Reply to Help me understand the Ivy obsession

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Help me understand the Ivy obsession "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op here- My question is more along the lines of why is an Ivy League the main goal. For example, the poster who wrote “don’t send your kid to a big 3 if you want to get to an Ivy.” IMO- isn’t it more about your kids getting an amazing education and having a good foundation? In addition, making sure that your kids develop EQ skills? If that means B average at a top private to gain those skills isn’t that preferable to your child going to a public school that doesn’t fit their academic needs just to maybe get into any Ivy. It seems to me that people who are successful have 1. Good writing/ math skills 2. Emotional intelligence. I don’t think going to an Ivy League sets you up the way people assume. Yes you have a good network but only if you know how to leverage it. Otherwise, it’s not like my classmates are doing miles ahead of others professionally. The ones who are super successful often came from successful families to begin with. At some point where you go to school doesn’t matter. [/quote]

One could ask why people are so obsessed with sending their kid to a Big3 vs. any number of strong private schools in the DMV?  I am not sure they are known for teaching EQ and EI skills.  Why is the option go to a pressure-cooker Big3 and get a B or go public vs. maybe go a private that teaches the skills you mention and perhaps my kid gets As.

Many Big3 parents graduated from Top 10 schools themselves and have found professional success, so they have a template of attend Big3 + attend Top 10 and now you have multiple top networks working for you.

Look, there are definitely very successful people like Larry Ellison that basically told their kids to go to Pepperdine so they can surf all day because who cares where you go to college when you stand to inherit $50BN+ (his kids ended up at USC BTW)...but he seems like an outlier.  Even Bezos, Musk and Gates' kids attended Top 5 schools.

Also, Bezos came from a LMC family in New Mexico, Musk came from SA and did not have much of a family network...even Zuckerberg's parents were dentists, but he doubled down by attending I think Andover (maybe Exeter) and then going to Harvard.  They are truly super successful, yet did not come from generationally wealthy households.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics