Sigh, 1999?
I read this a lot hear, and I don’t think it’s entirely true. I think there are some kids whose primary criterion for college is that they want to be surrounded by the most high-performing peers as possible. I think many such kids would be happy at any of the Ivies, as well as a number of other excellent schools. My kids were like this–although I admit that they didn’t apply to all of the Ivies, only six of them–Cornell and Dartmouth were the outliers, as I suspect they are for others as well. I would add that although I think fit is pretty important, there are some flexible kids who will fit in just about anywhere. (One of my kids was like this; the other less so.)
My kids applied to many of the top 20 since as full pays with no alum attachments, it didn’t matter where they went if they could get in. After that UT was just fine as a choice. For whatever reason, brother Hunt channelled into our family and got us to omit exactly the same two Ivies.
The two most remote.
Hunt’s right, some kids are that flexible. It’s something we don’t admit much, on CC, since most kids (and some parents) are openly citing the prestige.
The kid who flunked out of Wes, btw, Migizi Pensoneau, is cited by Steinberg as doing petty well for himself, a writer and producer. Also, I believe, writes for HuffPo. Try to remember the application is a snapshot. Kids can be ready and then stumble. Or choose the environment that doesn’t work for them.
Honestly, there were probably 50 or more colleges that would have perfectly good fits for my son. We did find that there was a practical limit to how many applications a kid could fill out appropriately, especially if they had different supplemental essays.
@Hunt I agree completely. I went to Brown. I cannot see myself going to Cornell or Penn because of their size or Columbia with its Core. The Ivies are very different from each other.
As for admission being predictable, I got into 3 Ivies and rejected by USC and Georgetown.
My son liked both Columbia and Brown. The issue of the Core vs. Brown’s open curriculum just didn’t matter to him.
@Hunt Many students feel that way. It’s a matter of personal choice (or perhaps it is until you take HUM at Columbia…)
My kid applied to Chicago and Brown. He liked the Core, but wasn’t wedded to it and figured he’d take courses at Brown that would cover that material. My older son applied to schools with 900 undergrades up to 7000. All he cared about was the strength in science in general and computer science in particular.
Engineering at Columbia has a much lighter core.
Regarding Columbia and Brown in terms of core or general education requirements, a student who likes or does not mind the Columbia core curriculum may still find Brown suitable, in that s/he would still be able to take similar courses as free electives at Brown. But not the other way around, since a student looking at Brown for the open curriculum would likely dislike the Columbia core curriculum.
In contrast, Brown’s open curriculum does not extend to ABET accredited engineering majors. ABET accreditation requires some humanities and social studies requirements, so Brown has those for engineering majors, though to a lesser extent than many other schools have.
If you like medium-sized colleges in cities, you don’t want to be at Cornell or Dartmouth. There’s also a Greek presence at both campuses that some people might find off-putting.
It does appear that the fraternity/sorority presence is much heavier at Dartmouth (about 2/3 of eligible students) than at Cornell (about 1/3).
Yes. And it also matters that Dartmouth is a smaller campus. Even if the Greek presence at Cornell was as high percentage-wise as it is at Dartmouth, there would still be thousands of non-Greeks for you to socialize with, if that’s your preference.
My daughter and I are both Cornell graduates. Neither of us ever set foot in a Greek house or ever wanted to. And neither of us was isolated or friendless during our college years.
Sorry to butt in to this very interesting forum.
I do not want to sound ungrateful at all.
My son got into Cornell ED to study Econ and government.
I sometimes feel he could have aimed even higher.
He had a 34 ACT first try.12 AP courses
State level in Econ and interview and Math in Academic decathlon.
National level in DECA.
Captain tennis varsity.
A best ever letter from his APUSH and political debate teacher who said he had never seen a more passionate or involved student and felt that he would make the world a better place.
A blog about Economics and Econ related books that he has written since 6 th grade. Econ interest topics only started in high school of course.
The only caveat that my husband and I had was that he had a GPA between 3.6 and 3.7 in junior year partly due to some distraction and intense course rigor and also being of Indian origin that we felt his best chance to get into an Ivy was ED Cornell.He did not care too much for Brown Econ or Darthmouth because of the Greek scene.
I guess I am just looking for reassurance of some kind as I keep thinking we may have shortchanged him,
^ You may need your own thread, where you can bemoan not aiming higher than one of the top schools in the country.
@Mothersv There is nothing shortchanged about getting accepted to Cornell! It is a very prestigious and rigorous school -he will have his hands full with the academic competition there esp w only a 34 and 3.6 3.7 GPA … not that those are low but many kids in ivy and Cornell have perfect scores and 4.0 gpa’s w 12 Aps…
“My son got into Cornell ED to study Econ and government.
I sometimes feel he could have aimed even higher.”
Oh, gag. What part of “Cornell is one of the best universities in the land” isn’t clear? There IS no higher.
This is like having your kid make the Olympics team and then being “sad” he didn’t win the gold. Still better than 99.99% of the population.
The very fact that you saw college admissions as “the best way to get him into an Ivy” says that you were under some mistaken impression that Ivies are more prestigious than other schools, or have some magic dust that other schools don’t. Maybe that’s what your friends in India think, but that’s not how the US works, at all. At the elite level at which your son got in, there just really aren’t major differences.
With that GPA in junior year, I can’t see anyone in top 30 admitting him since it was a downward trend when it mattered just before application season.
@Hunt – I agree with your analysis – I can see a lot of kids being genuinely enthusiastic about most of the Ivy League schools – six out of eight sounds about right for a lot of kids. It just seemed unlikely that there wouldn’t be at least one where the fit wasn’t right (and plenty of alternatives in the non-Ivy, but meet-full-need, selective schools – I understand casting a wide net – my kid will probably apply to 8 reach schools, but I’m not sure if any of them will be Ivys). I’m mostly reacting to all of the kids who talk about getting into “an Ivy” who obviously know next to nothing about any of them, but say they plan to apply to all of them.
@Mothersv – look at some of the threads in which the kid ended up waitlisted at his/her first choice and either the kid or the parent believes they would have gotten in ED (and some of them are probably right). Who knows, you may have made the very best decision for your son.