Ivy worth full pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did Ivy undergrad and state school for PhD, so it's not a one-to-one comparison because I couldn't possibly have done both for undergrad. Ivy is awesome, and not because it will improve your job prospects, but because of the exposure to many smart people for four years. I can't sugar coat it, Ivy is on another level, period. The intellectual interactions I had at my Ivy were deeper and much more numerous. State was fine, and there were some really smart people too, but Ivy has the volume. It's all about the volume of smart people. Not demeaning state, because I did it too.

Roughly what percentage of the people there were truly brilliant, taught-themselves-calculus-and-Latin-at-10 types people, and what percentage were just normal smart people with some moxie?

I’m asking because I’ve always assumed that parents should stretch to send their kids to HYPSM+Caltech+UChicago+Columbia because those are the natural destinations for people with IQs over 165 or the culturally adjusted equivalent. So, for example, roughly at the level of the most academically smart three or four high school seniors in the Washington area in any given year.

But is that really true, or does holistic admissions mean that students with that kind of raw academic intelligence are not that more common at than at the University of Maryland?

My benchmark is an undergrad school like Emory. I think about 1 in 300 students might have been at the shockingly smart level.

Have you been to Emory to know its 1 in 300 and not 1 in 100? Where are you coming up with this....
True genius doesn't matter as much as moxie. As most true geniuses crash out due to depression of some sort.
This is a better metric.
https://time.com/7333710/best-colleges-future-leaders-2026/

[Anonymous]

My kid turned down substantial merit at Emory to be full pay at Brown. We are not wealthy but did save diligently for college costs. She graduated last year and had an extraordinary experience and landed a great job in her field. No regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is strange to me, I have a stem kid at Brown who absolutely loves it and the student body is a very happy one. They are also not elitist. Seems like it was a bad fit, mine definitely would not like UF or similar. Tough pill to swallow I’m sure at full-price.

I agree, DC at a different ivy has a few Stem friends at Brown and they are well adjusted, most on some type of aid, not elitist.
Most kids at ivies or similar especially stem kids would hate UF and all similar schools, not due to elitism, due to peer mismatch.
I wonder if PP is trolling. It makes no sense to say the kid hated ivy and should have transferred, then why didn't they?

I went to HYP and I would have been miserable at Florida. It was 100 worth full pay for the peer group alone. I have never been with such a remarkably talented group of people and never will be again. Would I have gotten a decent education elsewhere? Probably. Would I still be successful? Probably?

Would I be the person I am today without the Ivy? Very hard to tell.

Would I absolutely pay for the Ivy again? You bet I would.

Hah, another HYP escapee from Florida -- yeah I do think it would have been an easier life, but so different in ways I can't imagine enjoying.

[Anonymous]

My kid is going to UF (Honors Program) BECAUSE the atmosphere is more fun. Wants balance, work hard, play hard.

Why has this thread become about Florida?

[Anonymous]

is Duke worth full pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

And your kid couldn’t have decided this before applying to the ivy? Just weird…

I still can't believe op's kid could have gone to H/Y/P and instead is getting a Florida degree. Just a complete waste.

I think I raised him well enough to be able to make his own decisions in life. His reasoning is that if he has what it takes to get accepted into HYP, then he can also succeed at UF. He may fail at UF, and he may also fail at HYP. At least if he fails at UF, he’ll still have several million dollars in the bank, versus nothing at HYP.

FWIW, he already wears a T-shirt that says, “I turned down HYP to attend the Gators for several million dollars.”

Smart kid because the AI job decline is real and HYP won't matter.

In a down job market, the better schools are always an advantage.
In AI, the jobs being taken over are entry level jobs that above-average university students used to get. The jobs that ivy grads tend to get are a couple levels above that and require thinking and processing that AI cannot do. Ivy and ivy+ (add 8-10 top privates that are not ivy) will have a larger advantage than they do now, over the typical T50-100 school. MBB and top tech recruiting on campus at ivy and other target schools was way up this year. Top schools have made industry partnerships and solicited private donations to make sure their students can continue to have advantages despite the federal funding fiasco.

UF has zero pathways to such jobs even for the very top student, never mind the significantly lowered path to top Med/phd/law.
hundreds of thousands or even a million in the bank at age 50 due to saving on undergrad will never make up for the opportunity cost of not having a shot at a top job. Who wants a lot of money to sit on and a boring job that does not use your brain and is not respected?

Blah blah blah. You're describing a very narrow and very specific trajectory that most HYP kids don't even do. Nor is the real world as rigid as you like to think.

High aptitude and capabilities make themselves known regardless of where the person went to college. If OP's kid has a talent for making money, it will be found out.

FYI no one knew who Brian Thompson was before Luigi Mangione (UPenn) assassinated him, but he was making a million a year plus stock options, total up to 10 million. Where did he go to college? Iowa. I only illustrate this to show the real world is filled with so many anonymous yet very successful people who didn't need a HYP degree.

-- double Ivy grad.

I agree with all of this. Many of my law partners who make way more than I do went to "no name" schools or large state schools for college and many of them went to so-so (not T14) law schools also. People who are good at what they do rise to the top.

- Also a double Ivy grad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child got off an Ivy waitlist. I hope this post doesn't get derailed on that point. My question is---->is a close to full pay Ivy worth it? We were offered $10k in aid. Total cost will be roughly $80-85K.

I'm not going to say which school it is.
In general, would you stretch to pay it?
We're currently set to pay half the money for a school ranked around #30.

Make your kid pay for it. There’s a radical concept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child got off an Ivy waitlist. I hope this post doesn't get derailed on that point. My question is---->is a close to full pay Ivy worth it? We were offered $10k in aid. Total cost will be roughly $80-85K.

I'm not going to say which school it is.
In general, would you stretch to pay it?
We're currently set to pay half the money for a school ranked around #30.

Make your kid pay for it. There’s a radical concept.

NP here - on what planet is this possible for any child who does not have a trust fund, thereby making OP's question moot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

And your kid couldn’t have decided this before applying to the ivy? Just weird…

I still can't believe op's kid could have gone to H/Y/P and instead is getting a Florida degree. Just a complete waste.

I think I raised him well enough to be able to make his own decisions in life. His reasoning is that if he has what it takes to get accepted into HYP, then he can also succeed at UF. He may fail at UF, and he may also fail at HYP. At least if he fails at UF, he’ll still have several million dollars in the bank, versus nothing at HYP.

FWIW, he already wears a T-shirt that says, “I turned down HYP to attend the Gators for several million dollars.”

Smart kid because the AI job decline is real and HYP won't matter.

In a down job market, the better schools are always an advantage.
In AI, the jobs being taken over are entry level jobs that above-average university students used to get. The jobs that ivy grads tend to get are a couple levels above that and require thinking and processing that AI cannot do. Ivy and ivy+ (add 8-10 top privates that are not ivy) will have a larger advantage than they do now, over the typical T50-100 school. MBB and top tech recruiting on campus at ivy and other target schools was way up this year. Top schools have made industry partnerships and solicited private donations to make sure their students can continue to have advantages despite the federal funding fiasco.

UF has zero pathways to such jobs even for the very top student, never mind the significantly lowered path to top Med/phd/law.
hundreds of thousands or even a million in the bank at age 50 due to saving on undergrad will never make up for the opportunity cost of not having a shot at a top job. Who wants a lot of money to sit on and a boring job that does not use your brain and is not respected?

Blah blah blah. You're describing a very narrow and very specific trajectory that most HYP kids don't even do. Nor is the real world as rigid as you like to think.

High aptitude and capabilities make themselves known regardless of where the person went to college. If OP's kid has a talent for making money, it will be found out.

FYI no one knew who Brian Thompson was before Luigi Mangione (UPenn) assassinated him, but he was making a million a year plus stock options, total up to 10 million. Where did he go to college? Iowa. I only illustrate this to show the real world is filled with so many anonymous yet very successful people who didn't need a HYP degree.

-- double Ivy grad.

I agree with all of this. Many of my law partners who make way more than I do went to "no name" schools or large state schools for college and many of them went to so-so (not T14) law schools also. People who are good at what they do rise to the top.

- Also a double Ivy grad.

I also agree with this. I didn’t graduate from a prestigious school and I’m not a lawyer or a doctor but I guarantee I make more than the majority of their graduates/lawyers/doctors. Entrepreneurialism doesn’t care where you went to school. Started my own business and grew it into what it is today. My NW is $50M (no family money, all self-made).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child got off an Ivy waitlist. I hope this post doesn't get derailed on that point. My question is---->is a close to full pay Ivy worth it? We were offered $10k in aid. Total cost will be roughly $80-85K.

I'm not going to say which school it is.
In general, would you stretch to pay it?
We're currently set to pay half the money for a school ranked around #30.

Make your kid pay for it. There’s a radical concept.

NP here - on what planet is this possible for any child who does not have a trust fund, thereby making OP's question moot?

It’s called get a job while in college, take out loans, apply for merit-based scholarships, ROTC, etc. Jeez kids today are so coddled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:is Duke worth full pay?

No college is worth full pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

And your kid couldn’t have decided this before applying to the ivy? Just weird…

I still can't believe op's kid could have gone to H/Y/P and instead is getting a Florida degree. Just a complete waste.

I think I raised him well enough to be able to make his own decisions in life. His reasoning is that if he has what it takes to get accepted into HYP, then he can also succeed at UF. He may fail at UF, and he may also fail at HYP. At least if he fails at UF, he’ll still have several million dollars in the bank, versus nothing at HYP.

FWIW, he already wears a T-shirt that says, “I turned down HYP to attend the Gators for several million dollars.”

Smart kid because the AI job decline is real and HYP won't matter.

In a down job market, the better schools are always an advantage.
In AI, the jobs being taken over are entry level jobs that above-average university students used to get. The jobs that ivy grads tend to get are a couple levels above that and require thinking and processing that AI cannot do. Ivy and ivy+ (add 8-10 top privates that are not ivy) will have a larger advantage than they do now, over the typical T50-100 school. MBB and top tech recruiting on campus at ivy and other target schools was way up this year. Top schools have made industry partnerships and solicited private donations to make sure their students can continue to have advantages despite the federal funding fiasco.

UF has zero pathways to such jobs even for the very top student, never mind the significantly lowered path to top Med/phd/law.
hundreds of thousands or even a million in the bank at age 50 due to saving on undergrad will never make up for the opportunity cost of not having a shot at a top job. Who wants a lot of money to sit on and a boring job that does not use your brain and is not respected?

Blah blah blah. You're describing a very narrow and very specific trajectory that most HYP kids don't even do. Nor is the real world as rigid as you like to think.

High aptitude and capabilities make themselves known regardless of where the person went to college. If OP's kid has a talent for making money, it will be found out.

FYI no one knew who Brian Thompson was before Luigi Mangione (UPenn) assassinated him, but he was making a million a year plus stock options, total up to 10 million. Where did he go to college? Iowa. I only illustrate this to show the real world is filled with so many anonymous yet very successful people who didn't need a HYP degree.

-- double Ivy grad.

I agree with all of this. Many of my law partners who make way more than I do went to "no name" schools or large state schools for college and many of them went to so-so (not T14) law schools also. People who are good at what they do rise to the top.

- Also a double Ivy grad.

I also agree with this. I didn’t graduate from a prestigious school and I’m not a lawyer or a doctor but I guarantee I make more than the majority of their graduates/lawyers/doctors. Entrepreneurialism doesn’t care where you went to school. Started my own business and grew it into what it is today. My NW is $50M (no family money, all self-made).

That's awesome. Are you hiring and what are you looking for when you look at candidates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Princeton yes. Brown no. Maybes in the middle.

Full-pay at Brown, no regrets.

Same! 😃

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did Ivy undergrad and state school for PhD, so it's not a one-to-one comparison because I couldn't possibly have done both for undergrad. Ivy is awesome, and not because it will improve your job prospects, but because of the exposure to many smart people for four years. I can't sugar coat it, Ivy is on another level, period. The intellectual interactions I had at my Ivy were deeper and much more numerous. State was fine, and there were some really smart people too, but Ivy has the volume. It's all about the volume of smart people. Not demeaning state, because I did it too.

Roughly what percentage of the people there were truly brilliant, taught-themselves-calculus-and-Latin-at-10 types people, and what percentage were just normal smart people with some moxie?

I’m asking because I’ve always assumed that parents should stretch to send their kids to HYPSM+Caltech+UChicago+Columbia because those are the natural destinations for people with IQs over 165 or the culturally adjusted equivalent. So, for example, roughly at the level of the most academically smart three or four high school seniors in the Washington area in any given year.

But is that really true, or does holistic admissions mean that students with that kind of raw academic intelligence are not that more common at than at the University of Maryland?

My benchmark is an undergrad school like Emory. I think about 1 in 300 students might have been at the shockingly smart level.

Have you been to Emory to know its 1 in 300 and not 1 in 100? Where are you coming up with this....
True genius doesn't matter as much as moxie. As most true geniuses crash out due to depression of some sort.
This is a better metric.
https://time.com/7333710/best-colleges-future-leaders-2026/

Being academically smart will only get you so far in life. Spoken as one those academically smart kids who went to an Ivy but lacked social skills and never moved up the corporate ladder as far as I thought I deserved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

And your kid couldn’t have decided this before applying to the ivy? Just weird…

I still can't believe op's kid could have gone to H/Y/P and instead is getting a Florida degree. Just a complete waste.

I think I raised him well enough to be able to make his own decisions in life. His reasoning is that if he has what it takes to get accepted into HYP, then he can also succeed at UF. He may fail at UF, and he may also fail at HYP. At least if he fails at UF, he’ll still have several million dollars in the bank, versus nothing at HYP.

FWIW, he already wears a T-shirt that says, “I turned down HYP to attend the Gators for several million dollars.”

Smart kid because the AI job decline is real and HYP won't matter.

In a down job market, the better schools are always an advantage.
In AI, the jobs being taken over are entry level jobs that above-average university students used to get. The jobs that ivy grads tend to get are a couple levels above that and require thinking and processing that AI cannot do. Ivy and ivy+ (add 8-10 top privates that are not ivy) will have a larger advantage than they do now, over the typical T50-100 school. MBB and top tech recruiting on campus at ivy and other target schools was way up this year. Top schools have made industry partnerships and solicited private donations to make sure their students can continue to have advantages despite the federal funding fiasco.

UF has zero pathways to such jobs even for the very top student, never mind the significantly lowered path to top Med/phd/law.
hundreds of thousands or even a million in the bank at age 50 due to saving on undergrad will never make up for the opportunity cost of not having a shot at a top job. Who wants a lot of money to sit on and a boring job that does not use your brain and is not respected?

Blah blah blah. You're describing a very narrow and very specific trajectory that most HYP kids don't even do. Nor is the real world as rigid as you like to think.

High aptitude and capabilities make themselves known regardless of where the person went to college. If OP's kid has a talent for making money, it will be found out.

FYI no one knew who Brian Thompson was before Luigi Mangione (UPenn) assassinated him, but he was making a million a year plus stock options, total up to 10 million. Where did he go to college? Iowa. I only illustrate this to show the real world is filled with so many anonymous yet very successful people who didn't need a HYP degree.

-- double Ivy grad.

I agree with all of this. Many of my law partners who make way more than I do went to "no name" schools or large state schools for college and many of them went to so-so (not T14) law schools also. People who are good at what they do rise to the top.

- Also a double Ivy grad.

I also agree with this. I didn’t graduate from a prestigious school and I’m not a lawyer or a doctor but I guarantee I make more than the majority of their graduates/lawyers/doctors. Entrepreneurialism doesn’t care where you went to school. Started my own business and grew it into what it is today. My NW is $50M (no family money, all self-made).

That's awesome. Are you hiring and what are you looking for when you look at candidates?

We are not hiring at the moment. We’re an IT Security company. In fact, we just laid off two Junior level software QA engineers. One was a UC Berkeley grad and the other a UVA grad. They were replaced by AI. We didn’t want to do it but just found the work they did could be replaced very easily by another software engineer (VT grad) using AI. Don’t have to worry about the AI calling in sick, and we don’t have to fund its 401K or healthcare. And I’ll be honest with you, we kept the VT grad because she had a great work ethic and the quality of her work was so much better than the Berkeley or UVA grads. Where you go to school may open some doors but you have perform once you get there. No one cares where you went to school 2 years into a job.