Is it crazy to choose a non-ivy over an ivy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The undergrads at Ivies are a mix of brilliant kids and regular smart sociopaths who want the prestige of attending an Ivy and are willing to check all the boxes required to do it. The latter have had a corrosive effect on academics, and social life in general.

Which group do legacy kids and athletes belong to?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Depends what Ivy … personally, there are probably 10-12 schools (and probably more, if I gave more thought to it) that are non-Ivy but that I’d quickly take over Cornell without too much additional thought.

100%. Same with Dartmouth and Brown.

DP: Which 10-12 schools would you and other PP choose over Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown?

HYPSM, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia. That’s 11. I might not pick NU or JHU over Brown depending on my mood.

My kid will be choosing Dartmouth over Chicago, Northwestern and Hopkins. Chicago and Hopkins mostly because of the city/surroundings and the reputation of the school culture (especially for premed). Northwestern has always been on our minds as a step down due to the kids who get in from my kids' school (quite a few not super academically inclined kids get in ED because they accept 25% of ED applicants).

Your assessment of NU could not be more wrong. Every kid we know who is admitted ED or otherwise has highest stats and rigor, and many are rejected/waitlisted. The ED acceptance rate has nothing to do with the caliber of the applicant pool.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Depends what Ivy … personally, there are probably 10-12 schools (and probably more, if I gave more thought to it) that are non-Ivy but that I’d quickly take over Cornell without too much additional thought.

100%. Same with Dartmouth and Brown.

DP: Which 10-12 schools would you and other PP choose over Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown?

HYPSM, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia. That’s 11. I might not pick NU or JHU over Brown depending on my mood.

My kid will be choosing Dartmouth over Chicago, Northwestern and Hopkins. Chicago and Hopkins mostly because of the city/surroundings and the reputation of the school culture (especially for premed). Northwestern has always been on our minds as a step down due to the kids who get in from my kids' school (quite a few not super academically inclined kids get in ED because they accept 25% of ED applicants).

Your assessment of NU could not be more wrong. Every kid we know who is admitted ED or otherwise has highest stats and rigor, and many are rejected/waitlisted. The ED acceptance rate has nothing to do with the caliber of the applicant pool.

This is only your experience, so don’t get so defensive. You’re only making statements based on what you’ve seen in your micro-circle. Many posters agree with what that PP said; NU takes middling kids in ED.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Depends what Ivy … personally, there are probably 10-12 schools (and probably more, if I gave more thought to it) that are non-Ivy but that I’d quickly take over Cornell without too much additional thought.

100%. Same with Dartmouth and Brown.

DP: Which 10-12 schools would you and other PP choose over Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown?

HYPSM, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia. That’s 11. I might not pick NU or JHU over Brown depending on my mood.

My kid will be choosing Dartmouth over Chicago, Northwestern and Hopkins. Chicago and Hopkins mostly because of the city/surroundings and the reputation of the school culture (especially for premed). Northwestern has always been on our minds as a step down due to the kids who get in from my kids' school (quite a few not super academically inclined kids get in ED because they accept 25% of ED applicants).

Your assessment of NU could not be more wrong. Every kid we know who is admitted ED or otherwise has highest stats and rigor, and many are rejected/waitlisted. The ED acceptance rate has nothing to do with the caliber of the applicant pool.

PP here. Sorry I touched a nerve there. The kids I've seen get into NU from our kid's school vary a lot - some do have the highest stats and rigor, but others are legacy and athletes and the latter two categories are definitely not in the top 25% of the class, nor do they have the highest rigor (e.g. a kid who does not take math senior year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it depends?

I would probably think it was crazy to choose SUNY Bing (I'm in NY) over Yale.

A kid can decide "fit" based on what they saw that one girl wearing that one time in that one cafeteria.

But nobody is going to a raise even an eyebrow about choosing Duke over Dartmouth, CalTech over Cornell, or Berkeley over Brown.

Rice, Williams, Vandy, Notre Dame, CMU, Chicago .. all schools kids are picking THIS YEAR from my kid's high school over Ivies. Makes total sense.

Berkeley over Brown is probably pretty rare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it depends?

I would probably think it was crazy to choose SUNY Bing (I'm in NY) over Yale.

A kid can decide "fit" based on what they saw that one girl wearing that one time in that one cafeteria.

But nobody is going to a raise even an eyebrow about choosing Duke over Dartmouth, CalTech over Cornell, or Berkeley over Brown.

Rice, Williams, Vandy, Notre Dame, CMU, Chicago .. all schools kids are picking THIS YEAR from my kid's high school over Ivies. Makes total sense.

Berkeley over Brown is probably pretty rare

Berkeley over Brown would be very normal for a lot of STEM majors. Outside of Princeton and Cornell, most of the Ivy schools aren't really competing for the better engineering or cs students.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Depends what Ivy … personally, there are probably 10-12 schools (and probably more, if I gave more thought to it) that are non-Ivy but that I’d quickly take over Cornell without too much additional thought.

100%. Same with Dartmouth and Brown.

DP: Which 10-12 schools would you and other PP choose over Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown?

HYPSM, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia. That’s 11. I might not pick NU or JHU over Brown depending on my mood.

My kid will be choosing Dartmouth over Chicago, Northwestern and Hopkins. Chicago and Hopkins mostly because of the city/surroundings and the reputation of the school culture (especially for premed). Northwestern has always been on our minds as a step down due to the kids who get in from my kids' school (quite a few not super academically inclined kids get in ED because they accept 25% of ED applicants).

Your assessment of NU could not be more wrong. Every kid we know who is admitted ED or otherwise has highest stats and rigor, and many are rejected/waitlisted. The ED acceptance rate has nothing to do with the caliber of the applicant pool.

This is only your experience, so don’t get so defensive. You’re only making statements based on what you’ve seen in your micro-circle. Many posters agree with what that PP said; NU takes middling kids in ED.

Not defensive. But a blanket statement that NU is comprised of middling kids is factually incorrect and frankly offensive. Families in the NE and in DC prioritize schools on the east coast with the exception of Stanford, Michigan and perhaps USC. All other midwestern or west coast schools are seen as lesser based largely on geography. It’s selection bias, not student competency, that influences admissions at PP’s school. Same applies to schools like Pomona, WashU, Grinnell and the like.

[Anonymous]

It is clear that many on this thread do not focus on STEM. Berkeley over Brown would be a no-brainer. The high-performing STEM schools comprise a completely different list of schools than the usual top lists. I'm sure it is similar for other courses of study. The landscape in education has changed quite a bit and people need to do research to determine which schools really will be ... I hate to be redundant, but... a good fit - depending on desired outcome - phd, faang job, medicine, access to university hospital, work opportunities, etc. Blindly picking Ivy is limiting and this discussion is a bit shocking in its lack of knowledge of what schools actually offer in terms of programing and outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is clear that many on this thread do not focus on STEM. Berkeley over Brown would be a no-brainer. The high-performing STEM schools comprise a completely different list of schools than the usual top lists. I'm sure it is similar for other courses of study. The landscape in education has changed quite a bit and people need to do research to determine which schools really will be ... I hate to be redundant, but... a good fit - depending on desired outcome - phd, faang job, medicine, access to university hospital, work opportunities, etc. Blindly picking Ivy is limiting and this discussion is a bit shocking in its lack of knowledge of what schools actually offer in terms of programing and outcomes.

It's not a completely different list; MIT, Princeton, Cornell, Caltech, UChicago are at the top of both. Even Yale is top tier in science and math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finances? I think it makes sense to enroll in a good flagship over an Ivy. But if the non-ivy is WashU, Emory, etc, it better be a compelling reason.

The valedictorian of my son's class picked WashU over Penn. Full ride was the difference. Our district has a lot of donut hole families making low 200,000's. Tough to save for college and retirement at the same time. Especially, when it took you 20 years to hit 200,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finances? I think it makes sense to enroll in a good flagship over an Ivy. But if the non-ivy is WashU, Emory, etc, it better be a compelling reason.

The valedictorian of my son's class picked WashU over Penn. Full ride was the difference. Our district has a lot of donut hole families making low 200,000's. Tough to save for college and retirement at the same time. Especially, when it took you 20 years to hit 200,000.

Smart kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The undergrads at Ivies are a mix of brilliant kids and regular smart sociopaths who want the prestige of attending an Ivy and are willing to check all the boxes required to do it. The latter have had a corrosive effect on academics, and social life in general.

Which group do legacy kids and athletes belong to?

Athletes belong to the former. Having gone through the recruiting process for top schools, they simply do not want academic problems and tell you that you need at least an XXXX gpa or XXXX SAT for them to even talk to you.

Legacy kids are prob a mix (GWB was Legacy and a dipshit with mediocre grades, for example.)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It really depends.

Harvard, Yale, Stanford - would be 100% pick
Princeton - only if they are OK with very intense
Columbia- only if they thrive in urban environments
Dartmouth - just no, would choose anything T50 over this one
Brown- maybe depending on the kid, better for an artsy or humanities type kid
Penn - wouldn’t necessarily choose it over another T20 but nothing objectionable about it
Cornell- only if kid likes intense winters, intense academics

DS got into both Princeton and Yale for Engineering. Is it really a grind at Princeton? I know it's more rigorous but had thought it had calmed from grade deflation days of the past.

It seems the priority here is prestige or culture, not the actual strength of engineering, so just pick whichever one your DS likes more. If he had cared more about engineering academics, he would have applied to at least a dozen other schools better than these two (more than a dozen in the case of Yale). These two top elite Ivies could obviously set him up well for careers in management, consulting, finance, etc., but if he actually wants to become an engineer, he will likely get his first job easily with the P or Y name on his resume, then by his second job, he will need to catch up with guys from the other schools who are better engineers. Esp with AI taking over engineering jobs, ask your DS to think ahead and proactively seek out innovation in latest engineering applications that professors at a place like Princeton or Yale may not be the pioneers in (too theoretical).

You have no idea what you are talking about. The smartest scientist minds go to phD in engineering or applied physics and ivies with established engineering such as Princeton Penn Cornell and yes Harvard and yale send students every year to top phd programs as well as into top tech companies with real engineering jobs. It is the midling entry level engineering jobs that one can get from average flagship that will be taken over by AI. The peers are not smart enough for the coursework in quantum mechanics, thermo, etc to be taught at the higher levels the top companies and phd want.
It becomes obvious once your kid gets a couple of years in and realizes how different the summer options are for students from top schools. There are several highly selective engineering summer internships that have a large over-representation of MIT stanford and the ivies with real engineering(HPPYCC). Of course they have an over-representation of UCB JHu and CMU kids too, add Rice and Duke. It drops rapidly from there. These are highly technical jobs. There are PIs that openly state they select for specific levels schools and look for specific coursework on the transcript.

UMD has quantum computing on-site. Hard to ignore the career opportunities there too.

This is why UChicago has molecular/quantum and not ABRET, no need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The undergrads at Ivies are a mix of brilliant kids and regular smart sociopaths who want the prestige of attending an Ivy and are willing to check all the boxes required to do it. The latter have had a corrosive effect on academics, and social life in general.

Which group do legacy kids and athletes belong to?

Athletes belong to the former. Having gone through the recruiting process for top schools, they simply do not want academic problems and tell you that you need at least an XXXX gpa or XXXX SAT for them to even talk to you.

Legacy kids are prob a mix (GWB was Legacy and a dipshit with mediocre grades, for example.)

Princeton publishes this data and legacy students had stats above the median for the school, while athletes had nearly 35% getting in TO (vs. only 12% for the school overall).

[Anonymous]

The way it’s going Brown and Dartmouth will soon lose that coveted T20 title and may well be joined soon by Columbia!