I guess it never occurred to me to research the HS of origin for the most selective US universities. |
Is money and connections the culture at these colleges as well? Trying to figure out if my dd could find her people and be happy. How much does it dominate? Is it public school kids one table, private another?
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More like PJ or not….. The number of private planes taking off this weekend from Ithaca airport after Cornell admitted students day made your head hurt. You are slumming it when you realize you’re heading all the way to Syracuse airport and the nice parents you met from Greenwich are hopping home. |
I don’t care how they get home. Are the kids nice and inclusive while attending? |
If you are in the Greek system, yes. Cornell specific tho. I’d start a new post abt the colleges you want info on. Each Ivy is very different. Also read the reviews on Unigo. |
Not for my kid. A real mix. Some private, some super rich/swanky private, some public (some aid, some full pay), some international (some aid, some full pay). But, she does feel like the poor person from time to time. We're more middle class than UMC. |
What school? |
Thank you for sharing. |
I think most people are missing the real question here which is how many of these Dalton Ivy admits are legacies and how many have rich powerful and connected parents. |
All. Excellent point. |
My kid has many friends at Dalton and according to them a couple years ago around 8 kids got into Harvard, only 1 kid was not rich, legacy or Prep for Prep ( which is a program for low income schools in NYC privates). |
Know two Dalton parents. They said the ultra selective Ivy admits were the kids of billionaires plus one highly unusual situation. |
A way to help break this dynamic is to value Ivy League schools less. Ivy League grads are fine, but they’re not, by some rule, the smartest 0.01% of people. There are plenty of good schools out there and many very smart kids go to all sorts of schools. Let Dalton and the Uber wealthy go to the ivies - at least they’re not influencing their way into a slot at whatever other school your family may want to target…. The constant collective striving for status in college acceptances is deleterious for society. |
I am appalled at the prices of hotels in Ithaca for what you get. We paid more to stay in Ithaca than in NYC a few days before (in August, but not move-in) and the hotel was less nice than the usual Hampton we stay in on road trips. In fact it had a couple issues we had to get fixed. |
My conclusion is the importance of Ivies will fall bc middle class people can't get into them much anymore (even legacies). The rich stay rich and are in their own sphere. I hope the talented low-income kids remember the rest of society and aren't snobs when they get out. And the cumulative effect of large amounts of smart people going to other schools for generations will improve the reputations of the other schools. All of my schools have significantly improved in reputation in the last 30 years, and I believe it's deserved as well as partly due to the Ivies staying rather small. |