Interesting Read: "I dropped out of an Ivy and my life is way better for it"

[Anonymous]

I'm at a SLAC that's known for being very supportive. It's such a refreshing pace after spending five semesters at an Ivy, which my Chinese immigrant parents forced me to choose when I was a senior in high school four years ago since they were thrilled that I got in.

The difference is night and day. The environment is SO much less cutthroat and competitive. Barely any clubs have competitive application processes. The students are so much more friendly and gracious and have much better social skills (which IMO is infinitely more important for success than which college you go to). There's so much more diversity in terms of interests and career goals within the student body -- people are planning on going to vet school or becoming art conservationists or librarians or humanitarian aid workers. It's a real break from the intense finance/consulting/tech focus that surrounded me at an Ivy (and I'm saying this as a solidly middle class student who won't have any parental financial support post-grad).

Most importantly, I'm a lot mentally healthier -- and so are most of the people around me. Most of my classmates at the Ivy were seeing a therapist or on meds (or oftentimes both). While that still happens at my SLAC, the degree of psychopathology is nowhere near the fever pitch that it was when I was at an Ivy.

Trust me, I know where you guys are coming from. I also have Chinese immigrant tiger parents and went to a competitive high school that encouraged striving for Ivies. My mental health broke down in college and the Ivy forced me to take a year-long leave of absence in the middle of my junior year, where I re-evaluted my priorities and just decided to leave entirely.

In retrospect, that was the best thing that could've happened to me. At my new SLAC (not a hyper-competitive one like Amherst or Williams), I've already been nominated for a departmental award, have very close relationships with my professors, am writing an honors thesis, and got a super-competitive REU for this summer. But most importantly, I'm in an environment where I'm encouraged to define myself without any relation to my achievements and have a wonderfully laid back, non-competitive, and genuinely diverse group of friends.

Most of the people I entered college with (my freshman year at an Ivy) have graduated by now. Their post-grad outcomes are mixed -- some of them have landed the FAANG or IB/MBB gig they've always wanted. But a lot of them -- arguably the majority of the mostly middle-class kids I was friends with -- are in normal jobs, or are underemployed and just trying to figure it out. Many of them are bitter and resentful that they grinded away in high school and spent four years of college surrounded by douchebags, only with no reward at the end.

Think twice about what you want out of the next four years and the rest of your twenties. It's really important that you deliberately make choices with your own sense of agency instead of simply just going with what your parents or the people around you are pressuring you to do.

From this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1bqr3js/i_dropped_out_of_an_ivy_and_my_life_is_way_better/

The comments reveal that OP went to an Ivy (that is not Cornell), and that the SLAC is ranked in the 20s-30s and is not particularly competitive.

What is DCUM's thoughts on this?

[Anonymous]

My thought is that generalizations like this aren’t accurate but that the piece is helpful in that it demonstrates that fit is everything.

My child is at an Ivy and is thriving in ways I could not have imagined. So it does happen. But it’s also true that some kids aren’t as happy there. We looked at LACs and realized most of them were too small to have the academic speciality my kid really wanted. And another friend’s child recently transferred out of a top 30 LAC to a very big school in a bustling city.

As is true at almost any school your mileage may (really) vary.

[Anonymous]

I watched a video on a kid who went to Princeton after getting off the waitlist. He wished he hadn’t. Yale has terrible issues with class selection for many kids.

[Anonymous]

One person's opinion means absolutely nothing to me or my family. We have different backgrounds and different lifestyles.

[Anonymous]

Seems irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the kid. If your kid is smart and curious, but not hyper-competitive and super confident, a SLAC can be a great place to explore their interests, and develop deep connections with professors and great friendships, which will boost their confidence and help them blossom. On the other hand, if you’ve got a really smart, competitive, confident kid that is convinced FANG, IB, MC is their future, head to the Ivy.

[Anonymous]

It is good to hear different experiences. Glad this kid recognized they were in an environment that was not healthy for them - and made the move to a place that was (thankfully) healthier for them. Many different paths to success- many different definitions of success.

[Anonymous]

Well, it's probably going to be moot for most of our kids anyway. I have one kid who might win the lottery and get into an Ivy, but despite being Asian, I only care about "best fit". So she'll go where she wants. Luckily, I can afford that. This Asian family is very education-oriented, but not stupid.

[Anonymous]

The bottom line is success is most likely if one aims for “best fit” rather than “perceived prestige”.

[Anonymous]

Seems like click-bait that criticizes some usual targets - Asian parents and Ivies - so people can feel better about other choices that always existed.

2/10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like click-bait that criticizes some usual targets - Asian parents and Ivies - so people can feel better about other choices that always existed.

2/10

+100

Poster sounds like a whiny loser

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like click-bait that criticizes some usual targets - Asian parents and Ivies - so people can feel better about other choices that always existed.

2/10

+100

Poster sounds like a whiny loser

Says an overbearing tiger mom.

[Anonymous]

A worldview where 99.9% of people must always be "losers" is pathetic.

[Anonymous]

I suspect this is a frequent poster on multiple sites .If so, she attended Columbia.

Every kid is different. Every Ivy is different. Years ago, Howard Greene wrote a book in which he included a survey of students at 20 top schools. One question was "Are your classmates cut throat?" Nobody at Wesleyan said yes. One half of one per cent of Brown students did. The highest percentage of yeses was at Johns Hopkins. (I forget the exact number but it was the vast majority.) The book was written 30 plus years ago, but the point is that all of these schools have different personalities. What is true about Columbia may not be true about Dartmouth or Harvard or Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect this is a frequent poster on multiple sites .If so, she attended Columbia.

Every kid is different. Every Ivy is different. Years ago, Howard Greene wrote a book in which he included a survey of students at 20 top schools. One question was "Are your classmates cut throat?" Nobody at Wesleyan said yes. One half of one per cent of Brown students did. The highest percentage of yeses was at Johns Hopkins. (I forget the exact number but it was the vast majority.) The book was written 30 plus years ago, but the point is that all of these schools have different personalities. What is true about Columbia may not be true about Dartmouth or Harvard or Brown.

It would be interesting to repeat that survey today. I’d wager that the numbers have increased substantially. Look at the number of apps and the acceptance rates. Look at the test scores. Look at the lawsuits. The Ivy League is no longer a club, it’s a grinder’s and striver’s paradise.