What an Ivy league education gets you - the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a bunch of new ivies including Emory, Vandy, Rice. They can simulate a similar environment.

Ha, nope. Look at parchment match ups, while those are great schools, they are full of kids who didn't get into an Ivy and would have picked it if they had.

My Emory kid toured a couple Ivies but really wasn’t interested and didn’t apply to any. Emory checked off their boxes- warm weather, urban, global, diverse student body. I won’t pretend that Emory (or its peers) are just as selective or prestigious as the Ivies because they’re not. However, not everyone at Emory is wishing they were at an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

That has been studied, multiple times, comparing the group of students who had the choice and picked ivy+ MIT/Stanford/Duke /Chicago versus those who picked lower ranked schools. For the most competitive sectors of various fields, the ivy+ schools gave a small but statistically significant boost.

Until you control for family income and education. In those cases it's pretty negligible except in cases of kids going from poverty to ivy--but there's not a huge control group because those kids will get full rides anywhere so there isn't a huge comparison group at flagships.

For UMC kids, not much difference.

[Anonymous]

I get it, yes.

I was at MIT with Drew Houston (knew him) and at the same time Zuckerberg (didn't know him) was at Harvard. Could've dated two future billionaires 🤣.

I've had friends that created and sold tech companies created with team mates or classmates at MIT.

Some people came to MIT with money or access to money. MIT opened doors to money too. Still does.

[Anonymous]

What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

When these schools corner the market on high student caliber, the result is the same.
There schools studied have the maximum density if you will of superior minded students, everywhere: classrooms, labs, clubs.
Though I suppose one could add Caltech, Northwestern and JHU to the ivy+ schools studied: based on pre-test optional data they are likely essentially the same student population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

That has been studied, multiple times, comparing the group of students who had the choice and picked ivy+ MIT/Stanford/Duke /Chicago versus those who picked lower ranked schools. For the most competitive sectors of various fields, the ivy+ schools gave a small but statistically significant boost.

Until you control for family income and education. In those cases it's pretty negligible except in cases of kids going from poverty to ivy--but there's not a huge control group because those kids will get full rides anywhere so there isn't a huge comparison group at flagships.

For UMC kids, not much difference.

Oh yes there is. You have to have one at an ivy and one at a good public or good LAC to see it. It is night and day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

When these schools corner the market on high student caliber, the result is the same.
There schools studied have the maximum density if you will of superior minded students, everywhere: classrooms, labs, clubs.
Though I suppose one could add Caltech, Northwestern and JHU to the ivy+ schools studied: based on pre-test optional data they are likely essentially the same student population.

This kind of study is complicated and needs to be supported by rigorous research papers published at peer reviewed journals, not by some magazine whose author has zero background in and no idea of how statistics modeling works.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t new research. The paper was published last year and has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn’t prove Ivy League schools matter. You can argue it’s the high student caliber in those schools that led to the results.

When these schools corner the market on high student caliber, the result is the same.
There schools studied have the maximum density if you will of superior minded students, everywhere: classrooms, labs, clubs.
Though I suppose one could add Caltech, Northwestern and JHU to the ivy+ schools studied: based on pre-test optional data they are likely essentially the same student population.

This kind of study is complicated and needs to be supported by rigorous research papers published at peer reviewed journals, not by some magazine whose author has zero background in and no idea of how statistics modeling works.

Not when you’re confirming the implicit biases of the ruling class, it doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a bunch of new ivies including Emory, Vandy, Rice. They can simulate a similar environment.

Nope, great skills but a tier below.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

bingo.

Parent of a current Ivy student who describes all of his classmates as "cracked" and says it has made him better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the article is getting at is that smart people with emotional intelligence go far. Basing that conclusion on Ivy schools is a little reductive however. It's a very outdated metric. There are bright students with a high emotional IQ at all sorts of schools in 2026.

But peer group and good manners do matter of course - as they have since the beginning of time. Not exactly rocket science.

The metric is the concentration of these people. Far fewer in other schools.

Eh. Given admission priorities these days, the Ivy League ain't all that in 2026. For smart + emotional IQ, there are a lot of other schools, as everyone who has toured universities over the past three years has discerned. The Harvard Man is a myth today. Things have changed a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about WASP? Aren’t they as good as ivies?

No, they do not have the same concentration of the super-bright, based on pre-test optional data. They are next-best though, on par with Rice, WashU, a few others.