Originally Posted By: BoardLord
Originally Posted By: Anonymous
BoardLord, are you saying that there is no financial benefit in playing for ivy league colleges?
Let's be clear about one thing. Reread what I wrote earlier. The acceptance rate at the Ivy Leagues is now below 10% of the applicant pool. Yale and Harvard are now reported to be in the 7% range for the most recent Class of 2016. Now, this 7% includes legacy, all preadmitted athletes, overseas applicants - and the classic US-based student. Worrying about financial aid as the first concern has the cart before the horse in a very big way. Repeating, there are no athletic scholarships to be had; everything is need based. Back to your question, if your family would only consider Ivy League soccer for the athletic money, your priorities are completely misplaced in looking at Ivy League schools.

Originally Posted By: Anonymous
we are not a rich family and will mainly rely on financial aide, academic or soccer scholarship if any.
If you family is blessed with an acceptance, the endowments at these institutions will allow for greater financial generosity than most of the so-called New Ivies or Top 30 institutions nationwide. There is a reason that HYPS (Harvard-Yale-Princeton-Stanford) stand clear of all others in grant availability - endowments in excess of $20 Billion Dollars ... each.

Originally Posted By: Anonymous
my kid is in the honors program of a high school in LI that has a very good academic reputation and the GPA is in the middle 90's.
Valedictorians, salutatorians, perfect board scores, class presidents with a dozen leadership roles, AP Scholars, and more are all rejected and waitlisted at the Ivy Leagues each and every year.

New York, one of the most heavily represented states, and Long Island, the region with heaviest representation from across New York, are among the homes most heavily represented in the applicant pool. When looking for a diverse class in terms of skills, interests, and locations, New York is one of the hardest and most competitive states from which to be accepted.

In short, middle-90s is not enough. Nowhere near enough. Neither is a middle-90s with soccer. Nor with a "good high school".

Originally Posted By: Anonymous
i am asking these questions because based on our selection approach most of the collages in our top 10 list are ivy league schools. if that is the case we might focus our applications more on schools the rest of the schools in our list that are not ivy league. your input is very helpful and very much appreciated.
If you want to apply to the Ivy League schools, that is fine. Recognize that these are all fine schools however your time in researching institutions will be better spent on schools in the Top 50 if your child is so inclined. The likelihood of making the Ivy grade is sufficiently small that knowing how to decide amongst the others will be the real challenge.




BoardLord, thank you for your response. this put our selection process in a new perspective. my kid received a follow-up email from one of the ivy league colleges coach, indicating interest after talking to him in person (discussing interest, my kid's background including gpa's) and watching my kid play in a showcase. but because of my kid's graduation year, ncaa regulations does not allow them initiate recruiting process. they asked my kid to get into their online questionaire to complete so that my kid can be added to their recruiting list. we will continue to pursue this prospect and just see how it would work out but will take your advice and widen our selection process. my kid has one more year to kick the gpa and work on SAT to get to what these top colleges requires.

thank you.