By Tendayi Dingani ‘29
Universities predate this nation’s independence. The oldest university is Harvard, which was established in 1636. However, anyone can see that in recent years, the competition, rigour, and expectations have risen impossibly high compared to even a few decades ago. A grandfather attending an Ivy League institution in his youth cannot be equated to a young man today achieving the same. Think of Thacher, don’t you hear the constant babbling of students where they discuss the universities they expect themselves to get into? Harvard, Yale, Stanford. The standards of success have changed alongside the rise of technology and social media.
The Competitive Nature of College Applications
University has become nearly impossible to get into. At least, it feels this way to many prospective college students. This topic has taken the online world by storm. For instance, a Reddit post conveyed the confusion of how high grades or impressive extracurriculars no longer cut it for an Ivy League school’s board of admissions. As the author of the post states:
“I guess my question is: who actually are the people getting into Ivy League schools?? How is it possible that the Ivies are filling their schools up with geniuses, when the number of students ‘exceeding grade level’ in my school district has dropped by 60% since 2020????”
From this PBS news article called “U.S. high school students continue to lose ground in math and reading, as yearslong decline persists”, states, “Only 33% of high school seniors were considered academically prepared for college-level math courses, a decline from 37% in 2019.”
The problem is not just about this sentiment being factually true; it’s the feeling of top universities appearing virtually impossible to get into, added to the drop in academic performance in the average American student.
The most common reason for the rise of competition is simply the fact that there are more applicants, while the number of freshman spots remains relatively the same. In the article named “Why are College Admissions More Competitive Each Year”, it mentions, “This increase in demand without an increase in supply created an ever greater competition for spots, and was the major driver of falling acceptance rates in the 1990s and early 2000s.” Think about that one time you searched for Harvard’s acceptance rate and compared it to your state university’s, or looked at your nearby college’s admission rates while sighing inwardly. That is not just a coincidence. Universities all want their rates to go down to seem more prestigious. If Harvard admitted 50% of its applicants, would it still be prestigious? Would you care to get in? The simple answer is probably no. As Ms. Morales-Kent, the director of college counseling, affirms, “Colleges like that because the harder they appear to be in terms of getting in, the more desired they are. So they have managed to have admission rates go from 50% to 60% from when your parents, and I applied to 2% or 3% or 10%.
Diplomas from Top Universities: Do they matter?
To start off with public opinion once more, in a different Reddit post, a user begs the question if graduating with your PhD from an “elite” school is simply better than earning one from a less recognized school. The comments on this post were unable to come to a general consensus. For example, one comment writes:
“As a person doing my PhD at a mediocre university, I sincerely and without any sarcasm agree that my degree is worse and actually less legit…than that of somebody from a good (not to mention elite) university.”
However, another comment explains:
“These schools are running on the fumes of ‘prestige’ and said prestige surrounding these schools is dying in the real world, as it should be.”
From what it seems, if the shared experiences of diploma legitimacy are so divided, what makes a top university so much better?
Well, in some cases, they can hold higher results. According to IvyCoach, a private college counseling organization, the median earnings of all graduates from four-year universities are $53,726. On the other hand, the lowest median salary a decade after graduation from an Ivy League institution, Brown University, is $93,487. This article even claims that people who graduate from these highly regarded schools tend to have less debt. However, this Ivywise, another college counseling organization, article called “Is the Ivy League Worth It?” explains that this can be due to the fact that older and more prestigious colleges can offer greater networking opportunities where a student is given better and more opportunities than other universities.
However, an Ivy League tuition can cost up to $90,000 and more each year. This begs the question: Is it even worth it? According to the same IvyCoach article, the nation’s median debt after graduation is $19,522. On the other hand, the only Ivy League institution that climbs above this is Columbia, with a debt of $21,975.
Even if a top university does not give better education in the technical sense, they do offer better opportunities. This is because of previously established elitist thinking that pushed this to be true. If everyone believes that a Harvard graduate is the smartest in the room, who else would they hire? This leads me to the conclusion that, perhaps, elitism in education is not deserved, but it is what people inwardly believe, especially with the highly competitive college application system.