sample admission essay

Applying to a prestigious Ivy League school vs. applying to a state school

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The words “Ivy League school” connote a certain prestige among people, not just in the US but in the global community as well. After all, who wouldn’t want to receive a diploma from any of the eight places of higher learning comprising the so-called Ivy League—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard , Penn, Princeton, and Yale. It has also been the tradition of parents who have an Ivy League degree to encourage their children to also enroll in an Ivy League university. Further, the prestige associated with these schools come from the fact that Ivy League schools have much higher college fees (and endowments) than other schools such as, say, state schools or universities.

Think of the prep school boys in the movie “Dead Poets’ Society.” In the movie, most of these boys have affluent parents—specifically fathers—who came from Ivy League schools and who were pressuring their sons into joining the same university as theirs. You may ask yourself why the predominance of male Ivy League degree holders in the previous century. Well, Ivy League schools did not open their doors to women until the mid-20th century; Harvard, for example, officially allowed women into its classrooms only in 1943.

There’s also a certain romanticism and nostalgia associated with Ivy League schools. After all, the classic romantic movie, “A Love Story,” was set in Harvard. It was also written by an Ivy Leaguer, Eric Segal, who graduated from Harvard. The founders of “Time” magazine all came from Yale. A good number of Nobel Prize winners in the past century came from Ivy League schools.

So, is having an Ivy League degree the only option for high school graduates? Will success be not far behind after you receive your diploma from Yale or Princeton? Do Ivy League schools have superior programs than state schools or universities? Well, perhaps state schools are worth looking into.

Top State Schools

In any survey of the top universities of the world, the University of California – Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and the New York University are usually found at the top of the list (side by side with some of the Ivy League schools). Yes, these schools are state schools or state universities. Yes, these schools have outstanding programs which are considered the best in the field. NYU has been known to to have excellent creative writing and film programs. The University of Chicago has one of the best medical programs in the US. Also, a good number of University of Chicago alumni have won the Nobel Prize in the latter part of the previous century. In the last decade, 13 Nobel Prize winners came from the University of Chicago.

State Schools: Good, Perhaps Better, Alternatives

While state schools may not have the same level of historical relevance as Ivy League schools, they are worth looking into. Of course, state schools charge less fees to their students, as compared to Ivy League schools. Perhaps it may not be a question of choosing a school first and then choosing your major next. Maybe the more logical thing to do is to choose a program first and then look at the schools that offer excellent courses on your chosen program—whether they are state schools or Ivy League. Ask yourself: is prestige really important? Would the place where I got my diploma matter in the real world? Or, would the experience I will be getting from the top state schools in the country far outweigh the advantages concerning the prestige of an Ivy League diploma?