<p>The one thing that holds true for pretty much any college is that if you collect enough gentlemen’s D’s you will be placed on academic probation or eventually dismissed. I know at my D’s school, if you get 1 D in a term regardless to what your overall GPA places you at risk where</p>
<p>The action is recorded in the student’s file in the Office of the Dean of the College but not on academic records or transcripts </p>
<p>A notification letter may be sent to parents </p>
<p>Students on Risk may not elect the Non-Recording Option during the next term in residence </p>
<p>2 D’s in any term will place you on warning</p>
<p>A combination of a D and an E (failing grade) will get you on probation</p>
<p>Never heard of gentlemen’s Ds; Cs. yes, and that was before grade inflation.</p>
<p>Every D has to be reported at Harvard, and the powers-that-be get to work on that student. I believe there are policies in place similar to what Sybbie describes for Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I took some undergrad stats at a very good school, CMU, and few years ago. My impression was consistent with my undergrad years. A third of the class wasn’t trying, a third was too dumb, and a third was competitive. </p>
<p>At Ivies there are what, 4 or 5 % that are too dumb. And half of the point of the admissions process is to make sure that one gets kids with passion, kids that will latch onto something and “try.”</p>
<p>So I think that view(■■■■■)point has probably missed the mark again. I.e., if the worst part of the Ivies is rubbing shoulders with the Bushes and Gores …</p>
<p>I also don’t think there are nearly as many Al Gores and George Bush’s at the Ivy’s as there were 40 years ago. I graduated in 78, and while I’m sure there must have been slackers, I never met any.</p>
<p>“After 74 pages, the consensus is that there are no tangible benefits to attending the Ivies. Some have suggested that the caliber of students is higher at the Ivies and thus you’re more motivated to learn.
Actually, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.”</p>
<p>The vast majority of students who are admitted to Ivies are, at their very worst, still head and shoulders above the dull mediocrity prevalent among the masses.</p>
<p>Make fun of Bush and other “gentlemen” as much as you want, but all the money and privilege in the world is not sufficient to get someone elected President of the United States, unless you’re calling 50% of the American population complete dupes. If you are, then I guess we could make a strong argument that a student would be better off at an Ivy among the other 50%.</p>
[quote]
The vast majority of students who are admitted to Ivies are, at their very worst, still head and shoulders above the dull mediocrity prevalent among the masses.
[/qoute]</p>
<p>Ouch!! </p>
<p>But keep in mind that not evey student who is admitted to an ivy attends an ivy (not enough financial aid, full rides other places) so some of those students that are head and shoulders above the masses are attending schools at all levels including top 50, honors programs , tier 3, etc.</p>
<p>If approximately 2.75 million students graduate from high school each year, then 275,000 must be in the top 10%. The top 2% (usual definition of highly gifted) would include something like 55,000 students. They can’t all possibly attend an Ivy League school!!! By definition, there must be a large number of very talented students at less selective colleges. We finally decided that it was worth the financial struggle to send our son to Dartmouth. Would he have been a different student if he had attended a less selective college for financial reasons? I am happy that he is having a good experience at his chosen school. But if he comes home spouting anything like
<p>“The vast majority of students who are admitted to Ivies are, at their very worst, still head and shoulders above the dull mediocrity prevalent among the masses.”</p>
<p>Just replying in the same vein as viewpoint, who would, on the contrary, have us believe that Ivy students are the dissolute wealthy skating through schools taking bobo classes and whiling away their days in a self-indulgent stupor.</p>
<p>The masses? of what? I am used to reading about the mases in terms of Communist countries. Still, by definition most college students are head and shoulders above the masses in the US. </p>
<p>Or is GFG talking about the masses of students at Swarthmore, Williams, Chicago, Reed, Pomona, Wesleyan? </p>
<p>viewpoint, as a follower of meeting strategy, what you are doing is termed coopting. You are defining a consensus that does not and never did exist. You are simply restating your opinion.</p>
<p>You can make as many arguments as you want that there are no lifetime benefits to attending an Ivy school. There very well may not be. In 74 pages we have covered every possible benefit and disadvantage, and have concluded that the degree to which it is worth the expense will depend on various factors which include, but are not limited to, the personal qualities and motivations of the individual student, as well as variable circumstances such as chosen major and region of the country in which employment is sought. </p>
<p>But when a poster implies that Ivy students are slackers breezing through idiot-proof classes, then this discussion has devolved into absurdity.</p>
<p>Finally, I believe most of the emotion in this debate is stemming from the fact that people are wrongly assuming that when we discuss achievement differences we are implying that higher achieving students are fundamentally better PEOPLE. Of course that’s not the case. Achievement implies nothing about the important intangibles we value such as love, compassion, kindness, loyalty, service to others, emotional intelligence, and much more. But let’s not be obtuse about it either. Students at Ivies and other elite schools ARE, by and large, high achievers. To suggest otherwise is silly.</p>
<p>Nobody is saying that the vast majority of students at Ivies are slackers. I know my S is not a slacker. I also know that some of his friends who are every bit as good as he is are not attending Ivies.
Lets’ face it, the US higher education system is not made up of Ivies and the rest. There is a continuum. All the Ivies are excellent, and each is different; but there are many other excellent schools that do not belong to the Ivy League. And to describe them as dens of “dull mediocrity” is to betray a fundamental ignorance.</p>
<p>I object to the suggestion that the vast majority of students at Ivies are better than the “dull mediocrity” to be found among the “masses.” Are we talking about Chicago, where academics like to send their own kids? Williams, Swarthmore, Reed? Are the students there “mediocre?”</p>
<p>As for lifetime benefits, what do we mean by that? The benefit of a great education? Yes, of course, but such an education can be acquired at non-Ivies. The benefit of rubbing shoulders with people who can help you in your career? It depends what career you want.
It depends as well what personality you have.</p>
<p>I know someone who got a degree with honors from Harvard who decided to become a carpenter. He is a great carpenter–I’ve seen some of the furniture he’s built-- but he could have become as good or perhaps even better carpenter by attending the North Bennett Street School, a vocational school in Boston that turns out spectacular carpenters (and I can’t afford some of their prices).</p>
<p>And I speak with someone with an Ivy degree and with a kid at an Ivy.</p>
<p>“Screw Harvard; I wish my kid had that kind of talent.”</p>
<p>Is that true? Be honest. How many of us would have a heart attack if our excellent, college prep track students came home and said, “Screw that acceptance to Harvard. I’m going to carpentry school!” </p>
<p>The thing is, you can’t tell in advance for <em>anyone</em> whether talent will translate into a career. That goes for the Harvard student studying government and the North Bennett Street School kid studying carpentry. I think it is wonderful that Marite’s friend was great at both academics and woodworking. But do you think he wishes he had never gone to Harvard? Do you think his education has no value because he chose an atypical career path for a Harvard grad?</p>
<p>BTW, that a Harvard grad could become a successful carpenter shows that perhaps Harvard DOES choose well-rounded, multi-talented individuals.</p>
<p>O yes. My kid has always been an artsy type hence the film school. Had he the kind of talent shown by the woodworkers, I would have been thrilled. I still would have said screw Harvard, but I probably would have been happy for him to go to a school like the Rochester Institute of Technology, which specializes in training artisans in a college setting.</p>
<p>From the recent students and friends of mine who have attended Ivies, it seems to have changed a lot from what it used to be, especially as pictured by some on this board.
Now:
It is a lot harder to just skate through these days, taking easy classes. It is of course a lot harder to get in because of the increasing number of qualified applicants. There is definitely grade inflation…some have told me that no one gets lower than a B-, because the profs realize that these students will be disadvantaged when applying to grad school. Attending an Ivy is kind of like having weighted grades and taking honors classes. It’s not a rich kids’ country club anymore, because of need-blind admissions. Certainly there are exceptions: if you are on the first boat of the rowing team that consistently wins the New England Championship, you’re going to get into an Ivy league school; if your parents gave a library to the school, you are going to get in (if you’ve heard of anecdotes to counter this, they are the exceptions that prove the rule of those “development cases”). But by and large, the schools are more selective, and the quality of the education, if not the integrity of the grades received, is better than it used to be; the result of competition for admissions, competition for faculty spots, etc. And there is a more diverse student body, in terms of background, but especially in terms of the various strengths of the applicants.
Sybbie makes a great point. I am one of those who, though admitted to 3 Ivies and another great small liberal-arts school, decided to go to a large state school for what I consider very rational reasons. Not going to an Ivy has in no way hindered me, and that’s something that many college applicants (especially the ones that feel “rejected” by Ivies really need to hear. I met many at my large state school who made the same decision for various reasons. I had a high school friend who was debating between UPENN, Stanford, and Deep Springs. But I have to say that almost all the students at my high school who were admitted to Ivies (there were many) went without hesitation, and many others transferred there after a semester.
Anyone ever hear of Deep Springs?</p>