Overhyped!
October 25, 2018
As a result of the cut-throat culture of Irvine, students are no strangers to stress, with anxiety levels soaring through the roof: a big portion of which is caused by the ever-looming presence of college applications.
Although many students place an acceptance letter to an Ivy League School on par with a ticket to success, attending one of these eight coveted schools is not as glamorous as it may seem.
One of the biggest factors for students when deciding which college to attend is the cost. Though students may be accepted into these prestigious colleges, the loans they need far exceed those necessary for a public school. Student loans have carried such a detrimental impact on the average worker that 41% have postponed retirement plans, 40% put off purchasing a car, 29% put off buying a house and 15% even put off marriage plans, according to the American Institute of CPAs.
Ivy League colleges are notorious for their prices, averaging $51,486 in the year 2017-2018: almost twice the cost of out-of-state public four-year universities and five times the cost of in-state public four-year universities. With the excessive cost of Ivy Leagues, the statistics aforementioned bear greater weight, raising the risk of an unguaranteed solid standing in the future.
In addition, the extreme lack of diversity can cause a bland and unified atmosphere. According to the Harvard Crimson, over 36% of students in the 2022 class were part of a legacy, with one or more family members previously attending Harvard, painting the picture of a homogenous group of students as alumni lack representation for minority groups.
College provides the opportunity for students who come from smaller, less multicultural backgrounds to be exposed to the world and its diversity properly. However, even with Affirmative Action, the New York Times reveals that minorities are underrepresented at Ivy Leagues. From one unified atmosphere to the other, it is possible to miss out on an important perspective that comes with attending a more diversified college.
Though the name carries great prestige, which is beneficial toward opening future prospects and increasing job opportunities, the Ivy League only makes up a small percentage of the colleges found around the world. To limit oneself to only an elite few with an unguaranteed factor of satisfaction is essentially setting oneself up for failure. Bragging rights do not outweigh an unhappy atmosphere and empty wallet.
Overall, when considering colleges, it is important to broaden your mindset past simply the Ivy League. There are other options out there, and keeping an open mind to alternative opportunities for education may be what suits you best.
Rachel | Apr 17, 2026 at 10:05 pm
In my opinion, Ivy League schools today are an absolute joke. They only care about competing with other Ivy League schools which is why they keep lowering the acceptance rate into single digit numbers. It’s all about the money too.
I don’t take schools like Harvard , Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, University of Chicago, NYU, etc seriously anymore because they don’t care about the students at all , just high numbers with everything, sat/act scores, while claiming they look at applications as a holistic view point which I don’t believe at all.
Ivy League colleges also make it harder to have a balance of doing joyful things besides studying which may result in burnout and mental health problems for some students. It’s important to have a social life on campus , whether you are away at school or not. Ivy League colleges are a constant pressure to be near the top because everyone around you is as good as you or possibly better grades with their 3.9-4.0 gpa so that can , but not always for students ; make them feel anxious. People in elite colleges will sit and study for hours and not have time to be around others even if they want to spend time with them.
I saw on Reddit about someone who went to Princeton and there was a couple of suicides that happened due to the reasons I’ve been talking about. So it’s great to have successful grades , sat/act scores in high school but in the long term result , you walk in with these numbers with other competitive academic students who are in your class and got into the same ivy , it doesn’t always result smoothly when you get to the toughest courses because in someone’s mind (not all students) , it can feel like a competition regardless of how well you do after HS. It’s fine to have rigorous classes in college but it’s a problem if it’s badly messing up everything around you with heavy load of too much assignments given and no room to trying new activities or meeting new people.
So yeah, Ivy League schools may have some good professors and classes but as a whole , Ivy leagues are not as good as you think it is. They may have been better in the 80s and 90s, early 2000s but now their priorities don’t align with me in today in 2026. It’s about prestige and money like I said in the beginning.
Ivy League colleges that have single digit acceptance rates are screwed up.