Despite turmoil, Harvard is the No. 1 ‘dream’ school on ‘Ivy Day’

March 28 is “Ivy Day,” when the nation’s top schools release their long-awaited admissions decisions.

A fascination with the eight private colleges that make up the Ivy League spans decades. Only now, some say, are students taking a more skeptical view.

Early admission applications to Harvard University fell precipitously last fall amid multiple incidents of anti-Semitism on campus, while backlash followed following Harvard President Claudine Gay’s testimony at the Congress, which contributed to his resignation.

Yet just weeks later, Harvard was named the ultimate “dream” school, according to a Princeton Review survey of college-bound students.

“Right now, a lot of students are still aiming for these top-tier, brand-name schools. But they really have these love-hate relationships with (Ivy League colleges) because they make the process so confusing and chaotic.” said Christopher Rim, President and CEO of Command Education.

Few college admissions cycles have been as tumultuous as this one.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the affirmative action admissions policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unconstitutional.

The move was seen as a blow to decades-long efforts to boost minority registration through policies that took into account applicants’ race.

It also raised questions about the practice of prioritizing children of alumni and requirements for standardized test scores, both of which have reinforced racial and wealth gaps, research shows.

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Some colleges have chosen to end legacy preferences, while others, like Princeton University, recently announced they will continue to consider legacy status in their application process.

Some schools also decided to rely less on SAT and ACT scores while others, including Dartmouth and Brown University, announced they were reinstating standardized testing requirements after relaxing them in the years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At Yale, students are now allowed to submit Advanced Placement, or AP, scores to satisfy testing requirements, another measure that could affect socioeconomic and racial diversity, experts say, since low-income students income and minorities have traditionally had less access to these courses. .

“You’re really giving some students an unfair advantage,” Rim said, “even though it should go the other way right now.”

Then there is the question of cost, especially at the highest level. Tuition and fees and room and board for a private four-year college averaged $56,190 during the 2023-2024 school year. At the state’s public four-year colleges, it was $24,030, according to the College Board, which tracks trends in college prices and student aid.

Higher education as a whole is under pressure, experts say. The rising costs of college and skyrocketing student loan debt balances have caused more and more students to question the return on investment.

However, when it comes to the Ivy League, demand has remained remarkably strong, according to Connie Livingston, a former admissions officer at Brown University who now works for the consulting firm Empowerly.

“They are like the untouchables, like the elusive and exclusive Birkin bag: no matter what, people will always want it,” Livingston said.

For decades, studies have shown that getting a college degree is almost always worth it.

A recent report from the nonpartisan, nonprofit research group Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard University, found that an Ivy League degree carries even more leverage in the job market and beyond.

The group of economists based at Harvard and Brown University compared the estimated future earnings of waitlisted students who ultimately attended Ivy League schools with those who instead attended public universities.

Ultimately, they found that attending an Ivy League university had a “statistically insignificant impact” on earnings.

Even attending a college in the “Ivy-plus” category – which typically includes other top schools such as Stanford University, Duke University, University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — rather than a highly selective public institution, it nearly doubles the chances of attending an elite graduate school and triples the chances of working at a prestigious company.

Additionally, it increases students’ chances of ultimately reaching the top 1% of the income distribution by 60%, according to the Opportunity Insights report.

“Highly selective private colleges serve as gateways to the upper echelons of society,” the researchers said.

“Because these colleges currently admit students from high-income families at significantly higher rates than students from low-income families with comparable degrees, they are perpetuating privilege,” they added.

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