Read urban dictionary and they say that all that gets talked about on cc are the ivies!
Not only is this a self selected group focused on education, but many parents here have themselves, or their siblings have attended ivies. Parents are certainly supportive of ivies. But many parents here also believe in an academic, social or financial fit, and when some posters post the “I am going to apply to the top 10 schools or all the ivies” without any rhyme or reason other than that they are the top 10 schools or ivies, it does make some parents question if a student who would love Columbia would also love Cornell. Very different environments.
And that is why most often you will see recommendations out here that students visit colleges, read up on the academics and campus life, read the school newspaper, talk to students who are there, attend a class, and re-visit for accepted student weekends once they know their top choices. Any student or parent who says they want “any Ivy”, which happens all the time on CC forums, has done no homework and is just looking for prestige. The Ivies are quite different from each other, and I doubt there are many students who would be happy with all of them. I have no problem with anyone who has a few Ivies on their list that they think are a good fit as long as they have match and safety schools as well that they have also researched and would be okay attending. I also have no problem with students who think none of the Ivies are their best fit, and have none on their list even if they are high stats kids.
Between Columbia and Cornell, I think DS may prefer Columbia to Cornell, purely because Columbia is much more accessible if he needs to fly to/from the city where the school is at.
Between Brown and Columbia, I think DS may prefer Brown to Columbia, even though the airport to Columbia is more accessible. This is because the core course curriculum could be too inflexible for his taste, and Brown’s open curriculum seems to be quite attractive. He also likely does not like a large city; he likes a somewhat medium to small city like Providence.
Dartmouth is too “far north” and could be too cold and no nearby mid-sized city. UPenn is fine location-wise and it is very accessible. But somehow he would think it could be more pre-professional, e.g., its Wharton School and its excellent graduate/professional schools somehow give him this impression.
He has never warmed up to Harvard for some unknown reason (being young and immature thus too “intimidating”?) Yale is in a mid-sized city which he would like and the campus is tight and very walkable. Several people he knew were there so he knew much about it for many years.
Among the few top LACs, he likely prefers both Pomona, Mckenzie and Swarthmore and maybe Haverford. Amherst is fine but a little bit too far from a at least mid-sized city. Williams College is definitely too rural for him and he is not an outdoor-y person (even though that college itself could be good.)
Just some random thoughts about these Ivies and a few LACs. I guess there were a lot of biases in this VERY subjective opinion.
Oops, I even forgot about Princeton completely. It is a nice school but for many years before DS applied, that school had rarely “loved” the students from his high school. So this one was never in his radar screen for this reason alone. (Was that “famous” admission dean, Faragon(sp), still there during DS’s application cycle? If yes, DS did not think he would be his “type”. DS knows a student from his high school who was selected by this admission dean. He knew he would unlikely be his “type” - at least in those years.
Well… I did mention the possibility earlier in the thread that the kid may be rebelling in general against tight control by his parents. We didn’t really talk about it more, but I still think that could very well be at the root of his position on this.
"I would like my son (and so would he) to go to an Ivy (or one of a few other highly selective schools). I would like to ask parents with kids in such schools what they think got their kids in. But I am afraid to ask that question as I am afraid I will immediately get several very rude responses as to why my goal is typical of someone who just fell off the turnip truck.
My reasons (and that of my son) for college preference are personal and not up for debate, nor would I ask for opinion on such from anyone. I would also never imply that life is horrible outside of my preferred list of colleges. Yet I am afraid to ask my question, as there is a strong anti-Ivy bias in the Parents forum."
Plenty of people have sought advice in the PF re how to help their kids get into top schools, myself included. It’s all in the framing. If you indicate interest towards a balanced list (and for a kid interested in the most selective, I’d say a list of schools sprinkled through the top 40 or so is appropriate), you won’t get any pushback at all. If you indicate that “the goal” is a very small set of schools and no others will do, and you just won’t hear of anyone who tries to add Tufts or whatever to your list because It’s Not An Ivy, of course you’ll get pushback. As you should.
What possible reason could you possibly have for only wanting the Ivies plus MIT plus Stanford OTHER than prestige, when they are all so different?
@xiggi I really was more replying to @gingeroo when I was praising their knowing themselves and what kind of school was a fit for them. The son of the OP I agree is early in the process and it will evolve much as @greatkids and yours and most of the other folks here-including even in this house. I agree it is not wise to rule anything out when starting the search. There are many factors that aren’t even at the point where you can make a realistic list in the beginning-at least that was the experience here. The GPA was pretty much known and the type of student but SATs where not known at the beginning with my children. I have now gone through this twice and that is a very important variable indeed.
I do not have an anti-Ivy bias at all. I would have been thrilled if my son got into his dream school Harvard. He didn’t-but I have nothing but respect for those schools and all the elites. I don’t worship them though. My father and his entire family were all Ivy educated. It never seemed like any big deal really. They all had varying degrees of success in life and they were very well rounded people but I never felt nor were we made to feel like it was something we had to aspire to. It just was. Is it possible to just be neutral on this subject-I feel neutral. They are great schools but there are lots of great schools in this country. They don’t even have to be elite to be great schools. I hope my children went or will go to places where they can continue to learn and grow and become the people they would like to be. Will they ever know for sure if it was the right choice? How would they ever be able to know that? I think they would know if it wasn’t the right choice and if so they can transfer. I hope I have helped them to make the best choice for them at the time they made it-that is all any of us can really do in the end-at least that is how I see it.
I went back and read the post from the OP and their follow up post #184. The father seems like he has learned quickly from this thread and has had the good sense to get out in time!
@SanjayinSanJose do you have an update for us since that last post? I give you a lot of credit for listening to your son and coming on here and being willing to help him figure this all out-I like his chances!
@jym626, I meant Claremont McKenna College – one of the original 5 Claremont Colleges.
In retrospect, we found that for the choices of colleges, we definitely paid quite a bit of attention to what the students would do out of the class room. For example, he would unlikely be comfortable in a country side living environment. (This is because he has always been a city, albeit not a large city, person.) We seem to have paid attention to the accessibility (via air travel) of the location of the college to some extent too because we guess he might want to fly back home frequently (This turns out to be true – he flied back home almost every break, which we appreciate very much.)
We rarely paid attention to the ranking of the “majors” – which we consider as being more related to the quality of the graduate programs rather than the quality of the undergraduate programs. DS did not know what to major in anyway. Also, the ranking of the majors reflects more on what the professors/PIs and the graduate students or career postdoc researchers in their lab do, not what the undergraduate students do in or out of classrooms. The undergraduate students at many places learn the similar kind of materials anyway but the caliber of the students could still be important so that the professors may not lower the academic rigor too much. (not a big fan of an extreme academic rigor either - the college experience is supposedly more than the academic and classroom experience only. So schools like Harvey Mudd, CalTech and Reed are out.) Stanford could be better for its grad program than its undergraduate one – The large sizes of many of its graduate programs could be a “turn-off” for the UG students if they ever want to be a part of some research group headed by some high power PI whose attention is more likely on those graduate students who are more “useful” to them. and likely there are too many Asian American students there - not good for the admission purpose because DS is one of them. (How could we not think of this positive one: He might have a better chance to meet a future SO there? A mistake here. LOL.) In particular, he is unlikely interested in most engineering fields so the perceived strength in Stanford engineering is not relevant (its strength is mostly related to the graduate program anyway. – DS has never dreamed of following my step (maybe I have never been a good role model LOL.)
^ I do not know. There could be some new programs added in that area recently, but they are likely graduate level programs only though. Hmmm…Is Scripps a women college still or a co-ed one already?
The 5 Claremont colleges are still the 5 Claremont colleges. Even if there are some program changes, the 5 college consortium for undergrads has remained unchanged.
It seems each of the 5Cs tend to have its own characteristics to some extent (I could not remember the special characteristics of Pitzer though (the smallest among the 5?)
Yes, they are all slightly different, which is the beauty of the schools. But thats off topic. The OP’s son sounds like he has a good plan. Kudos to him.
For some reason, whenever I think of those 5Cs, I think of Rice. Maybe it is because airbarr (sp?) was at Rice and her brother was at Harvey Mudd? Or, it is because Rice is divided into several Residential Colleges?
I wrote: "My reasons (and that of my son) for college preference are personal and not up for debate, nor would I ask for opinion on such from anyone. "
@Pizzagirl wrote: "If you indicate interest towards a balanced list (and for a kid interested in the most selective, I’d say a list of schools sprinkled through the top 40 or so is appropriate), you won’t get any pushback at all. If you indicate that “the goal” is a very small set of schools and no others will do, and you just won’t hear of anyone who tries to add Tufts or whatever to your list because It’s Not An Ivy, of course you’ll get pushback. As you should.
What possible reason could you possibly have for only wanting the Ivies plus MIT plus Stanford OTHER than prestige, when they are all so different?"
@Mcat2: Thanks for your posts. It was very helpful. I will soon post a thread with my questions in the hope that more people like you will respond.
