The "Ivy League" Isn't What You Think

Ivy League schools are academically prestigious universities, but that doesn't mean students should focus just on the Ivies.

Does the presence of Ivy on a wall make you instantly think of prestigious colleges? Photo by Khara Woods on Unsplash

“My goal is the Ivy League.”

“We really want our kid to get into an Ivy League school.”

“The Ivy League is what any student should want.”

After over a decade-and-a-half in and around admissions, I hate those sentiments. This is not because Ivy League schools are bad. It’s because that mode of thinking is all wrong. It is as though “Ivy” or “Ivy League” bestows a certain kind of credential on a school. The “Ivy League,” by this reckoning, is some unified whole where the school experience is interchangeable between Ivy League schools. Or that somehow “Ivy League” schools are somehow better than all others simply because they are Ivy League.

The Ivy League is, first and foremost, an athletic conference. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale share more than an athletic affiliation, but this is what truly divides an Ivy from a non-Ivy. What make…