Ivies or die?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can think of at least 10 schools off the top of my head that are better than half the Ivies. The Ivy League is overrated.

To be fair if you aren't getting into Cornell, you aren't getting into Stanford/Mit or Williams/Amherst either

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ friends are convinced there is no other way to succeed. They believe that it’s imperative to get into an Ivy or other top-ranked school in order to make money. They are so stressed and pressured about this. I am a successful professional and know many other successful professionals. Some of us went to Ivies, others didn’t.
How can I explain to these teens that going to a college that is a good fit where they can thrive is much more important than going to an Ivy?

I'd rather have my teens obsessed with the goal of getting into an Ivy than just being a average underachieving slacker kid. Have you seen the average teen? They're dumb as a brick, lazy, addicted to the phone and video games. They've literally never finished a book. Or the other large subset of teens obsessed with playing sports, which 99.9% of the time is just a pointless time sink.

Aren't you a peach! I've never played a sport in my life and even I can see that being "obsessed" with a sport as a teen instills extremely important life skills like grit, leadership, self-discipline, time management, getting used to failure and criticism in a way that being obsessed with academics and getting into the best college just does not.

If a kid has Ivys as a singular goal it's possible they graduate HS with a great GPA and great test scores, no sports and empty ECs and then wonder why they didn't get in when kids with worst GPA who happen to be class president or team captains do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a family friend who is a federal district court judge. He says he hates hiring ivy grads because they’re entitled and feel superior. He much prefers the non-ivy grads because they work harder and they’re more respectful. Just an anecdote.

Same. I run a political consulting firm, and I find that my Ivy hires tend to not be as determined and are more likely to try to "compete" with my senior employees instead of wanting to learn from them. I find that Big-10 kids are really hard working, well rounded, and get along really well with lots of types of people. The smaller LSAC kids seem to be the creative thinkers and good strategists, but sometimes struggle with the pace of the work. Obviously these are just anecdotal, but oddly consistent, at least in the political space.

[Anonymous]

Harvard or your degree is basically worthless.

[Anonymous]

I went to Cathedral and we were basically taught this. It was really rough. I ended going to a really good non-Ivy and have ended up quite successful. However, the emotional torment that the school inflicted has followed me to this day and I hate them for it. My parents did not care where so went as long as I was happy and it was a good fit. It was all NCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know quite a few people who went to ivies and select LACs and aren’t doing anything of significance or making money. There have been many hired at my company who have flamed out. They were not entrepreneurial or creative thinkers (revenue generators). I am the chief legal officer at my company and the Ivy League flameouts are always the ones suing us for wrongful termination. I can always count on it.

I agree that the best way to overcome Ivy envy is to work with some of the people that went to them. Some are great, of course, but some are terrible.

+1

You start to realize that they aren't any smarter or nicer or better than anyone else. And that no normal person really cares where you went after you get your first job.

A person who did test prep tutoring for my kids last year graduated from Brown U. and he was basically homeless. He taught school years ago and started solo tutoring but his work dried up once the pandemic hit. We kept him on because I felt somewhat sorry for him. I always got the feeling something happened to him like a mental breakdown or something. A good friend invited him to live with him and his family on the west coast while he figured things out. He was in his 50s. I kept wondering to myself how he got to the place in life he had found himself in after going to an Ivy League school.

[Anonymous]

I think the kids have their priorities out of whack and have set themselves up to be unhappy with themselves. The intense turn towards adult-pleasing pre-professionalism among high school and college students has created a more homogenized, boring generation of young people. It's really sapped a lot of the creative, dynamic energy out of youth.

But, if you love ideas and thinking and research, writing and learning, there's a huge desire to want to be around other people like you. It's a matter of how big a pool of similar students you need to feel comfortable and whether you care how much status the "smart kids" have on campus. There are plenty of super smart kids at Alabama and Florida -- even if they are a tiny minority -- but being brainy may be a negative for their status. In contrast, the vast majority of students at the Ivies+ are very smart and it's easier to find your social set and it's not a social negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ friends are convinced there is no other way to succeed. They believe that it’s imperative to get into an Ivy or other top-ranked school in order to make money. They are so stressed and pressured about this. I am a successful professional and know many other successful professionals. Some of us went to Ivies, others didn’t.
How can I explain to these teens that going to a college that is a good fit where they can thrive is much more important than going to an Ivy?

I'd rather have my teens obsessed with the goal of getting into an Ivy than just being a average underachieving slacker kid. Have you seen the average teen? They're dumb as a brick, lazy, addicted to the phone and video games. They've literally never finished a book. Or the other large subset of teens obsessed with playing sports, which 99.9% of the time is just a pointless time sink.

Aren't you a peach! I've never played a sport in my life and even I can see that being "obsessed" with a sport as a teen instills extremely important life skills like grit, leadership, self-discipline, time management, getting used to failure and criticism in a way that being obsessed with academics and getting into the best college just does not.

+1

Agreed. PP is down on whites and wants the world to know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell them your friend (on the internet, but whatever) works with a law partner who is head of the real estate department and he went to McGeorge Law School. It was ranked 146 out of 150 last year, for example.

Ivies can give you a bit of a boost, they can get you an interview. But they do not pave the streets with gold.

Another partner went to U of San Diego School of Law, another U of Houston, U of Santa Clara (our managing partner also went there), etc. The partner who went to Yale does NOT earn more than those partners.

Did you really go to McGeorge? So did my DH.

Honey, I am your DH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can think of at least 10 schools off the top of my head that are better than half the Ivies. The Ivy League is overrated.

To be fair if you aren't getting into Cornell, you aren't getting into Stanford/Mit or Williams/Amherst either

You ignore the random chance aspect of the process. You'd be surprised at the lack of correspondence between rankings and admissions decisions at the individual kid level. It's not all about yield protection. When many applications look like many others, you're going to see random results. That's why some people compare admissions to a lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can think of at least 10 schools off the top of my head that are better than half the Ivies. The Ivy League is overrated.

To be fair if you aren't getting into Cornell, you aren't getting into Stanford/Mit or Williams/Amherst either

You ignore the random chance aspect of the process. You'd be surprised at the lack of correspondence between rankings and admissions decisions at the individual kid level. It's not all about yield protection. When many applications look like many others, you're going to see random results. That's why some people compare admissions to a lottery.

While everything you have written is technically correct, the outcome PP notes is much more likely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ friends are convinced there is no other way to succeed. They believe that it’s imperative to get into an Ivy or other top-ranked school in order to make money. They are so stressed and pressured about this. I am a successful professional and know many other successful professionals. Some of us went to Ivies, others didn’t.
How can I explain to these teens that going to a college that is a good fit where they can thrive is much more important than going to an Ivy?

Are their your kids? Why are you so invested? Pay attention to your own children. Sheesh. MYOB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids’ friends are convinced there is no other way to succeed. They believe that it’s imperative to get into an Ivy or other top-ranked school in order to make money. They are so stressed and pressured about this. I am a successful professional and know many other successful professionals. Some of us went to Ivies, others didn’t.
How can I explain to these teens that going to a college that is a good fit where they can thrive is much more important than going to an Ivy?

I'd rather have my teens obsessed with the goal of getting into an Ivy than just being a average underachieving slacker kid. Have you seen the average teen? They're dumb as a brick, lazy, addicted to the phone and video games. They've literally never finished a book. Or the other large subset of teens obsessed with playing sports, which 99.9% of the time is just a pointless time sink.

Aren't you a peach! I've never played a sport in my life and even I can see that being "obsessed" with a sport as a teen instills extremely important life skills like grit, leadership, self-discipline, time management, getting used to failure and criticism in a way that being obsessed with academics and getting into the best college just does not.

+1

Agreed. PP is down on whites and wants the world to know it.

Guilty conscience? You were able to self-identify pretty quickly.
- DP