Reply to Are Ivy League Schools Becoming More or Less Popular?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ivies used to have a monopoly or close to it in the smartest kids, so it was a useful signal, but nowadays the gap between these elite schools and so called second tier schools is very narrow.  Just look at standardized test data. Plus there is the recognition that while half the class at Ivies are top notch students, the other half are hooked, beneficiaries of woke policies, etc.

For example, the intellectual gap between the average Ivy League student and the average SLAC student is minor at this point. Thirty years ago it was more significant. [/quote]

How stupid are you? Do you know how many recruited athletes are at SLACs? You think they don’t have DEI? I mean make an argument but try one that isn’t so dumb. [/quote]

The argument is that a kid who went to say Bowdoin or Michigan OOS 30 years ago was not usually of the same caliber academically as a kid who went to Yale. Now that difference has become much smaller. It’s a supply demand thing. To illustrate with hypothetical numbers, there used to be 1000 elite students (basically similar aptitude) applying to colleges and the Ivies etc had 1000 seats. Now there are 2000 elite students and 1100 seats. So there is more overflow into the other schools. The difference between a Hamilton kid and a Brown kid was big in 1995. Now there really isn’t one. [/quote]

No that wasn’t the argument. The argument is that Ivy League  students are being dumbed down. That’s the explanation for the lack of a gap.

Your take might be true a limited number of SLACs.  But hey if it makes you feel better about your Grinnell or Hamilton kid by all means stay in your fantasyland.

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It was a combination. Due to affluence and demographics, we have more supply of “elite” students. Due to DEI, we have more seats (half?) at Ivy League and all top schools allocated to kids for non-meritocratic reasons. So it’s like musical chairs. More kids are playing and there are fewer seats. The result is the Ivies cannot absorb all the elite students and they flow down to schools historically seen as second tier. As a result the difference in the quality of the student body at second tier now is pretty minor if it exists at all. 30 years ago the kid who got 1500 would get into Yale and the kid who got 1240 would get into Colby. Today it is the kid who got 1540 gets into Yale and the kid who got 1500 gets into Colby. Do you understand?

Anyone who has been through this process realizes this when you see which kids land where and why. For the most part the kids from high income backgrounds going to ivies as opposed to the next level down are athletes, legacies or otherwise hooked. [/quote]

This is a very good interpretation of the current elite college landscape.

Do you think there are any changes trickling down to the t75-t50 level colleges? What is the impact amongst the rest of the field?
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Thanks. It’s really just economics 101. There is a compression of talent at the top now. Yes I think 50-75 definitely affected. [/quote]

“ Anyone who has been through this process realizes this when you see which kids land where and why. For the most part the kids from high income backgrounds going to ivies as opposed to the next level down are athletes, legacies or otherwise hooked.”

Anybody who has been through the college process knows that LACs have a huge percentage of athletes, legacies and hooked kids. What they don’t really have is non-white kids, so that’s really your point - that’s why you think all these kids are smart and talented. [/quote].

We can see the statistics and data of students at the LACs. They are smart kids. You can't avoid it, even if they are also recruited athletes or legacies. LACs weakest spot is having far fewer Asian students relative to the Ivies but that is clearly a self selective phenomena and not one the LACs are deliberately encouraging. [/quote]
 
So the same model that allegedly leads to inferior students at an Ivy League school has no impact on LACs. Ok. [/quote]

I think the point is the Ivies now have vast resources that allow them to push extremely hard on URM and first Gen. They don’t need as many paying customers as they did 30 years ago. LACs with a few exceptions aren’t there. So the complexion (literally) of the schools is more similar to Ivies of 30 years ago. The smart rich white kids who used to land at Ivies don’t have access to as many seats there now so they are diverted to LACs. The fact that LACS are less Asian, which also makes them more like Ivies of 30 years ago, is a bit of a coincidence- the schools are just generally not on the Asian family radar esp due to less emphasis on stem.

The reality is LACs and Ivies were always culturally very similar. Is Dartmouth really that different from Williams? They have similar histories, usually formed by some Protestant group to pursue free inquiry. LACs perhaps retain for better or worse certain qualities that both sets of schools had in decades past whereas Ivies have moved in a different direction in part because of their mega-billion endowments. [/quote]

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