Ivy league colleges: what's the difference with public state universities?

For some time the head of Boalt Hall admissions would start speeches to UC students by stating "most of you will be rejected".
At any rate, I have some experience with admission to Boalt, and Boalt weighs many, many other factors - its generally one of the least numbers inclined law schools in the country, which is why it has an anomalous statistic - its harder to get into than Columbia or NYU but has "inferior" student bodies to those schools.
However, that being said, the majority (and by a good number) of Boalt students will come from private schools. I think the top 5 undergraduate institutions attended are generally Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford Harvard and a joker - Northwestern or Columbia are occasionally 5th.

 

Important only at the margins. That is to say a top law school will have people from schools like Univesity of Pugent Sound, Northern Arizon, and James Madison, but probably only one or two. While it will have multiple students each year from places like W+L, Williams, Columbia, Princeton, etc.

Clearly your LSAT is the primary criteria. Howver many law schools weight your GPA against a factor that is assigned to your undergrad.

 

Since this thread recently got resurrected, I'd like to chime in a couple of non-original thoughts.

As my sister tells me, "Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn't matter." Why yes, she did get her Bachelor's and Master's from Yale. How did you know?

There is a distinct difference between the Ivy League colleges and universities and newer state-run colleges/universities. But there are many, many universities that fall between the extremes. I visited my sister in New Haven last year and the entire atmosphere at Yale is inspiring. The only way I can express it is that they take learning, education, academia, research, and the pursuit of the human mind very seriously.

At the state college my husband is attending, it's kind of a degree factory, trying to churn out students from the list of requirements with the least possible hassle to anybody involved. At Yale, your life is absolutely centered on getting a college education. (My other sister attended Dartmouth and the academic atmosphere is similar to Yale, but I won't even attempt to compare the two. They're just different.)

When the time came for me, the youngest of the daughters, to decide where to attend college, I made the practical decision. Full scholarship to a local private university was my choice and I don't regret it. My sisters are still paying down student loans and I made car payments with the money my University was paying me to be a student there.

Last but not least: the "right" university for any person depends on many things, not least of which is the area of study. Going to Yale for a Ph.D. in Computer Science would be cool because it's Yale, but it wouldn't be as good an education as other universities that aren't Ivy League. (Most notable, of course, being MIT.) Places like University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have an incredible reputation for Computer Science, although they wouldn't be a good choice for some other types of degrees.

Okay, sorry to jump into this discussion when it was already over. Have a good day, all y'all.

 

p.s. The fact that my two sisters and one brother-in-law went Ivy League still doesn't change the fact that my "state college" husband earns more money than all three of them combined... Not trying to brag; just sayin' a good education doesn't always mean a good job at the end of it. You have to be practical sometimes, too.

 

I'd say GPA is at least as important as LSAT.

 

I'd like to correct the weird assertion that Ivies don't offer scholarships.

They don't offer athletic scholarships.

They are probably among the leaders in offering academic scholarships. Even more prevalent is that most of them offer need-based aid, meaning they substantially chop down the tuition price tag for those that can't afford the high tuition...a huge percentage of students at these schools receive some financial aid. If the student or the student's family is wealthy, they'll be glad to take huge sums of money. Smaller private schools sometimes can't offer as much financial aid- they don't have the endowments most of the Ivies have which enables them to offer aid.

 

I'll second this. My sister was a National Merit scholar, which isn't a scholarship provided by the University, but it was one way to help pay for Yale. Also, both of my sisters received substantial financial aid/tuition reduction to attend. They did still end up with huge student loans, but not as much as it might have been.

 

NOT TRUE.
Something like 50% of the students at some of these schools qualify for tuition reduction...which you are calling a grant. For truly middle class type people with no major assets but a house...60k yearly household income...they'll take about SIXTY PERCENT off your tuition.

True, the part about the reamainder being largely covered by loans.

 

From Princeton's website>prospective students>affordability and aid

"Firmly committed to equality of opportunity, Princeton admits undergraduate students without regard to their financial circumstances and provides student grants and campus jobs to meet the full demonstrated financial needs of all undergraduate students offered admission. Princeton students are not required to take out loans. This policy applies to both domestic and international applicants. Currently, more than half of Princeton's undergraduate students receive financial aid from the University."

then >go to financial aid for prospective students:

"More than half of incoming students receive financial aid packages each year, with grants averaging over $28,000."

You got the part about calling it grants right. Student loans are done most places so this is an exception. I'm sure if you went to every other Ivy school and looked for this info it would be similar...Solely need-based (I'm skeptical) high percentage receive aid, amount of grants is large. Maybe Dartmouth is the most likely to be an exception.

 

I believe my sister was required to work on-campus at least part of the time as part of her tuition reduction thing at Dartmouth.

 

I had work-study jobs, as they are called. This system is for financial aid recipients.

I've never heard of it being required, and I've never heard of it going towards tuition. I had mine for beer money, fast food money, etc.

In fact, the work-study jobs available to freshmen and sophomores were so miserable and low-paying that I discontinued working at mine. You can make more money with a part-time job not on campus. Junior and senior year, better jobs were available that paid OK, and featured student perks like being able to sleep hidden away in the library, or on the grass out front, or do homework for some of the time, or even drive a vehicle. But having one of these jobs was always optional.

 

It's possible I misunderstood my sister's situation. I don't think the money went toward tuition, but was required for at least one semester for some reason or other. If I don't know the details, I should probably just shut up, eh?

 

I didn't mean it that way at all, just relating the facts of my case, plus I never shut up, so you shouldn't either.

I was just surprised by the misinformation earlier on this thread.

 

As someone who was in this position about 9 years ago, that most qualify for something doesn't mean there's still not 15K left to be paid per year. That's 60K worth of debt at the end of school (and that doesn't count work study).

 

yes, of course. I was just going after the idea that Ivies don't offer scholarships (or financial aid).

 

Link? Just go to the university websites and look around.

Graduate students in arts and sciences fields who work as teaching assistants at these schools- most schools, really- get a free ride on tuition and a small stipend/salary for teaching...poor grad student stereotype. Advanced degrees in business, law, medecine, and a few other things cost a lotta money. No free rides there, or rarely.

 

Yes, I'd have a hard time believing there are any grad students in either the hard or social sciences that pay anything at the Ivies (or as you note pretty much any decent grad school). Full funding--tuition reimbursement + stipend--is expected by grad students in any decent program, not to mention the hugely endowed, grant-driven schools and departments that exist in the Ivy League.

Humanities may be a different kettle of fish, although, again, I'd have a hard time believing that even humanities grad students aren't fully funded at the Ivies.

 

Humanities, same kettle of fish. Grad students don't pay.

JohnW, you're in charge of policing this thread for inaccuracies now.

 

Huck Farvard...Princeton doesn't matter. As for the guy who was comparing HBS to Yale's School of Management, that's the quintessential apples to oranges comparison. They couldn't be any more different starting with their core philosophies (with Yale's SOM heavily emphasizing non profit eadeavors). Besides, any real business dude wouldn't even bother comparing the two. Having said that, I'm not an MBA.

 

Spoken like a true Bulldog.

 

When I was in school, in the early 1980s, nobody had "academic scholarships." If your family could afford to pay, you paid.

However ... the Ivies dicked around with the need-based part. If you were a top academic recruit, they might remove the loans and make the financial aid outright grants instead. All against the spirit of the Ivy agreement at that time, but part of the gamesmanship and they rationalized that it was OK since they were just adjusting existing aid packages, not coming up with aid for those who didn't need it.

Maybe things have changed, but that was the deal then.