For those who attended non-Ivies, do you regret not trying harder to get into an Ivy?

[Anonymous]

I turned down an Ivy for a SLAC for dumb reasons, was miserable at the SLAC, and transferred to the college I'd originally been accepted to. So for me it was a bad choice, but the issue was poor fit with the SLAC - it was too small and isolated for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's easy to see why so few of you ended up at an Ivy. You either didn't understand the question OP asked or are ignoring it.

Clearly it's directed at folks who in retrospect had an actual, realistic chance at admission to an Ivy but didn't push it. Many of you don't qualify to respond -- by a long shot -- and those of you who got in a turned it down don't qualify either.

I’ll play then. Accepted to the 2 Ivys applied to. Went to non-Ivy for less cost. If had gone Ivy I would have loved Ivy. Own your choices, make the best of them and just look forward.

I was accepted to Princeton. My first choice. I couldn’t go because I could not obtain financial aid. My father was well off but abandoned the family and wouldn’t assist in the slightest. I opted for Duke on a full athletic scholarship.No athletic scholarship in the Ivy League. The AD at Princeton flew out to talk to me and my high school administration to confirm my father (divorce situation) was that difficult. My mother had severe issues and soon was to lose our two bedroom home. I had to avoid burdening her. I sat down with my English teacher, one of the few adults I trusted, and came up with a list of schools. We both decided Duke made sense from a number of D1 athletic scholarship choices. I would have enjoyed Princeton but I don’t think my life would not have been much different if I had attended there. I did get in (undeservedly) an honors program at Duke and after some brutal ego damage did quite well. Princeton would have given me even more challenge than Duke. You make the most of what is in front of you. Being in a power athletic conference was a good experience, although in my sport the Ivies were very competitive and a challenge as well. I have been entirely on my own since 18, and can speak from the perspective of luck.

My daughter was a very good student and I told her from an early age she could go to the university of her choosing. No worry about cost or finances. She was admitted to a number of schools, and chose Princeton. I was concerned her decision was premised in part on my past, but it became clear Princeton was her first choice. Graduation was a great karma experience.

The real difference in my life was the high school English teacher. A gay man who could not be out at the time, he knew nothing about sports and didn’t care a whit about the national athletic acclaim I was receiving. He cared about me. I won a quiet county championship in the town where he lived and after the competition went to his house with my valedictorian girlfriend to discuss future plans. I was slightly injured but bleeding from my knee all over the place. He didn’t care I was bleeding all over his kitchen. Just looked out for me. He mattered far more than where I went to college. Great teachers really can impact young people.

What do you mean by "undeservedly"?

Undeservedly? To date, no scholarship athlete ever entered the program. I wasn’t really qualified, but was admitted. I worked very hard and made up for my lack of preparation (one of two of 11 who obtained highest honors), but I was well aware of why I was admitted. Half of the program went to Harvard Law School. These people were bright in a way I was not - I was just focused. Unlike the average DCUM denizen, my honors classmates respected my athletics. After winning a big competition, the class stood and cheered for me - I was overwhelmed. Life is what you make it.

Turned out well - I didn’t want to disappoint the people who took a chance on me. I might add it turned my life around. No safe spaces - I learned how to compete and sustain ego damage in learning. I had no parents in my life and entirely my own and really listened to the adults who cared for me. This was essential no matter what school I attended.

Have to put these discussions in perspective. I worked summers as a Teamster and as an UFCW worker in a slaughterhouse. My fellow workers were taking every hour of overtime to send their kids to the local public college. No endless back and forth about prestige or the Ivy League or hovering over their kids. To a one, however, they insisted I obtain high marks. I respected my union members more than one can imagine.

I was at the very top of my T10 law school class and a law review editor. One of my fellow editors told me in private I was viewed with suspicion by virtue of my background and experiences with the working classes. I told him I understood - I wasn’t cut from middle or upper middle class cloth and didn’t have any illusions about being particularly intelligent. I just had very little fear or anxiety. Went through school with no loans and always worked. People who are poor know financial anxiety and this wasn’t going to be me. Again, nothing to do with where I went to school.

[Anonymous]

This question really applies only to the very privileged. It’s a wild question as worded. It
might work better if prefaced by: “if you grew up in the top 1% of wealth…”

I applied to my state’s flagship university and one private university in my state that I had heard of because a friend’s older sister went there. I had no one giving me any broad, strategic advice about applying to colleges. My dad was the first in his family to go to college (at night school for a decade) and become middle class. My mom didn’t go to college.

So thinking about the Ivy’s was not on our radar at all. School counselor meeting was more like, “you want to go to college, and are applying to some, great.” I was a good student but not outstanding (top 5% of my class, not valedictorian), and could not have afforded any private university without a scholarship or aid.

I appreciate my college education (at an LAC that is now about T110), benefitted from it, and realize that a more thorough consideration of options would have been better, but was unrealistic in my circumstances. I was not likely an Ivy League school candidate. I could have gotten in to more selective schools than I did if anyone had been pointing that out to me. In my community, colleges with strong basketball or football teams seemed like the “best” schools, because they were what people had heard of.

As say all this to say, everyone on DCUM is not living your 1%-er life. And that’s ok. Do recognize that your question comes from a position of incredible privilege. And good for you to have had that. Just try reading the room sometimes.

[Anonymous]

I had a buddy that got a 36 on the ACT, but he was only like in the top quarter of his class. He was totally miffed he didn't get a scholarship to Swarthmore. Had scholarship to a state school. Ended up flunking out in the first semester (and then in the second after they gave him a pass).

I'm not sure he ever gave it a second thought. Lucky stiff is a kept man, but wished he could afford a house.

36 on the ACT was all the validation he needed.

[Anonymous]

No because when I come across Ivy grads they are in the same neighborhood, at the same jobs, kids in the same schools and activities. We ended up in the same place. Either i overperformed or they underperformed. What is there to regret?

[Anonymous]

No, because I went somewhere even better for me. Applied to one Ivy, got in, turned it down, and in the 20 years since have generally felt lucky that I wasn’t overly obsessed with “Ivy” to have accepted the offer there.