p>A decreased percentage of applicants accepted is not necessarily indicative of a stronger applicant class, but Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg maintains that the jump of about ten percent in the number of applications this year did not dilute the quality of the applicant pool.</p>

<p>“The growth in the number of applications is not bringing in weaker candidates, it’s bringing in stronger candidates,” Furstenberg said.</p>

<p>Furstenberg’s assertions are backed by the Class of 2009’s improvement on the record-high SAT scores turned in by the Class of 2008. The new top marks are an average verbal score of 729, and an average math score of 732, four points higher than last year’s combined marks.</p>

<p>The stronger pool of applicants caused some problems for the admissions office, however. Dartmouth’s jump in applications made anticipating the number of accepted students who will choose to attend the College difficult for the admissions office.</p>

<p>“As your pool gets bigger, stronger and more diverse, your yield tends to go down a bit because these are students who have more options,” Furstenberg said.</p>

<p>* Congratulations, Gabe on your acceptances*</p>

5

<p>Last year we felt the same sting in Oregon, where it seemed that every kid we knew (except for 1 really great soccer player) got Wl’ed or shut out of the Ivies, my son included. That’s the bad news.</p>

<p>The good news is that there are still so many great schools that are non-Ivies.</p>

6

<p>No, western states are fairly represented at ivies. At my kids’ school there is much discussion about why kids who get into Cal and UCLA most often get rejected by ivies. IMO, it has to do with the more thorough screening and intense competion from kids who go to schools in states with more educational advantages.</p>

7

<p>We have to be clear here. California does not have “more educational advantages” necessarily. Our public school system is routinely ranked way lower than the majority of states in the union. What we do have, in the Bay Area and LA, is a lot of very wealthy, high achieving, high IQ parents, who compensate for the public school system. They do this by either 1) Sending the kids to private school 2) Privately funding their own particular local public school 3) Tutoring the bejesus of their kids.</p>

<p>For better or worse.</p>

8

<p>“The good news is that there are still so many great schools that are non-Ivies”</p>

<p>Absolutely! And might I add, schools that will offer oustanding educational experiences.</p>

9

<p>My point was that CA school stink and schools know it.</p>

10

<p>Ah. The states with more education opportunities are NOT California. Understood.</p>

11

<p>CA is well represented at Ivies. I suspect, however, that many adcoms might second-guess which students will end up at a UC since in-state tuition is so much cheaper. They don’t want to waste an admit on students who won’t come (of course, it’s guesswork).</p>

12

<p>Are we talking about California public high schools? If so, our middling quality local high school has had the following experience with Ivy acceptances–they take top 5% minority kids and top 0.5% non minority kids. That doesn’t leave a lot of room. From top notch public high schools in our city, they take more. But there are only 1 or 2 schools in the city like that.</p>

13

<p>

Careful. This sounds a wee bit like sour grapes, and it won’t help your D to hear that kind of attitude. Be proud of her admissions - they are GREAT, and she will have an awesome college career - without feeling the need to denigrate others who got in, or the schools themselves. (BTW some in the East feel the ivies are prejudiced against people from the East because there are so many of them - Eastern sour grapes usually begins, “If I had lived out West or in South Dakota…” :slight_smile: )</p>

14

<p>Exactly, Veronwe. My northeastern pals are always telling me how “easy” it will be for my kids to get into a good northern college because we’re southeasterners now…yea right!..Irony is, I doubt they’ll want to go up north because of the weather!</p>