Discussion on abysmal APS college results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Guess you've never heard of public service. It's telling when someone thinks money is the only measure of value or worth. I guess there is value to sending kids to Ivies if they don't learn this at state schools.

+1

It’s not all about the ROI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear all of this but I do not buy it because your children will not attend an Ivy, the numbers prove it. And so I see a lot of justifying for what the realistic options are for your kids. I believe all of you would make it happen for your child if that child could actually get in. I do not believe in Arlington there are swaths of kids who would likely get into Harvard/Stanford/Yale/Princeton but who aren’t even applying due to the cost.

I think your posts are rationalization of your situation.

Not saying my kid would or wouldn’t get in. Kid has SAT scores and grades and ECs to put them in the “has a shot” category. Odds are against anyone getting in. But my kid won’t be applying because, what is the point? We were not get aid, with the possible exception of Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Yep! The prestige and benefits are short-lived.

I will say that my ivy league undergrad ed gave me an advantage several times in my life -- getting a job after college; getting into law school after working for several years out of undergrad; and then getting back into the work force after being a lawyer several years then taking time off with the kids. I am not good at building relationships with people who might give me a job in the future and this was useful for me instead; it really did help.

I think you can get the same (or better) advantage from an Ivy League grad school though. I went to a top 3 law school, and there were more students coming from state schools and lower ranked liberal arts colleges in my law school class than there were from Ivy League undergrads. And many of those students were entering law school with a lot less student loan debt. If you have to fund a $90k/yr undergrad with all student loans, it does leave you saddled with a lot of debt for a long time, especially if you then load grad school debt on top of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you basing your conclusion that APS has poor college placement on? Source?

NP. I think it’s this morning’s ARLnow article that said the APS ivy league results were dismal. Only one Harvard acceptance over a multi-year period. I don’t know how that compares to Evanston HS where OP went, but ARLnow was trying to make a story out of it.

As an ETHS grad, I find this hilarious (and I’m sure the NTHS grad OP is horrified). The demographics in Evanston are much closer to those in Arlington than the New Trier demographics. The NT district is notoriously white and wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are you basing your conclusion that APS has poor college placement on? Source?

NP. I think it’s this morning’s ARLnow article that said the APS ivy league results were dismal. Only one Harvard acceptance over a multi-year period. I don’t know how that compares to Evanston HS where OP went, but ARLnow was trying to make a story out of it.

As an ETHS grad, I find this hilarious (and I’m sure the NTHS grad OP is horrified). The demographics in Evanston are much closer to those in Arlington than the New Trier demographics. The NT district is notoriously white and wealthy.

I was curious so I looked, and the online information I found was New Trier is 75% white and Niche has avg income at $250k. Yorktown is 62% and $230k. I think New Trier could be more like one Arlington and Evanston could be more like another Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

You are mistaken. My husband and I are ivy undergrad and ivy graduate school. But we live here because we chose careers in public service. Our degrees have certainly opened a lot of doors and given us flexibility to do what we love. But we think our kids can have the same success at an instate school (both of us came from parts of the country with poor to mediocre in state options). I find it telling that you judge the quality of a degree by how much money you earn.

The whole point of my post is that kids can be successful wherever they go. And, yes, not everyone defines success the same way. You working in public service doesn’t somehow make you more successful than some one doing a job they love with significant compensation. Your post comes off as a classic Ivy Leaguer, like you are somehow better because you went to Ivy and you are now doing so much good in the world!!! I am a state school booster. I think UVA and Tech are great. Surely you aren’t naïve enough to think that the posters on this thread saying that you are only happy with UVA because your kid can’t get into an Ivy believe that a low income from public sector work is the desired outcome of an Ivy education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Good for you. I’m the PP who posted that DH and I both have degrees from Ivies but wouldn’t/couldn’t pay current Ivy tuition for our 4 kids. Did it ever cross your mind that other peoples’ values might be different than yours??? DH is an attorney who represents low income clients addressing housing issues so no, he didn’t go to an Ivy (or law school) with the plan of striking it rich. And, since we did start saving for college before our first was even born, we probably could have afforded to pay for a couple of our kids to attend a college that cost $90K a year, we felt strongly that all 4 had to be treated relatively equally. I think 3 UVA graduates/students and a VT graduate now at UF vet school is pretty damn impressive and I wouldn’t trade it for your second home.

Your defensiveness caused you to miss the point I was making. Let’s try again. As I said in my post, “smart kids do well wherever they go.” I think it’s great that your kids went to in state schools. I loved my experience and it has served me well. Your over the top reaction (pretty defensive for being so content with your choices) looks like you really wanted to send them to an Ivy, but had to settle for in state. That’s the real difference between us - I don’t think that an Ivy League education makes you special. You don’t need to convince me that your kids are thriving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Yep! The prestige and benefits are short-lived.

I will say that my ivy league undergrad ed gave me an advantage several times in my life -- getting a job after college; getting into law school after working for several years out of undergrad; and then getting back into the work force after being a lawyer several years then taking time off with the kids. I am not good at building relationships with people who might give me a job in the future and this was useful for me instead; it really did help.

I think you can get the same (or better) advantage from an Ivy League grad school though. I went to a top 3 law school, and there were more students coming from state schools and lower ranked liberal arts colleges in my law school class than there were from Ivy League undergrads. And many of those students were entering law school with a lot less student loan debt. If you have to fund a $90k/yr undergrad with all student loans, it does leave you saddled with a lot of debt for a long time, especially if you then load grad school debt on top of it.

I think you are right for some grad schools — particularly law and med but wrong for others. ,lI am thinking of grad schools like education at Columbia or divinity at Yale or the accounting thing at Columbia. Great grad programs for sure but I don’t think you get the same value as say HLS. Business school is a bit on the fence for me. Clearly you can by helped by Harvard and Wharton but I’m not so convinced that business school at Columbia or Cornell gets you a whole lot more than Princeton undergrad. Bottom line: for me your post is true for some kids but for other kids undergrad still matters. There are other benefits of an undergrad ivy-like education which I would acknowledge but aren’t relevant to your post about cache.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

You are mistaken. My husband and I are ivy undergrad and ivy graduate school. But we live here because we chose careers in public service. Our degrees have certainly opened a lot of doors and given us flexibility to do what we love. But we think our kids can have the same success at an instate school (both of us came from parts of the country with poor to mediocre in state options). I find it telling that you judge the quality of a degree by how much money you earn.

The whole point of my post is that kids can be successful wherever they go. And, yes, not everyone defines success the same way. You working in public service doesn’t somehow make you more successful than some one doing a job they love with significant compensation. Your post comes off as a classic Ivy Leaguer, like you are somehow better because you went to Ivy and you are now doing so much good in the world!!! I am a state school booster. I think UVA and Tech are great. Surely you aren’t naïve enough to think that the posters on this thread saying that you are only happy with UVA because your kid can’t get into an Ivy believe that a low income from public sector work is the desired outcome of an Ivy education.

Do agree that smart kids can succeed anywhere. Don’t agree with much of anything else in your original post. Most of which you’ve conveniently omitted here. You claimed people’s ivy league degrees had diminished value because they didn’t make enough money to send all their kids to Ivy League. We pointed out that some people CHOOSE jobs that pay less than private sector because it is what they want to do. No one said we were better. We just said we didn’t judge the value of our degree by whether we could afford a second home. You clearly do. But suffice it to say that we have different views about what it means to be happy and successful and also different views about the value of a good education. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

[Anonymous]

My dentist went to Harvard undergrad. I've never understood why it is such a big deal. I'm sure he's smart and I know he makes a ton of money but I don't think there was any special sauce there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

You are mistaken. My husband and I are ivy undergrad and ivy graduate school. But we live here because we chose careers in public service. Our degrees have certainly opened a lot of doors and given us flexibility to do what we love. But we think our kids can have the same success at an instate school (both of us came from parts of the country with poor to mediocre in state options). I find it telling that you judge the quality of a degree by how much money you earn.

The whole point of my post is that kids can be successful wherever they go. And, yes, not everyone defines success the same way. You working in public service doesn’t somehow make you more successful than some one doing a job they love with significant compensation. Your post comes off as a classic Ivy Leaguer, like you are somehow better because you went to Ivy and you are now doing so much good in the world!!! I am a state school booster. I think UVA and Tech are great. Surely you aren’t naïve enough to think that the posters on this thread saying that you are only happy with UVA because your kid can’t get into an Ivy believe that a low income from public sector work is the desired outcome of an Ivy education.

Do agree that smart kids can succeed anywhere. Don’t agree with much of anything else in your original post. Most of which you’ve conveniently omitted here. You claimed people’s ivy league degrees had diminished value because they didn’t make enough money to send all their kids to Ivy League. We pointed out that some people CHOOSE jobs that pay less than private sector because it is what they want to do. No one said we were better. We just said we didn’t judge the value of our degree by whether we could afford a second home. You clearly do. But suffice it to say that we have different views about what it means to be happy and successful and also different views about the value of a good education. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

+1

I actually don't judge the value of my Ivy degree by the outcome at all, whether it be prestigious public service or high income. It was most valuable to me because of the education I received there and the experience I had, which was not just the professors/classes, but was also due to the amazing peer group I was with. I think you can get a great education and outcomes at lots of other colleges, but I still appreciate the experience that I had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Unless you went into a very lucrative field, or did an incredible job of saving for tuition, the massive increase in tuition costs has put the Ivies out of reach for most Ivy League grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

You are mistaken. My husband and I are ivy undergrad and ivy graduate school. But we live here because we chose careers in public service. Our degrees have certainly opened a lot of doors and given us flexibility to do what we love. But we think our kids can have the same success at an instate school (both of us came from parts of the country with poor to mediocre in state options). I find it telling that you judge the quality of a degree by how much money you earn.

The whole point of my post is that kids can be successful wherever they go. And, yes, not everyone defines success the same way. You working in public service doesn’t somehow make you more successful than some one doing a job they love with significant compensation. Your post comes off as a classic Ivy Leaguer, like you are somehow better because you went to Ivy and you are now doing so much good in the world!!! I am a state school booster. I think UVA and Tech are great. Surely you aren’t naïve enough to think that the posters on this thread saying that you are only happy with UVA because your kid can’t get into an Ivy believe that a low income from public sector work is the desired outcome of an Ivy education.

Do agree that smart kids can succeed anywhere. Don’t agree with much of anything else in your original post. Most of which you’ve conveniently omitted here. You claimed people’s ivy league degrees had diminished value because they didn’t make enough money to send all their kids to Ivy League. We pointed out that some people CHOOSE jobs that pay less than private sector because it is what they want to do. No one said we were better. We just said we didn’t judge the value of our degree by whether we could afford a second home. You clearly do. But suffice it to say that we have different views about what it means to be happy and successful and also different views about the value of a good education. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear all of this but I do not buy it because your children will not attend an Ivy, the numbers prove it. And so I see a lot of justifying for what the realistic options are for your kids. I believe all of you would make it happen for your child if that child could actually get in. I do not believe in Arlington there are swaths of kids who would likely get into Harvard/Stanford/Yale/Princeton but who aren’t even applying due to the cost.

I think your posts are rationalization of your situation.

+1
Maybe they don't want their kids to risk rejection, and therefore tarnish their own self-image as successful, highly educated, wealthy parents....you know...in case Johnny's friend does get accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Arlington and I attended an Ivy. But the cost is too high now and I’ll encourage my kids to apply to state schools. I bet there are a lot of others in similar situations.

Same for me. I went to Yale but can’t afford an Ivy for my daughter. She can go to any in state school in Virginia.

I find it telling that so many Ivy grads can’t afford to send their kid to an Ivy. DH and I both went to a state school. We can easily afford private HS, Ivy tuition, second home, etc. I guess it’s really not the golden ticket everyone thinks it is. Smart kids do well wherever they go.

Yep! The prestige and benefits are short-lived.

I will say that my ivy league undergrad ed gave me an advantage several times in my life -- getting a job after college; getting into law school after working for several years out of undergrad; and then getting back into the work force after being a lawyer several years then taking time off with the kids. I am not good at building relationships with people who might give me a job in the future and this was useful for me instead; it really did help.

I would totally agree with this.

Singed, another Ivy grad

Not exactly following your point. Are you saying it is the connections you had from your Ivy school that got you those jobs, or the name of the school on your resume? And you really don't think your previous work experiences helped with subsequent hires?

I agree the name recognition is helpful, particularly upon graduation and entering the workforce. But the point is that others who graduate from lesser-known schools end up being comparably successful in the long-run. That's why the comment is that the benefits - or advantages - are "short-lived."