@preppedparent I’m curious. What is s a “lower Ivy”? Is this some new CC designation? Brown is insanely popular with a very low admit rate, though Columbia is known as probably the most “intellectual” of the Ivies. And the percentage of applicants accepted isn’t actually an indicator of selectiveness since you have no idea what the applicant pool looks like, especially the non-quantitative aspects of candidates which figure massively at highly competitive colleges.
What always intrigues about the suggestion that “college X is better than Ivy Y” is that the comparison is still being made. If they were better, why make the comparison? I’ve yet to hear anyone at Harvard say, “were just as good as [College X]”.
lower ivy refers to those with “less than” reputation for those who like me have been around for more than half a century. For instance in 1978 when JFK Jr got admitted to Brown (same year as me), the headlines of the Globe read “JFK Jr. GETS INTO DOORMAT OF IVY LEAGUE”. Yes, that’s what it read. So yeh, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, and even beloved Brown did not have the same recognition of HYPS. Schools like Berkeley and UCLA and others have often been seen as harder to get into than some of these. However, to your point, reputations change and there is no need to compare. Ivies also don’t necessary imply “the best.” Not every ivy is better than all the rest. I went to Cornell because I got to study with a Nobel Prize winner in my field. Looking back, I still would not have given that up because Yale had a better reputation. It’s hard to believe that Brown once had the reputation of the doormat, when now it seems to have so many people believing its Brown or bust.
haha UCLA and Berkeley are not harder to get in to than any of the ivies and at my California public high school getting into any ivy is seen as a much bigger feat than getting into any UC.
“Lower Ivies” probably means lower name recognition internationally, aka whether the college could pass the “a grandma in China has heard of it” test :))
It sure it. Its much easier to get into Cornell or Penn from California than to get into Cal or UCLA. UCLA had over 100,000 applications each year in the last few years. I know many kids who couldn;t get into Cal who are going to Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Brown.
@preppedparent I believe Cornell and Penn are more difficult than Cal and UCLA from California. Here are last year’s stats from Naviance at our medium-large California public along with my son’s results from last year.
Cornell: 18 applied, 1 accepted. Son waitlisted for physics.
Penn: 18 applied, 1 accepted. Son didn’t apply.
Berkeley: 92 applied, 27 accepted. Son admitted L&S (physics) with Regents.
UCLA: 102 applied, 18 accepted. Son admitted L&S (physics). Offered application to Alumni Scholarship, didn’t apply.
I think it’s possible that private schools have lower admit rates to the UCs than publics.
Of course, it depends on the major and whether the student is strong in GPA vs other areas. If they applied to EECS at Cal or engineering at UCLA, that is a lot more selective.
Private schools have lower admit rates to UCs cause less private school kids apply to public schools. That was a point made at a college planning meeting at our HS. Very few from our CA HS applied to UCs.
Re: the FAFSA mispronunciation (FASFA) and other common mispronunciations that can drive one crazy, I give you:
“Chipotle” being rendered “chipoLTe”.
The T clearly comes before the L, and it is also correctly voiced before the L, but that doesn’t stop people from mucking it up. My wife does it just to get my goat.
She also uses “alumni” to describe one person. Drives me crazy all 5-10 times I hear her say it annually.
My MIL from El Paso pronounces all Spanish words correctly and dislikes the way most city and street names are pronounced in California. So, that covers a lot of college names.
I really hate all of the “Lower Ivy”, “Hidden Ivy”, “Little Ivy” stuff. The good and bad is that a school like Harvard will never have to say “we’re as good as…” because of it’s reputation. I’m sure you get a fine education there too, LOL. However there are schools that are just as good as the Ivies and in some cases better - based on major or a student’s likes and needs. But Harvard will always be Harvard and Yale will always be Yale. They will always carry weight. Any school that infers Ivy status or compares itself to an Ivy is wasting time. Schools should be celebrated for their own strengths. It was refreshing to read here that there were kids who just didn’t like Harvard or Princeton and weren’t interested in applying. Seems to me those kids have already figured things out and know themselves, they’ll be successful regardless. For every kid that got into an Ivy and chose to attend, there are 100 equally (or more) qualified rocking it at a none Ivy.
On a tour of Stanford, a mom asked something about how Stanford compares to the “other Ivys.” Tour guide seemed a bit offended and said “We’re in the Pac-12 and have won the NCAA Division I Director’s Cup about 20 years in a row.”
All the WUSTL the discussion a few pages back reminded me of D’s assessment of their pre-tour presentation a couple of years ago: “Reminded me of Sheldon and Amy doing ‘Fun with Flags’ on ‘Big Bang Theory.’” I’m hoping that’s no longer the case.
Nope, here are some niche rankings for you. Anecdotally, I can also attest that I have many friends that have already gotten reagents from UCB as well as many other UCs; it is simply not as hard as you seem to think. Yes it is true that UCLA has had over 100,000 applicants but it takes so many students because it is such a big school that it would need to be much more to reflect the selectivity of the Ivies as indicated by UCLAs acceptance rate being 18% as compared to the ivy with the highest acceptance rate (Cornell) having an acceptance rate of 14%.
Berkeley -33
UCLA-41
All the other the UCs
Harvard-1
Princeton-6
Yale-3
UPenn-11
Dartmouth-13
Columbia- 8
Brown-10
Cornell-22
Many, many kids we know apply to Cornell because it is in the “Ivy League.” (A sports conference…) and they think they might have a chance at acceptance.
They have never seen it, they don’t realize how large, cold and remote it is, they just want the bragging rights-really.
I have been through this process several times with my kids and their friends. I kind of feel bad for the CA kids who ED there before visiting. Three that we know of have transferred after one year.
