Today’s topic is a little controversial. I’m going to be blunt and straight-forward as is my style, and if you’re offended, feel free to email me and tell me why.
Ivy League schools are expensive. Colleges like Harvard and Stanford cost easily $40,000 a year in books, tuition, housing, incidentals.
You multiply that over four years and you’re looking at close to $200,000 just to go to college.
Compare that to a public school like the University of Michigan. A whole four years at U. Mich would probably cost you somewhere around $50,000.
That’s a $150,000 difference! You could easily buy a house with that money. You could buy three brand-new BMWs. My parents knew this when they sent me, trust me.
So why do thousands and thousands of high school students year after year sweat and devote their entire lives to get into Ivy League schools?
Even if Ivy League schools cost half a million dollars to go, they would still be more than worth the monetary cost to go.
Not only will those invested dollars provide a higher monetary return over time, they’ll also provide a higher personal return over time.
Here are the reasons why:
You have an incomparable network of people who will be incredibly successful. They’ll be your friends, your peers, and your colleagues from all over the world. Eventually they’ll be your business partners, your running mates, your doctors, and your lawyers.
Now imagine if you went to UC Santa Cruz.
How many friends do you think will be doctors? How many will be lawyers? How many do you think will be running Fortune 500 companies?
The answer is not many. The value of that network only increases exponentially over time.
The second benefit is job opportunities on campus.
Think about what the top companies in the world, business companies like GE, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Procter & Gamble.
Where do you think these companies get the vast majority of their new hires, their latest job candidates?
It’s certainly not from the University of Florida.
The best and most prestigious companies in the world the year after year want to recruit students from schools like Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Yale, and Princeton and not from the University of Texas at Dallas.
These job opportunities not only offer higher salaries and better benefits and more prestige, but they open the doors to future career opportunities that otherwise would be out of reach.
To be completely honest, you can go to a school like Boston University and still end up working at GE or Procter & Gamble, but it’s much harder because the opportunities are far fewer.
Even if you do get a great opportunity most likely it won’t be the same type of job and you certainly won’t have the same selectivity about where you work and the types of responsibilities that you have.
Finally on the point of career opportunities it’s simply far more prestigious to have a school like Yale or Cornell on your resume than it is to have a school like the University of Washington.
When you apply for jobs one of the first things that recruiters and resume readers look for is your educational background.
It’s no surprise to anybody that if you have Harvard on your resume, companies will take your candidacy a lot more seriously and you’ll probably be getting jobs at higher salaries than someone who went to a state school.
Now let’s move on to the actual experience that you have at an Ivy League school.
First, your peers, your fellow students, are just much smarter. This means that you’ll learn a lot more from them such as personal interests as well as academic interests. You’ll find people who are the best chess players in the world, the smartest chemistry students, the most knowledgeable high school students about current affairs.
Not only will they inspire you to expand your personal and academic horizons, they will show you the bar which you need to meet and exceed in order to be successful in life.
Think about your average public high school. In high school I wasn’t very motivated to work hard in part because it was so easy.
Classes weren’t hard, students didn’t work hard, and I just didn’t feel motivated…but it’s completely different at Ivy League schools. You’ll be much more excited to learn just for learning’s sake, and realize what you have to do to succeed.
Now let’s talk about the quality of resources at Ivy League colleges.
They simply have much more money per student.
This means far better professors at your disposal. Not only will you get a world-class education from some of the top professors in their fields whether that’s physics or medieval history, whether that’s contemporary art or computer graphics, you’ll have people who excel at what they do, teaching you exactly what they know.
Beyond that the schools themselves, schools like Yale or Cornell simply have more resources to devote to their students.
This is great for you because it means you have a lot more support in the form of career advice, study advice, exploration of personal and academic interests.
There are a lot more resources for you to do research on topics you care about. At Stanford I was fortunate enough to get a few research grants to travel to and study all sorts of interesting issues in Europe and the Middle East.
Ivy League schools aren’t for everybody. Some people find them extremely stressful because depending on the school, you may have a very competitive environment.
I certainly didn’t feel that way at Stanford, but you do hear that some schools are competitive.
It also depends on your major. For instance if you’re a premed major you can expect there to be a lot more competition for the best grades. Everyone wants to go to medical schools like John Hopkins, UCSF, and Stanford Medical School so they’re all fighting to be the best.
Ivy League universities can sometimes be overwhelming if you don’t deal well with stress.
Ultimately, there is actually nothing wrong with striving for the best. Ivy League schools, at least for high school students, are the epitome of excellence. If you have the opportunity to go to one, I would highly recommended you do so.
If you are very unhappy – I knew some unhappy student at Stanford who ended up transferring to public schools. If you’re really unhappy you can always transfer.
But at least you gave it a shot.
Applying to top colleges? Learn how average students can get into Harvard.
Want to attend Ivy League schools? Check out my insider’s course and guide to getting into Harvard, even with a 1360 SAT from a public high school.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear MR.John Chang,
Having read through your website about becoming a successful Ivy league admit even though a person is an average joe, i couldnt help notice that your advice is for high school students looking for under graduate admisssions. I, on the other hand have already completed my undergraduate program here in India and am looking forward for applying to a good business school for my M.B.A.
Hence, I would like to know if your book would also be helpful for international students, like me, who have already completed their undergraduate program and would like to apply for a post graduate/ masters program in one of these prestigious institutions.
Looking forward for your feedback.
Thanks and Regards,
Ashraf Khan
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John,
I agree with your analysis completely. I went to a state school for undergrad., and Stanford for graduate school. The Stanford name has exponentially increased my job security and career potential. However, I am years behind an undergrad. at one of these premier private schools, which could have landed me in a higher level position at an early age. I am still playing catch-up.
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Dude,
Stanford is NOT an ivy league school. Why is it that every website commenting on the status of the ivies throws Stanford into the mix?!
Stanford is a wonderful school, but it is NOT an ivy. There are EIGHT (count them) ivy league shools: Darmouth, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, and UPENN. All of the ivy league schools are in the northeast region of the United States. Stanford is on the west coast.
So what have we learned today? When crafting an introduction to your article you want to avoid generalizations that will suggest incorrect information, esspecially when you are trying to sell a book which provides people with supposedly useful information.
Stanford is NOT an ivy!
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PoliticalBarbie Reply:
February 13th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Perhaps you should work on not being so grammatically incorrect; I believe it’s Dartmouth, not Darmouth.
So what have we learned today?! Dartmouth has a T.
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Sasha Reply:
May 17th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
OWNED YOUR ASS! XD
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Marie Reply:
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:59 am
YOU’RE SO FUNNY. are you bitter cuz you didnt get accepted? >:)) its DARTMOUTH smarty pants >:))
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anony Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 1:21 am
In all specificity, the Ivy League is really just a reference to a collegiate sports division much like the Pac 10 or Big 10.
However, when most people reference the Ivies in terms of academics, its only intended to distinguish the highest caliber of schools, generally accepted to be one thats better than an ivy.
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Brianna Reply:
January 8th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Studies show that Stanford graduates make higher starting incomes than any other school in the country. I’d say it is definitely the Ivy of the west (all Ivies are east coast based).
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but like the above poster has said, Stanford is NOT an Ivy League. Undeniably, it is a very good school, just not an Ivy.
I would like to point out that one can’t rely everything on his or her educational background when it comes to crafting a resume. Let me just say that aside from education, personality and experience also plays a key a role. The brightest minds on the Earth don’t always have the best communication skills. Who do you think an employer would hire: an Ivy League grad who lacks social skills with little job experience or a University of Florida grad who knows how to present and has worked as an intern?
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Scott Reply:
December 26th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
I live near UF and most of the students have a terrible country accent that I can’t stand. Give me a Harvard kid any day over that non sense.
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I think the primary thing is that people are thinking about their futures beyond High School. Getting job training or a college degree from an accredited University will almost always take one much further than sole reliance upon a High School diploma.
I also want to say that while Stanford is not Ivy League many people put it into the same category as the Ivy League. The Ivy League has become synonymous with prestigious, well known schools the same way Hollywood has become synonymous with celebrity culture and the film industry although not all celebrities live in Hollywood nor or all films made there. Ivy League has more than one meaning; there is it’s literal definition and it’s much broader definition encompassing a variety of prestigious Universities.
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sorry buddy but stanford is not ivy league. there are eight all in the northeast part of the united states. you should make sure when you write an informational essay that all your facts are right because you become less and less credible with each fact(even if small) you mess up on.
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You only present one side of the argument. You fail to discuss the myriad ways $150,000 could be spent to enhance the post-graduate career of someone that performs well at a public school. The number of possibilities are pretty vast, if one puts your mind to it.
For some people, attending an Ivy makes all the difference. For others, it simply gets them their first job.
Finally, there are the people that attend a public college and an elite graduate school. Once you graduate from an elite professional school, your undergraduate degree won’t matter much.
Trust me, there are plenty of people who receive an elite undergraduate degree and then have perfectly ordinary careers. The people who have extra-ordinary careers tend to have ambition, drive, intelligence and good social skills. These people do not all have degrees from Ivy League
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I found this article completely ridiculous. Ivy League schools are great, but life isn’t entirely about education. I can personally say that if I went to an ivy league school, I would hate spending four years in a competitive atmosphere. I want my college experience to be spent making new friends, learning to live on my own, and learning to enrich my education. Ivy League may be competitive, but it’s not personally something I feel the need to strive toward. I’d be much happier at Ohio State in a comfortable, happy atmosphere. Not to say you can’t be happy other places, but Ohio could make me just as happy.
You mentioned GE. To be honest, GE doesn’t care much about where you went to school. My dad went to Wright State University and he ended up being one of the leading businessmen in the GE corp. He works hard, and it pays off. Ivy League does not prove he is worthy.
Life is about more than competing.
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Jim Reply:
July 5th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Life is more about competing to you simply because you do not have the intellectual drive that so many Americans have been lacking recently to progress in this era of technological advancements and modern evolution. If you are satisfied with OSU, this website is not for you.
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Actually, GE gets more hires from UF than from Harvard…and c’mon it’s a global economy now. There’s research to prove that it doesn’t matter if you go to a flagship or to an ivy. Grow up or show me the facts! Not just what your saying but with PROOF.
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Everyone complaining about Stanford–yes you are right Stanford is NOT part of the Ivy League (since there are only
yet it is consistently RANKED and CONSIDERED to be a top tier school like the Ivys. Check the Princeton Review and other sources, it is put up there near Columbia, Yale and Princeton, even ranked higher than some of the Ivys! It is even considered to be ”The Harvard of the West.” Just because it is not in the Northeast like the Ivy League schools does not mean that it is not as good as them. Look at their alumni and professors, and you will see that Stanford is just as prestigious as the others! I do agree w/most of this article. I think one important thing about college choices is not settling. I know plenty of people who get straight A’s and are school leaders, but don’t strive for a top tier school (although it is evident that they have a chance!). I think we as students, underestimate ourselves and our abilities. Now, another reason why I know so many people like this, is because they cannot afford an Ivy(+Stanford) education (like me). But they do not realize that universities with large endowments usually give out great financial packages (or scholarships) to those of us who are not upper-middle class! There are also governmental grants. Applying to an Ivy/Stanford is worth the shot–you never know if you will be admitted or rejected, and why not take a chance? Secondary education is one of the things in life that we have almost ABSOLUTE control over, yet that so many underestimate, and end up at a college that they end up hating. There are however, many great state schools. University of Virginia, is an excellent state school, and harder to get into than most state schools, along with the College of William and Mary, Berkeley, and UCLA. When thinking about college options, you must think whether or not you want to spend your time with intellectuals who are as smart or smarter than you, or with pupils that may be unmotivated. Don’t get me wrong, state schools have LOTS of intelligent students/professors (back to UVA+William and Mary and the others), but the atmosphere at many state colleges are completely different than at an Ivy, where it is recognized as an amazing institution with first-rate education, where a many of professors are international and the student body is comprised of people who you would never in your life meet otherwise (one reason I would love to attend an Ivy). Yes, state schools can and do have great opportunities, but I really do suggest that people (esp. those who want to work internationally) take advantage of college application time. Weigh out your options and consider schools (whether they be Ivys or other selective colleges) that you would never consider. Everyone has different standards for what he/she wants his/her college to be like. I think that life is a lot about education, in and out of school. And if an Ivy can give you one of the best forms of education, then why not apply? As a minority, it always seems as though people don’t even expect me to want to go to college. And when they learn that I do, they expect that I want to go to a state school (again there is NOTHING wrong w/state schools–we have some really great ones in America), and when they hear that I want to go to Stanford, they are even more surprised. I know that wanting to go there is a stretch, but honestly, although an Ivy/Stanford is not for everyone, I think achievers in high school need to see the potential we have and strive for the best (whatever the ‘best’ is for you). Many people forget that although education is one of the main goals at an Ivy, they have tons of student organizations and sports like at any other school! A world-renowned school like Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, U of Penn, Princeton, Yale, Brown, or Stanford opens so many doors!
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Stanford is ranked number 1 often in everything. They have a who’s who list that makes the Ivy’s look like pre-school. Not that I care though.
I chose the state school route for monetary savings ( I still left in the hole). Depending on what market you want to compete in, the school’s name will effect you. I grew up outside NYC (commuter suburb) and the finance companies favor Ivy’s specifically Wharton Grads. Next is top 50 schools. Not because they are “better” but because many people in charge went to them. It is a culture.
When I lived in the South, obviously attending a southern school helped you. It really depends on what arena you are trying to compete in.
I got work from hustling in the summer trying to land internships. Granted, it wasn’t at Goldman Sachs, but it was something. It just took a little more persistence because no one had heard of my college.
Also to be noted. The top research is done at top Universities. Medicine, finance, education, psychology…whatever. So, this is another selling point. The best graduate programs require you to be a 4.0 student or have attended a top (Ivy’s for sure) undergrad.
You can be successful with out these things tho. I know many Ivy grads working at the deli.
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Ah! I saw that guy mentioned social skills. This is so important. I know a business owner stopped hiring Ivy grads because they couldn’t get along with the “regular” college grads.
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can you suggest any college for engineering that is both good and not very expensive ??
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Mike Reply:
September 19th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
University of manitoba
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If I go to an ivy league does that mean I can work for BP?
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This is a very shallow way to look at it. It honestly really doesn’t matter which school you go to – shocking, I know right! Ivy League or not. I’m so tired of people comparing and battling schools between each other. GET OVER IT PEOPLE. IT DOESN’T MATTER!
If you don’t have the skills or the attitude needed to perform at your job (and mind you, well), you bet you’ll get chopped, REGARDLESS of whether you went to an Ivy League school or any other private or public schools!
oh and fyi: the University of Michigan, University of Florida and all of the other “state” schools you mentioned? They’re great schools, fyi. I know a good deal of people at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, during their Sophomore summers too. Not trying to be biased for only public universities (I mean, I’m SURE there are obviously people doing the same at Ivy League institutions), but come on! Don’t be so quick to judge and look down upon non-Ivy League schools just because they don’t have the “Ivy” brand to them. Seriously.
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John, John, John…
I feel sorry for you. I am not The End All Be All when it comes to educational facts, but I will tell you this much: I went to one of the most prestigious boarding high schools in the country, I’ve been in selective gifted education programs my entire life, I was a National Merit Finalist, and the only reason I couldn’t contend for valedictorian is because my high school, due to its prestige, did not compute GPA or class rank. Yet it has a 100% graduation rate and 100% of its students went on to schools–most of them top schools. The question is what you are going to define as a “top school.” But this is all incidental to the nature of my post. I am here to defend the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan is so tired of constantly being called the “Harvard of the West” of the “Harvard of the Midwest” (it changed to the latter phrase because of how old the origins of the phrase actually are–once Stanford gained its prestige, the title changed) that we actually manufacture T-shirts making fun of it.
I would urge anyone reading this page to lookinto the term “public ivies.” The University of Michigan topped out that first list, made some 30 plus years ago through careful scrutinization and study of factors such as presitge, publications, academic rigor, alumni network, employment statistics, and all the things you tout that are only available through the sacred “ancient eight.” I am at U of M earning my MBA in strategy. The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business is consistently ranked among and/or ahead of most Ivy League schools. For strategy, my focus, in 2009 it was ranked #1 and is always near the top. Recruiters from consultancies LOVE Ross students. Why? They are less cocky and less entitled than Harvard MBA’s who treat recruiters like it is an honor just to get to interview them (I’m paraphrasing here but referring to statements published in the Wall Street Journal’s review from 2006, I believe. And I know what you are going to say–major research schools like the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois often have top GRADUATE programs. Well, this is true, but take my field, business–Ross’ BBA program consistently ranks among the top 3 in the nation in US News’ review. There are public schools out there with programs ranked equally as well or HIGHER than many Ivy Leagues. I will not deny that Ivy League schools are excellent sources of graduate and undergraduate education, but I will not for one second drink the Kool-Aid and acquiesce to the fact that they are the only path to success available for high school students. Do your homework. Review ALL the rankings–not just US News and the Princeton Review. US News and the Princeton Review give points for “Academic Presitge”– a sort of slush fund category that gives points to Ivy League schools for being Ivy League schools. There are many wonderful public options out there that will afford you all the prestige and opportunities you could want.
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This is kinda of topic but I had to say it. U of Michigan is not only 50,000 for the full four years it’s actually 57,000 per year and you get barely any financial aid. Thats why i can not go there even if i wanted to. My state school would still cost me about 33,000 after the school gives you some money but on top of that I need to take out loans on my own, that’s just what my parents have to pay. It would be a lot cheaper for me to get an education at an ivy or any other top 20 school than state . Additionally , someone I have been learning from my college search is that is not the undergrad that you go to that counts it’s the graduate school.
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Im sorry, but I have to completely disagree. I feel that you are misleading students with this article and pretty much guarantee them success. The truth is is that once you graduate most of these jobs require a masters and no law firm is going to care where you got your bachelor’s because it really doesn’t matter. I say save your money for law school, med schools, getting an MBA etc. because that is what will pay off in the end. Not the degree in western psychology from Harvard.
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John,
I’m really nervous because I go to a public school and I’m worried I won’t be successful because I don’t go to an Ivy League school.
Any thoughts?
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hello my buddies
we need to start forming secrete posses and midfull lable the power elete and note there ways so if need be they evaporate quickly !
big bussiness has done this to the working man and few will say aloud the sad fact .
we have been set up and let down by both political parties , see what they have done togeather for all of us now !
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