The T-20 obsession comes down to class, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question is really for those who couldn’t get in. If you’re good and smart enough to get in, then why not? What’s the downside?
The entire thread really reflects the jealousy and insecurity of those less competent people.

Nope. That's not the question at all. Rather, the question is just because you can get in, should you necessarily go? There are plenty of reasons not to. One, for example, is that you'll be surrounding yourself with people who forever will be obsessed with this kind of thing, and there are many people who don't want that.

I don’t think that’s true at all, plenty of Ivy alums on here have suggested better fit options for their kids. Also, awhile ago there was a long thread where people listed parent colleges and all kids. Very few Ivy alums had kids also attending.

Of course, now you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. They're not attending only because times have changed and they're not getting in, so their parents are now talking about "fit."

Be consistent at least.

I think you’re confusing me with someone else, agree they aren’t attending because not an option so going with fit, but at least it’s a slightly more educated opinion since the have firsthand knowledge albeit old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the immigrant parent obsession.

If you're at a top private high school, many parents are completely relaxed about sending their kid to place like Colby or Boston College. I know DCUM think they're all nuts but our experience with 3 kids has been the opposite. Parents are very nonchalant about where their kids land. Often the Ivy gunners are, yes, the immigrant famlies in the bunch.

Meanwhile, on Reddit so many freshmen are trying to transfer up from Emory or Rice or Vanderbilt, etc. "My parents are still so embarrassed that I'm not at an Ivy."

Immigrant parents aren't the ones using legacies,wealth, and athletic side doors for their kids to get into T10. That's usually white American parents. And there are more spots for those types of applicants than for immigrant children with no hooks.

OP, my kid went to a state flagship -- 1580 SAT, 4.92 wgpa/4.0 unwgpa. They were rejected at T20 (for CS). But, they got some great internships because they are smart and driven.

I went to a no name state u, and ended up working for a FAANG. It took me a lot longer to get there than my colleagues who went to T10s (MIT, Cornell), and I can hold my own.

So, while yes, one can get jobs at top companies even if they didn't go to a T20, it may take them longer and have to hustle more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My nephew had a 1500 (or higher) on the SAT, incredible grades in STEM classes, and he's an Eagle Scout. He lives in Arizona. He went to Arizona because he got a full-scholarship. One parent works for a non-profit and the other is a government scientist. He also loves to mountain bike. He has no connection to the Northeast or Northern California. Arizona made the most sense.

There are lots of students like my nephew who have the stats to enroll in the T-20, but don't, for a variety of financial and personal reasons. Many of my colleagues started at state flagships, graduated from top law schools, and won federal clerkships. None of them grew up in wealthy households. Solid middle class. It doesn't seem that not going to a T-20 for undergrad forecloses opportunities later.

Is this T-20 obsession a 1 percenter thing? Is it about impressing the law firm partners? Or the ladies at the country club? Or is it about replenishing those who think of themselves as elites?

I just started reading this board, and the sturm and drang over admission to this small set of schools is BANANAS.

A 1500 SAT, “incredible grades in STEM, and being in the Boy Scouts will not get him into a T20. Not even close. It’s insanely competitive. People care because of the opportunities for post college employment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me this seems primarily an East Coast obsession.

If you have spent time in the bay area immigrant community you wouldn't say that. Among the non-immigrant upper class private school crowd on the West Coast things seem to be a bit more chill. Very good schools or better are expected but the T20 obsession definitely isn't as strong.

My experience is that once it is basically accepted the kid has no shot at an Ivy+ or U Chicago or JHU, then the T20 obsession fades.

Maybe parents a bit more chill in accepting that it just isn't going to happen, so now let's focus on Tulane or Wake or whatever (they still tend to heavily skew towards private colleges).

This is so true! I don’t believe many of the people that complain would be any more grounded or chill if they had a kid that was competitive for a T20. It’s easy to be that way when it’s not an option.

This. Every year it plays out, the kid wearing top-school clothing in 9th and 10th grade, parents talking about T20s or our T5 flagship public, then suddenly mid junior year after the counseling meeting it completely shifts, "Larlo would not fit at X elite or Y flagship ...we are looking for fit"...names a bunch of T50 privates and below-T20 LACs, or names a bunch of mediocre SEC schools and starts describing them as really selective for this and that nonsense niche major that no one really needs at the undergrad level.

DP here. This is so true. The parents who went to T20 schools at our kids' school start talking about how one Ivy plus school is way better than another Ivy plus school, or how so-and-so's kid "only" got into one elite school but couldn't get into another elite school, etc. all of a sudden start boosting random schools that are totally not selective or well known and talk about how their kid would thrive somewhere that's not so "competitive" or "cut throat."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My nephew had a 1500 (or higher) on the SAT, incredible grades in STEM classes, and he's an Eagle Scout. He lives in Arizona. He went to Arizona because he got a full-scholarship. One parent works for a non-profit and the other is a government scientist. He also loves to mountain bike. He has no connection to the Northeast or Northern California. Arizona made the most sense.

There are lots of students like my nephew who have the stats to enroll in the T-20, but don't, for a variety of financial and personal reasons. Many of my colleagues started at state flagships, graduated from top law schools, and won federal clerkships. None of them grew up in wealthy households. Solid middle class. It doesn't seem that not going to a T-20 for undergrad forecloses opportunities later.

Is this T-20 obsession a 1 percenter thing? Is it about impressing the law firm partners? Or the ladies at the country club? Or is it about replenishing those who think of themselves as elites?

I just started reading this board, and the sturm and drang over admission to this small set of schools is BANANAS.

A 1500 SAT, “incredible grades in STEM, and being in the Boy Scouts will not get him into a T20. Not even close. It’s insanely competitive. People care because of the opportunities for post college employment.

Esp if the parents went to crappy schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me this seems primarily an East Coast obsession.

If you have spent time in the bay area immigrant community you wouldn't say that. Among the non-immigrant upper class private school crowd on the West Coast things seem to be a bit more chill. Very good schools or better are expected but the T20 obsession definitely isn't as strong.

That's because rich people don't need their kids to go to a T10 to make connections. They already have those connections. Their kids will get the top jobs through those connections.

Unhooked kids can benefit most from the T10 connections, but most of the universities have more spots open for legacies, the wealthy and athletes than for unhooked applicatns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the immigrant parent obsession.

If you're at a top private high school, many parents are completely relaxed about sending their kid to place like Colby or Boston College. I know DCUM think they're all nuts but our experience with 3 kids has been the opposite. Parents are very nonchalant about where their kids land. Often the Ivy gunners are, yes, the immigrant famlies in the bunch.

Meanwhile, on Reddit so many freshmen are trying to transfer up from Emory or Rice or Vanderbilt, etc. "My parents are still so embarrassed that I'm not at an Ivy."

The problem is this doesn't play out in the real world. Go look at Big3 matriculations or top NYC private schools...tons of Ivy and other top 20 admits. Something like 50% of Sidwell's 2025 class attends a top 20 school.

Most of these kids are Americans.

Thanks for this response. Following this forum too closely and you may come to believe it is all the fault of immigrants.

Very MAGA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're setting up a strawman with 'foreclose.' For STEM careers, where you did your undergrad does matter. Georgia Tech, UT Cockrell, Caltech, Rice, MIT aren't just names on the back of your SUV. The research pipelines, faculty connections, peer networks, and venture capital ecosystems (looking at you, Stanford and MIT) shape outcomes in concrete ways, especially for students headed toward PhD programs, elite research positions, or startups.
The law school analogy isn't quite right. A strong LSAT and GPA can get you from Arizona into a T-14, and from there the law school prestige and targeted recruiting does the heavy lifting for clerkships, the academy, big law. PhD admissions, research opportunities, faculty recommendations, the institutional reputation (prestige) runs through all of it in STEM in ways the law school pipeline simply doesn't.

You are correct...but there has to be a reason when you see the undergrads at say Yale or Harvard law school, you may only see 2-3 kids who attended Arizona, but you will see literally hundreds that attended an Ivy or other Top 20 undergrad. Both Yale and Harvard law schools alone will have like 100+ kids who attended Yale undergrad and a 100+ kids who attended Harvard undergrad.

Perhaps it's because Arizona undergrads for the most part just want to practice law in Phoenix or Tucson...I don't know. I would imagine the University of Arizona law school has 100+ kids who went to University of Arizona undergrad.

Yale Law doesn't even have 200 total students in an entire class.

Yeah...that's why the 100+ was for the entire law school. When Yale last published this data, I believe like 29% of Yale Law School students went to Yale undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the immigrant parent obsession.

If you're at a top private high school, many parents are completely relaxed about sending their kid to place like Colby or Boston College. I know DCUM think they're all nuts but our experience with 3 kids has been the opposite. Parents are very nonchalant about where their kids land. Often the Ivy gunners are, yes, the immigrant famlies in the bunch.

Meanwhile, on Reddit so many freshmen are trying to transfer up from Emory or Rice or Vanderbilt, etc. "My parents are still so embarrassed that I'm not at an Ivy."

The problem is this doesn't play out in the real world. Go look at Big3 matriculations or top NYC private schools...tons of Ivy and other top 20 admits. Something like 50% of Sidwell's 2025 class attends a top 20 school.

Most of these kids are Americans.

Thanks for this response. Following this forum too closely and you may come to believe it is all the fault of immigrants.

Very MAGA.

Actually very liberal because "immigrants" is the coded word on DCUM for Asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. I know I should just go outside and pull some weeds or do something else more useful than participate in yet another pissing match on this board, but I'll bite.

Hard working immigrants and other disadvantaged folks can actually benefit more from a top 20 than others because going to one of them moves them up from first base to third, where most of the others who attend those schools started on third base in the first place. Study after study confirms this.

But if you're ALREADY on third base, as most DCUM families and private school families are, then no it doesn't matter in the slightest.

It would depend on what the kid wants to do. Even for those born on third base, going to a T20 matters if they want to go into finance, consulting or increasingly tech. And that typically is where a majority of graduates end up from the top 20 schools. That degree opens doors on Wall Street, FAANG and so on that are largely closed to everyone else.

Also, as others have noted, the top 20 universities are often the most affordable option for bright and accomplished MC and UMC students. The cost is often substantially lower than going to the state flagship. Add in the peer group and generally a great education and you can see why so many want to attend.

That is not my experience. I went to my state flagship because I had a full ride. The flagship in the neighboring state gave me a partial scholarship. Plenty of kids from my kid's high school get scholarships to in-state universities. If a kid has the qualifications to be admitted to a T-20, with financial aid, there is no way that kid is not going to get a substantial (or full) scholarship from their own state university.

FALSE. The most generous schools (five ivies, MIT and Stanford) give need based aid to some degree up to around 300k HHI, free tuition for up to 200k.
The next tier (rest of ivies, Duke, JHU, handful of others) give need based aid into the upper 200s and free tuition high 100s. They all have NPCs and seek to continue to have over half their students on need-based aid. This is not secret information. The families in the group around 150k-300k get need based aid from these schools that often takes the cost down to the same or slightly higher than UVA or WM in state yet those schools offer ZERO need based aid to these families, and have ZERO merit scholarships for top students. Many flagships are similar to their in-state residents, minimal need based and almost no merit. Merit at lower ranked publics for OOS families will get that public close to their in-state public but the ivy+ top-need-aid will remain a better deal.

[Anonymous]

^For some students the cost of the ivy will be significantly less than the instate school.

[Anonymous]

A lot of us attended these schools (and the top SLACs this board loves to hate). We want our kids to experience them, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me this seems primarily an East Coast obsession.

If you have spent time in the bay area immigrant community you wouldn't say that. Among the non-immigrant upper class private school crowd on the West Coast things seem to be a bit more chill. Very good schools or better are expected but the T20 obsession definitely isn't as strong.

That's because rich people don't need their kids to go to a T10 to make connections. They already have those connections. Their kids will get the top jobs through those connections.

Unhooked kids can benefit most from the T10 connections, but most of the universities have more spots open for legacies, the wealthy and athletes than for unhooked applicatns.

While, this is intuitively true...the wealthiest, most connected rich people still send their kids to T10 schools. Gates' kids at Stanford, Bezos' kids at Princeton (transferred to MIT), Musk's kid at Brown, etc.

It's simply a strange, urban myth that rich parents aren't pretty obsessed with their kids also attending top schools. The crazy top college consultants charge like $750,000 to children of hedge fund founders, PE fund founders, Tech entrepreneurs...and yes, very wealthy international families (though those families are a far cry from immigrant families in the US).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're setting up a strawman with 'foreclose.' For STEM careers, where you did your undergrad does matter. Georgia Tech, UT Cockrell, Caltech, Rice, MIT aren't just names on the back of your SUV. The research pipelines, faculty connections, peer networks, and venture capital ecosystems (looking at you, Stanford and MIT) shape outcomes in concrete ways, especially for students headed toward PhD programs, elite research positions, or startups.
The law school analogy isn't quite right. A strong LSAT and GPA can get you from Arizona into a T-14, and from there the law school prestige and targeted recruiting does the heavy lifting for clerkships, the academy, big law. PhD admissions, research opportunities, faculty recommendations, the institutional reputation (prestige) runs through all of it in STEM in ways the law school pipeline simply doesn't.

You are correct...but there has to be a reason when you see the undergrads at say Yale or Harvard law school, you may only see 2-3 kids who attended Arizona, but you will see literally hundreds that attended an Ivy or other Top 20 undergrad. Both Yale and Harvard law schools alone will have like 100+ kids who attended Yale undergrad and a 100+ kids who attended Harvard undergrad.

Perhaps it's because Arizona undergrads for the most part just want to practice law in Phoenix or Tucson...I don't know. I would imagine the University of Arizona law school has 100+ kids who went to University of Arizona undergrad.

Yale Law doesn't even have 200 total students in an entire class.

Yeah...that's why the 100+ was for the entire law school. When Yale last published this data, I believe like 29% of Yale Law School students went to Yale undergrad.

Top law and Top med schools are filled with T20 private/T5 publics/WAS, with a disproportionate subgroup from ivy/T10. It is very difficult to get in outside of T20ish unless you have a hook. The 20 kids they take each year from 20 different mediocre schools are almost all hooked: military, FG, HBCU, underrepresented in some way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the immigrant parent obsession.

If you're at a top private high school, many parents are completely relaxed about sending their kid to place like Colby or Boston College. I know DCUM think they're all nuts but our experience with 3 kids has been the opposite. Parents are very nonchalant about where their kids land. Often the Ivy gunners are, yes, the immigrant famlies in the bunch.

Meanwhile, on Reddit so many freshmen are trying to transfer up from Emory or Rice or Vanderbilt, etc. "My parents are still so embarrassed that I'm not at an Ivy."

The problem is this doesn't play out in the real world. Go look at Big3 matriculations or top NYC private schools...tons of Ivy and other top 20 admits. Something like 50% of Sidwell's 2025 class attends a top 20 school.

Most of these kids are Americans.

Thanks for this response. Following this forum too closely and you may come to believe it is all the fault of immigrants.

Very MAGA.

Actually very liberal because "immigrants" is the coded word on DCUM for Asians.

great, so MAGA hate (asian) immigrants, and liberals hate asians.

Can't win either way.

-Asian immigrant whose high stat kids go to state flagships