defend the indefensible: THE IVY LEAGUE

maria you consistently amaze me with your posts. you are awesome.

i got into wesleyan, too -- but i was too stupid to get a scholarship sufficient to pay the lion's share of expenses there & my parents refused to make up the difference ;__;

actually, i only ;__;'d way back then -- now, i know that my parents were right to hold the line.

he moved us from DC to Montana when my older siblings were starting junior high specifically because the chances of getting into good Northeastern schools improved coming from bumfuck (and also cuz she was a hippie who wanted to garden topless in the mountains amongst the bears and rednecks). I'm sure being from Montana helped me get into Wesleyan. We all got full rides (but lots of debt upon graduation).

My friend's Dad did the exact same thing, except from Jersey to Wyoming. Also, he made sure that they had no net income (they ran a B&B). I went to school with one of 'em (smallest Ivy), and the other one went to Princeton. Princeton, fwiw, forgives ALL LOANS, and she basically graduated paying about $10k total for her education.

not entirely sure why I capitalized "dad" there.

My friend's Dad did the exact same thing, except from Jersey to Wyoming. Also, he made sure that they had no net income (they ran a B&B)

this is totally what i am doing. oh wait, i'm not having any kids. well, i'll do it anyway.

thanks, stence! i'm blushing.

My friend's Dad did the exact same thing, except from Jersey to Wyoming. Also, he made sure that they had no net income (they ran a B&B). I went to school with one of 'em (smallest Ivy), and the other one went to Princeton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hogue

indie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationindie cabaret sensationvv

oops, that was from the nellie mckay article
also "kookily eclectic"

it's true that Jersey=D.C. and Wyoming=Montana, although I think I got the better deal.

no need to blush just keep on' postin'!

it's like... reverse economic racism!

j/k

But there's another side to that: I was told to my face in an admissions interview that if I didn't get into that school it would be because I did not have an alumni relation. On the one hand, this might not have happened if my grades/math SAT/I dunno something had been a little better. On the other hand, it still kinda sucks to be told that.

BUT I am still one of those lucky people who is going to school for about a tenth of what the actual cost is. Being poor is awesome sometimes!

omg hilarious-head xp so good

I was told to my face in an admissions interview that if I didn't get into that school it would be because I did not have an alumni relation.

i have a legacy at princeton going back 3+ generations on both sides of my family (if youve ever met anyone who went to princeton youll know that this is not bragging) and they rejected the shit out of me. the sense i got was mostly just that they didnt care about pleasing my parents or grandparents because none of them ever donated any $$.

so, the legacy thing only works if your relatives are pledging ca$h

it's amazing the lengths that parents go to to get their kids into fancy schools! moving across the country, etc. my boss has kids going into 6th and 7th grade and endlessesly obsesses over which middle and high schools to send them to (the application processes sound very college-like) and already has contacted private college guidance counsellors.

this is the kind of shit that makes me never want to have kids.

esp if u live in a particular town, it gets evil. junior year is scary shit. u don't wanna run into a mom whose daughter just got rejected from Cornell.

i remember hunting the mailman down in his mail vehicle on my block in anticipation of my letters. when he handed me to fat ones, i just started screaming. was in the best friend's beemer. oh LONG ISLAND I MISS YOU MUCH

this is the kind of shit that makes me never want to have kids.

we moved to Montana and attended PUBLIC schools. It's not like every waking hour was focused on the pursuit of college. Shit, we were the only students in the whole high school who went east to college and had to inform our guidance counselors about the schools. I was one of two kids in my class to take the SATs and had to travel 60 miles to do them. Didn't occur to me to have another try at them. I'm sure that if I'd said I didn't want to go to college at all, my mom would have accepted it. For her, it was about giving kids from a low-income family good chances. Good college does really improve your life. I agree that it's possible to get an excellent educatin at less expensive colleges and I agree that parents often go overboard about it. Nonetheless, trying really hard to give your kids good chances is not something to be unconditionally scorned.

ha ha i got an educatin

oh i'm not scorning it, the entire process just kind of terrifies me.

but so do many other things about child-rearing.
i think it is just perhaps best that i never reproduce.

cuz of the money alone surely

i only had to go about five minutes away to take the sat, and once was enough for me.

I would like to spawn in bozeman, I think

Livingston is much prettier, and just over the pass.

Bozeman's pop. is like 45k right now and is expected to hit 100k+ in about 15 years. Bozeangels, LOL.

Seriously, it's beautiful here, but the development is atrocious. Mixed what?

Yeah, I should just go found my own town in WY
who wants to move in?

Ooh, actually, just move to Lander, WY!

I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of ILX all picking up and founding a remote western settlement. Probable collapse within in 3 weeks though.

Can we rename Lander to Villa Del Tomboto y/n

move to idaho, start a polygamous commune, spawn hundreds of children and send them all to ivy league schools!

I think you will hacve to take that up with Lander, TOMBOT

Ilx Barre

Etna, Wyo., is a wonderful town of pop. 300 or so. You could work doing cryptology shit for the Freedom Arms Gun Company hq, located in that town. There's also a crazy bison preserve there. It's in a beautiful valley and you can buy "illegal fireworks" such as firecrackers & bottle rockets all year round. Plus cigs (ie Camels) are on avg. $3/pack. GO FOR IT.

a strong temptation

There seem to be a few semi-ghost towns in the west where you could move in your family and a few friends and elect yourself Mayor/Dictator for Life.

There's a polygamous community about a mile from my old house. We could all move in there. My mom still owns the house. We could live in my old house (10 acres, a pond, room for more outbuildings) and commute to the polygamous community down the road. Except I would never want to live there again. But you guys maybe could. Hamilton. It's beeeeyoootifully located in the foothills of the bitterroot mountains. My town has been turned into a big kmart.

Bone, Idaho goes up for sale periodically. Yes, the entire town. Hilariously enough, Southeast Idaho rumors claim Vin Diesel lives there.

Oh wait, sorry, that article is hella stupid and sentimental and barely about Bone at all. Pretty much the only representation of the town I can find is here (big image. That is he bar/general store, the other is an RV someone uses as a house. "BONE - POPULATION 2"

http://www.boneville.com/wp-content/uploads/BONE%20OVE%20Poster.jpg

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/yale-harvard-law-taking-over-supreme-court/

I know this isn't 'news' but this image is o_O

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/07/15/business/economy/economix-15scotusto1950/economix-15scotusto1950-custom2.jpg

one more one more one more one more

meh. even if they stopped giving new SC appointments to Harvard or Yale Law grads, it isn't as if they're going to start appointing, oh i dunno, Rutgers or Brooklyn or Temple Law grads to the Court (even if the nominee was valedictorian). look at the shit that Harriet Myers caught simply because she "only" went to Southern Methodist (well, there were other [more important] reasons why she was unsuitable to be on the Supreme Court -- but the fact that she didn't go to an Ivy law school wasn't one of them in my mind anyway).

i mean, CJ Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor were both Stanford grads -- and Stanford might just as well be Harvard or Yale as far as the über-elitist in the lawyer world care.

but that's the thing - the fact that even the Stanford/Chicago/Columbia/etc. elite aren't represented is why this has become...well, strange? but yeah I think a lot of it has to do with how the nomination process has changed over time.

Harvard/Yale is - maybe more than ever? - the gold standard when it comes to American credentialism. Obama's Harvard degree got more attention than his Columbia one, I think.

college/grad school pedigree not as important for prez candidates generally

hasn't been a non-harvard/yale pres since the 80s or even nominee since...bob dole?

guess we should all be happy that palin is getting the nom then

I'm voting for her just to break the streak

oh wait I forgot about mccain oops

vietnam prison was his harvard