College Stress Support Group

When it comes to your education and how much you enjoy the experience and what happens as a result of that after, there are NO unimportant issues or quesions. It is true, there is a prestige attached to graduating from an Ivy League school, and they can be a bit more reserved. But depending on what you are going to school for, the name you come from is not that relevant. You need to make the decision based on what is best for you in the long run. If you are not enjoying your education, you may not apply yourself as much. One of the many things to consider.

Just my thoughts on the issue.

ITS WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT AND THAT IS TRUE EVERYWHERE.IF YOU GET FULL SCHOLARSHIPS DO IT. THERE ARE FREE SPIRITS AT THESE SCHOOLS. I HAVE FRIENDS THAT HAVE GONE TO THE SEVEN SISTERS AND OTHER IVY LEAGUE COLLEGES AS WELL AS PREP SCHOOL. FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT AND DO IT.

BTW,I AM WHITE AND I QUALIFY AS A "MINORITY" TO SOME SCHOOL THAT TAKE PREDOMINANTLY BLACK STUDENTS. BUT I LIKE WHERE I LIVE AND DON'T WANT TO MOVE.

LOOK INTO SOME FREE SPIRITED SCHOOLS SUCH AS OBERLIN, ANTIOCH, GODDARD OR HAMPSHIRE.IF YOU GO TO HAMPSHIRE THEY ARE IN A CONSORTIUM OF FIVE SCHOOLS INCLUDING THREE IVYS.

I attended Emory in GA for college, which has always been need-blind but is now putting a plan into effect where if your parents make a certain amount you can go there for free, I think. Emory is in the same kind of class as Ivy League schools, so I will tell you a bit about my experience there.

Stuffy?
Yeah, I'd have to say so. It seemed like a bunch of snobby rich kids, several of whom seemed REALLY fake. I really didn't care for the people. The best part of my college experience was the academics, and you know it's sad when that's the case. I did not have that many friends there because the majority of students weren't like me at all.

Prestige vs Education
I think that at a lot of top schools, they, more or less, give grades. There are schools that are exceptions, like Cornell. But Harvard graduates approximately 90% of its students with some form of Honors, and Stanford is notorious for overly-high GPA averages. At Emory...I definitely made better grades than in high school with relative ease and minimum work, the exception being the subjects I'm not very good at (math and science). Still, I feel like the education was the best I could have gotten just because they make you take classes from a wide variety of subject areas...and because I was taking classes I was interested in and still can today recite useful information from those classes. I was actually excited to attend class many times. Emory didn't have the best course selection, in my opinion, but...I made the best of what I had. Other than that, I do feel the best advantage was just seeing the reaction from telling people I have a degree from Emory. Emory didn't help me get jobs after college because employers care less about education than work experience, but people were still impressed and I *KNOW* it helped me get into some of the law schools I got into.

On a side note, I went to University of Michigan for law school, which is, more or less, considered the public Harvard. I'd say there were cooler people there and I definitely loved the school more, but Michigan still has its fair share of rich, snobby, fake people. I also probably met more people there who had zero personality and/or didn't know how to turn being a brainiac off for just a second and have a normal conversation than Emory or any other school I've attended (I've been at a couple other colleges)--and this was true in every graduate program I met students from, not just law. And the professors were definitely lacking, at least in the law program, so I don't feel I got the best education. So my impression is your concerns are going to be valid with any school that has a top academic program.

The first college I attended was University of Tennessee-Knoxville, to which I received a scholarship. I bet you could apply to some top 100 colleges and receive scholarships, as long as you're smart enough to get into Ivy League schools and/or schools like Emory, Michigan, and so on (basically top 30 schools). UTK was a fun school...not the best education, but it was fun and I had a lot of friends, met so many cool people.

My adivce would be to visit the schools you are thinking of attending. That way you can talk to professors and ask questions and get to meet some of the students and will be able to find out if it is the right school for you. There are rude, snobby fake kids at every school. In my opinion I would talk to some students and see how avaiable the professors are after class. Some schools may suprise you.

i go to an ivy that is not stuffy at all. sometimes i think everyone here has his/her head in the clouds. it's awesome, and i've had a lot of fun. i've never been in such a diverse and intelligent environment.

every college has their stereotypes. and almost every college is going to have the stuffy snobby types of people, its just that some have higher concentration than others. look into the ivys youd want to attend, and do research on them. look for STUDENT reviews, NOT just what the college says its like. theres usually one outsider or two who can tell you that yes, there is in fact a large community of elitest bitches etc etc. but ivy's arent the only way to pay for your education. there are other schools that have good financial aid as well, but they might not cover your entire college expenses. for those schools, there's less likely to be that concentration of stuck up people. you should look into those types of schools as well, in case you dont get into an ivy.

good luck though!
choosing a college is a BITCH (im doing it now)
message me anytime :]

Ok so I'm going to go ahead and just put this out there as a new ivy grad (just graduated in December): watch your back with the financial aid. My package was set before the newest aid initiatives, but even those with the newest ones are having a bit of an issue. This is going to sound like a downer, but there's a downside to most of these packages.

My experience: my first year they gave me a decent package. I got into 30 schools, but I really wanted ivy because of the prestige, and then I visited and fell in love with the place. I signed on the dotted line before I ever left campus.

The next year I get my aid package, and it's less than it was before. I appealed it, and it went unchanged. Now the school KNEW I wasn't going to go anywhere else because I'd already committed (and when I commit to something, I finish it), so my options were to have my parents pay out of pocket, or get loans. School was about 45 thousand that year. My parents paid about 1/4 out of pocket. I decided to stay and take summer courses (apparently not covered by aid) and that was another 11,000 in loans and out of pocket.

The next year I take a medical leave in the middle of the year, and all of my aid goes away. The term I didn't finish came away as 8,000 in loans. When I came back to finish my degree, my scholarship was completely gone--initially it was out of pocket and loans. I petitioned, stepped over red tape, cried, wrote many letters and then got part of my aid back, but not even half of it. My parents continued to do what they could.

Forward to junior year: even less aid. They knew that I was determined to stay at the school (I dealt with the medical leave run-around and the housing office for Christ's sake, and they knew I really wanted that degree), and so they could do what they wanted. I had some outside scholarships that year that helped, but the school was finicky.

By my senior year half of my tuition was in loans, AND my parents were paying out of pocket. Because I took a medical leave I needed to stay on campus one extra term, which made me a "5th year senior", which I couldn't get aid for. Add another 30,000 in loans because they charge for the full year on certain services (health insurance, etc.)

And this was with a "decent" aid package in the beginning.

Ask a lot of questions--I know you aren't me, but if you think you may have *any* moment where you'd leave school for *any* reason, ask what would happen to your aid. Some places, I'm sure, are better than other with this.


As for the actual school, I had a hard time in college. There were lots of "class" issues that became apparent in the middle of freshman year--everyone wanted to be seen a certain way--either you were upper class, or you pretended to be upper class. No one talked openly and honestly about financial aid. I never really found my niche--and there were plenty to belong to. I tried the international thing the first year, I joined an intellectual fraternity my second year, I tried out a choir my third year and my fourth year I just simply tried to graduate, and hid in my room 90 percent of the time. Most colleges have lots of different "scenes" you can try, but I can't tell you if any of them are for you--that's for you to decide.

As for the prestige of an Ivy, I'm very torn about this. The Ivies will try to sell you the degree. I've talked to my new grad friends about this too...about how angry and shammed we felt when we graduated. All this time we were told that if we worked hard enough, if we saved enough, if we made the right connections, talked the right way, and did the right things...if we could make it past this horrible beast known as college (and for a minority woman in the middle of the woods, it was a rather large beast) we had the potential to do anything, and we could change the world. And I think that's the way college is supposed to make you feel.

Right now I can't even get a full time job--with an Ivy degree. I get that it's a recession, and I'm not bitter, but my point is that nothing is foolproof. So if they try to tell you that if you make it into an Ivy your path is paved, don't fall for it. We have to work hard, just like everyone else.

Here's what I tell students when they ask me if they should come to Dartmouth: there are certain sacrifices that you have to be willing to make in order to survive. I cannot tell you if you're ready to make those sacrifices, or how terribly you want it. But I can promise you that if you try, you will learn things about yourself that you didn't know before. And that will ultimately empower you to make change.


Ok I'm sorry this was so long--sorry for the downer, I just wanted to try to help! Feel free to message me if you like.

Ok so I'm going to go ahead and just put this out there as a new ivy grad (just graduated in December): watch your back with the financial aid. My package was set before the newest aid initiatives, but even those with the newest ones are having a bit of an issue. This is going to sound like a downer, but there's a downside to most of these packages.

My experience: my first year they gave me a decent package. I got into 30 schools, but I really wanted ivy because of the prestige, and then I visited and fell in love with the place. I signed on the dotted line before I ever left campus.

The next year I get my aid package, and it's less than it was before. I appealed it, and it went unchanged. Now the school KNEW I wasn't going to go anywhere else because I'd already committed (and when I commit to something, I finish it), so my options were to have my parents pay out of pocket, or get loans. School was about 45 thousand that year. My parents paid about 1/4 out of pocket. I decided to stay and take summer courses (apparently not covered by aid) and that was another 11,000 in loans and out of pocket.

The next year I take a medical leave in the middle of the year, and all of my aid goes away. The term I didn't finish came away as 8,000 in loans. When I came back to finish my degree, my scholarship was completely gone--initially it was out of pocket and loans. I petitioned, stepped over red tape, cried, wrote many letters and then got part of my aid back, but not even half of it. My parents continued to do what they could.

Forward to junior year: even less aid. They knew that I was determined to stay at the school (I dealt with the medical leave run-around and the housing office for Christ's sake, and they knew I really wanted that degree), and so they could do what they wanted. I had some outside scholarships that year that helped, but the school was finicky.

By my senior year half of my tuition was in loans, AND my parents were paying out of pocket. Because I took a medical leave I needed to stay on campus one extra term, which made me a "5th year senior", which I couldn't get aid for. Add another 30,000 in loans because they charge for the full year on certain services (health insurance, etc.)

And this was with a "decent" aid package in the beginning.

Ask a lot of questions--I know you aren't me, but if you think you may have *any* moment where you'd leave school for *any* reason, ask what would happen to your aid. Some places, I'm sure, are better than other with this.


As for the actual school, I had a hard time in college. There were lots of "class" issues that became apparent in the middle of freshman year--everyone wanted to be seen a certain way--either you were upper class, or you pretended to be upper class. No one talked openly and honestly about financial aid. I never really found my niche--and there were plenty to belong to. I tried the international thing the first year, I joined an intellectual fraternity my second year, I tried out a choir my third year and my fourth year I just simply tried to graduate, and hid in my room 90 percent of the time. Most colleges have lots of different "scenes" you can try, but I can't tell you if any of them are for you--that's for you to decide.

As for the prestige of an Ivy, I'm very torn about this. The Ivies will try to sell you the degree. I've talked to my new grad friends about this too...about how angry and shammed we felt when we graduated. All this time we were told that if we worked hard enough, if we saved enough, if we made the right connections, talked the right way, and did the right things...if we could make it past this horrible beast known as college (and for a minority woman in the middle of the woods, it was a rather large beast) we had the potential to do anything, and we could change the world. And I think that's the way college is supposed to make you feel.

Right now I can't even get a full time job--with an Ivy degree. I get that it's a recession, and I'm not bitter, but my point is that nothing is foolproof. So if they try to tell you that if you make it into an Ivy your path is paved, don't fall for it. We have to work hard, just like everyone else.

Here's what I tell students when they ask me if they should come to Dartmouth: there are certain sacrifices that you have to be willing to make in order to survive. I cannot tell you if you're ready to make those sacrifices, or how terribly you want it. But I can promise you that if you try, you will learn things about yourself that you didn't know before. And that will ultimately empower you to make change.


Ok I'm sorry this was so long--sorry for the downer, I just wanted to try to help! Feel free to message me if you like.

Sorry that posted twice. :-/

Also, in interviews I've been asked would I ever do it again, and I tell people absolutely--even though it was the toughest, perhaps most expensive thing I've done in my life, it's really shaped the person that I've become, and I love the person that I'm becoming due to that transformation.

So yes...ups and downs, but this is just my two cents.

FUCK THAT SHIT I CANT EVEN PASS A BULLSHIT COLLGEGE. MAYBE ITS BECAUSE I DOTN TRY HARD ENOUGH BUT STILL I STILL WOULD BARELY PASS IF I TRIED HARDER.