<p>Please look at your very first post. You seem to lose track of what you were saying. You were telling us the Ivies were in “disadvantage” because other schools use merit-aids. So considering this, you were telling us Ivies are even more impressive. As I said earlier, you failed to realize Ivies offer better FA on average; this average is spread across the entire student body (see stats from Hawkette) whereas merit-aid only affects small % of students who get it. This advantage Ivies have is way more than enough to offset any disadvantage from not offering merit-aid as far as how finances affect the yield goes. I believe this is the THIRD time I explain this to you. Other posters seconded what I said but you seem to have trouble understanding this for some reason.</p>
<p>You argue that the Ivy League is superior because they have more alumni represented in Who’s Who. First, even if this were a valid criteria remember you are arguing that the whole of the Ivy League is superior to everyone other than Stanford and MIT. You, therefore, need to compare the data for the least represented Ivy League school with that of all the other schools not on your honored list. Second, remember many in Who’s Who are there for much the same reason that many people are in the Ivy League: their parents were there. Being an heir to a major fortune helps a lot in getting you onto either list. </p>
<p>You also completely missed the point on merit scholarships to top 20 institutions. The reason why receiving one of these awards is more prestigious than say getting into Brown, is it that they are merit based. Unlike admission to Brown (just an example) they are not awarded on the basis of race, wealth, financial-need, legacy status, or athletic ability. If I were an employer and knew nothing else about a candidate other than that they were admitted to Columbia, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, or Cornell on the one hand or were a merit scholarship winner at another top 20 school on the other, I would choose the merit scholarship winner in a heart beat.</p>
<p>By the way you don’t win an argument by simply repeating your opponents argument and saying they are wrong. You actually need to offer a better argument.</p>
<p>Further violations of the Terms of Service will result in infractions to specific posters and possibly to timeouts from posting at CC. Please keep your posts courteous, and discuss ideas rather than attacking individual posters.</p>
Well, it may be a relevant data point, just as the bestseller list tells you something about the books on it. And if you think, as I do, that prestige promotes quality and quality promotes prestige, perception of prestige may be a reasonable proxy for quality.</p>
<p>curious14 – while I think there are many, many advantages to being the child of a well educated parent in applying to competitive colleges, “legacy status” has almost zero effect.</p>
<p>Have a look at books written by adcoms. Look at posts on this site by adcoms (for ex. just from memory, do a search on all posts written by AdOfficer). Adcoms are by and large drawn to the social service aspect of elite college admissions. Finding, developing and encouraging under represented kids all over the country to aspire to, and wortk toward qualifying for elite college admissions. </p>
<p>If there were any bias in the system, it would be AGAINST legacy, snotty, entitled, rude kids of rich parents who think they can just put the app in (or pay their college counselor to do the whole thing) and have a better than 50/50 shot of getting into “daddy or mummy’s school”.</p>
<p>Legacy shoe-ins are probably less than 10 out of H’s incoming class of 1600 (I just love that numbe, don’t know why exactly). A less than 1% effect is not really worth writing or thinking about. Better to spend mummy and daddy’s money on an ex Olympic fencing instructor for private lessons, fly all over the world for competitions to hone your skills, and apply as a fencing athletic admit.</p>
<p>While your raw number maybe correct (and I have no reason to assume otherwise), the simple fact is that legacies do have a much higher chance of admissions to highly selective schools, something on the order of 2:1 or 3:1 over non-legatees. Of course, they must have the stats to be competitive for legacy to be of any advantage.</p>
<p>bluebayou… that is probably true – that is that children of parents who attended elite colleges have a higher probability of also gaining admission to elite colleges… but my point is that if their application made ZERO reference to legacy-dom, nothing would change. Their higher probability of admission is based on a number of factors – genetic intelligence, values about education instilled in the home, access to an above average k-12 educational environment, access to travel and other eye opening experiences, access and time to develop a sport, instrument, or other impressive EC that students who work after school cannot pursue, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t go that far. As an example, the Reginaldo Howard Memorial merit scholarship at Duke University is specifically reserved for students of African heritage. Hence, in the most extreme case, a wealthy and privileged black student might get to attend Duke on a full ride + stipend whereas a middle-class white or Asian student gets no aid at all. </p>
<p>Similarly, Rice University’s Trustee Diversity Scholarship is provided to “students whose diverse life experiences and contributions to diverse groups distinguish them within the pool of admitted applicants”, one highly reasonable interpretation being those of a certain racial group. Hence, a black student is likely to be able to demonstrate these diverse life experiences whereas an Asian or white student, probably not. </p>
<p>In other words, it seems to me that many merit scholarship programs at top 20 schools are subject to the same strictures of race-based affirmative action as are the admissions to the Ivies.</p>
<p>There are a number of “Diversity” scholarships out there, but they are by definition not “Merit” scholarships (except that they may be awarded based on academic merit within that restricted population). The merit scholarships that I am refering to explicitly state that neither race, nor financial need, nor athletic ability are factors in awarding the scholarship. With that caveat I stand by my earlier statement. I would also exclude from my list of high prestige merit scholarships those that are geographically restricted for the same reason.</p>
<p>I wish i could remember the source but in a previous debate on the legacy issue someone provided a source that quatified the impact of legacy status as the equivalent of about 50 points on the 1600 point SAT scale. While this is nowhere near as large as the URM or recruited athlete preferences which run about 200 points on the same scale, it is not nothing. It is also hard to imagine why colleges and universites would put up with the flack generated by giving legacy preferences if they were infact trivial. And “Development” preferences, given for truly signigicant contributions to the university can be as significant as the the donation.</p>
<p>Davida1 sought to point out that when you look at college choice from the vantage point of yield and how various forms of financial aid play into it, these issues seem somehow to be rather elusive and somewhat sinister. That what you see from this vantage point seems sinister is a reflection of the fact that we haven’t come to terms with these issues. There is, however, nothing sinister about Davida1 nor the distinctions which are required to make sense of his highly interesting and important issue. They may not be grist for the mills many posters are used to turning, but, so much the better for us all.</p>
<p>Too true. There is a reason you see Penn mentioned more in the Yale Daily News than the arguably comparable Duke and Northwestern Universities, and Dartmouth more than Williams and Amherst (and no I’m not referring to the Sports section).</p>
<p>While I will agree that the Ivy League started out as a simple college athletic conference, it has become much more than that–and I don’t mean in the “united in excellence” marketing BS–I am referring to the organic development of a group identity, of Ivy Leaguers (to wit: IvyGate, the Ivy Council, the very fact that CC has an “Ivy League” section here in the forums). Yes, the identity to one’s own college will always be stronger than that of the Ivy League writ large, but it’s still there.</p>
<p>Hawkette would be right to argue that this is neither fair nor is it rational. However, she would be wrong to argue that it does not exist, and wrong to argue that it does not give the “lower Ivies” (the poor things) a social advantage over schools that are otherwise comparable.</p>
<p>Hawkette of course would also be right to argue that outside of the CC pressure cooker, it really doesn’t matter. :)</p>
<p>This to me is the great, underreported benefit of ED programs. They ensure the school is filled with students who are not thinking “if only I had gotten into Yale” but rather “I’m so happy I got into Penn/Brown/Duke/Emory/etc!”</p>
Those are pretty bad examples, dude. Brown and Dartmouth are known for being fantastic places for undergrad research, and Columbia biomed is near the top of its field and engineering is no slouch either.</p>
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<p>Actually, it seems the biggest undergraduate feeder for Harvard graduate schools is…Harvard College. But in general, going to the same institution for undergrad and grad is usually frowned upon in elite circles as [Intellectual</a> inbreeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_inbreeding]Intellectual”>Intellectual inbreeding - Wikipedia) Moreover there is a selection bias in that people who attend an Amherst, Swarthmore, etc are more likely to have a graduate school plan in mind whereas students of universities are relatively more predisposed to going directly into the workforce.</p>
<p>I would disagree. Caltech, yes, but only in its specific niche. Duke is arguably an equal of “lower Ivies” but definitely not an institution that can “certainly outcompete” as cross-admit yield data suggest it does not.</p>
<p>This is true. As Fareed Zakaria said, the sheer abundance of world-dominating universities in America is one of America’s greatest strengths, and something for which we should all be thankful. I may hate Princeton, but I would never wish harm upon it as an institution because I recognize it is a national treasure that no amount of Saudi petrodollars or Chinese Communist Party diktats can create. Same goes for the “lower Ivies”, WUSTL, Stanford, Duke, MIT, etc. Thank God America has them all.</p>
<p>Actually, the atomic bomb project was started at Columbia (hence the codename “Manhattan Project”). There are still some (slightly radioactive) cyclotrons underneath the campus.</p>
<p>And while we’re at WWII inventions, the first computer was built at Harvard or Penn, depending on whether you count the Harvard Mark I or ENIAC as a computer.</p>
<p>The best part about being an Ivy graduate is that you will never have to look for a parking place again. Parking attendants just see that Harvard or Columbia sticker on your car and always find a place for you. Any valet lot will make space at no charge since a car with an Ivy sticker upgades the entire lot and is good for business.
Also Dartmouth grads are known to have best Ivy scam of all-you don’t have to pay taxes if you get one of their diplomas-just ask Tim Geithner. The fact that a lot of people will get this far in the thread not knowing that I am being completely and probaby irritatingly tongue and cheek and facetious demonstates the value of the degree as much as anything else.</p>