BY girl/Yeshiva boy in Ivy League

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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling

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amother

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 9:02 pm

I am a BY grad who was accepted to ivy league, and I don't understand the question - are you implying that the education is not good enough to get you in? I felt I had an excellent secular education, including a regents diploma, several AP courses and a good SAT score. Why wouldn't they accept me?

I declined going because I had decided at that point that I didn't want to be in that type of atmosphere. Different strokes for different folks.

shnitzel

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 10:04 pm

I know a guy who got into Penn law school with a btl from Lakewood. I know a girl who went to BY and Bnos Chava who ended up in to Columbia but her story didn't turn out so well. My BY education was absolutely fantastic in many subjects. I don't think an ivy is less likely to accept someone from a yeshivahs school they look at sat scores and grades.

amother

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 10:29 pm

Op here.

The question was because I heard about a girl who went to Harvard and was surprised- maybe more because of the yeshivish culture? It's really more accepted in other circles? (That's why I said "BY"/"Yeshiva")

amother

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 10:33 pm

Just wanted to comment on the money aspect.

One of the main advantages of an ivy education is the networking. But if you're a BY-type person, it's hard to do the type of socializing that most of your classmates do, so you're not really going to be able to make those connections.

I have many non-frum family members who went to ivy league schools, and I also have some frum friends who went to the ivies. These are people in their mid to late 30s, raising families and building their careers. There's a huge difference between the two groups. The non-frum people were able to do a ton of networking during college, and continue to do so. Their connections have helped them a lot, career-wise. They have extremely prestigious and well-compensated jobs. The frummies, however, weren't able to network in the same way with their classmates, because it involved a lot of socializing in non-kosher settings which they weren't willing to do. They're working jobs that anyone with a degree from a state college could have gotten. There's very little ROI for all the money their parents sank into those four years. One of them works basically as a glorified secretary, doing a job someone with a high school diploma could do.

cookiecutter

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 10:40 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

Cookiecutter, I don't hate anybody. I just want them all to have a nice day, and get married and have kids. I'm BT, so I worry. Maybe too much.

Well. it came across as pretty flip and strident. Imagine if someone had posted about finding apartments in Jerusalem, and someone responded,

"Who wants to live in a third world country where the main industry is begging? How long do you think the Kollel lifestyle can last? Get a decent education, and if you want Jerusalem, have a meshulach over for dinner; God knows there are dozens who could use a good meal." That would have been pretty offensive. IF it would have happened. Just saying.

Depressed

Wed, Aug 17 2011, 11:40 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

They will let you in, in a heartbeat, because you will give them a diversity element to enrich the other kids' college experience. Isn't that attractive? Your young person will have to play Bad Guy or Idiot in discussions, defending his/her wild and woolly, oldfashioned, repressive, sexist, medieval ideas. Sounds great, doesn't it? Sharpens the mind. After enough teasing, you may even lose him/her. Even if you don't, he/she will never have the same degree of innocence again. He/she will know there is another way to live, up close and personal, far beyond what he/she knows now from walking around the city. In good times it may not matter. But when people have crises, and life is long, these outlets are sometimes taken, when one is mad at G-d.

Translation: are you out of your mind?

Parting remark: do you really think these degrees cost out? Except for engineering, perhaps, they don't. Certainly not law. Possibly medicine. Not architecture. Anything else, forget it. Google 'higher education bubble'.
Buy an apartment in Jerusalem with the money. Get married cheaply there. Have babies. Lots of babies. If you are curious about secular intellectual heritage, get tutors. There are a billion of them unemployed who would be thrilled.

You have a tad of bias Dolly. I am by no means advocating sending an young impressional insulated FFB child to dorm in an Harvard?Yale.

However, for someone married and bit more worldly and mature. You need to weigh your options, I can either shun college altogether, and be very very lucky and strike it rich in business. Or I can work in a dead-end low-paying job and mingle with white-trash, and without a tremendous amount of siata d'shomaya become white trash myself.

I can stay in a very yeshivish place, that boasts virtually no work-ethic, produces a large majority of ambition-less near-do-wells, and only a very small drop of desire for Torah, learning, and Yiras Shomayim in comparison to an Ohr-Someyach type place.

Or I can acquire a very good education and make a kiddush hashem in 21st century america

Obviously, you need to know your child and yourself, and you should never make such decisions without tremendous Rabbinical guidance.. But just know its just as easy to end up a shababnik in Yerushalyim, as it is to lose your way in secular america...

Dolly Welsh

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 12:22 am

OK... but the OP asked only about the young and the single. Your picture is more plausible.

Barbara

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 1:02 am

Dolly Welsh wrote:

They will let you in, in a heartbeat, because you will give them a diversity element to enrich the other kids' college experience. Isn't that attractive? Your young person will have to play Bad Guy or Idiot in discussions, defending his/her wild and woolly, oldfashioned, repressive, sexist, medieval ideas. Sounds great, doesn't it? Sharpens the mind. After enough teasing, you may even lose him/her. Even if you don't, he/she will never have the same degree of innocence again. He/she will know there is another way to live, up close and personal, far beyond what he/she knows now from walking around the city. In good times it may not matter. But when people have crises, and life is long, these outlets are sometimes taken, when one is mad at G-d.

Translation: are you out of your mind?

Parting remark: do you really think these degrees cost out? Except for engineering, perhaps, they don't. Certainly not law. Possibly medicine. Not architecture. Anything else, forget it. Google 'higher education bubble'.

Buy an apartment in Jerusalem with the money. Get married cheaply there. Have babies. Lots of babies. If you are curious about secular intellectual heritage, get tutors. There are a billion of them unemployed who would be thrilled.

That's a bunch of BS. Pure and simple.

EDUCATION is worthwhile. And when we as a Jewish people abandon our commitment to education, to learning, then we abandon the Torah, and what it means to be a Jew.

Feel free to live your life in a ghetto. To send you children to third-rate schools and pretend that they're getting a real education. Or to buy them an apartment in Jerusalem instead of educating them so that they can someday afford to buy their own apartmetns. Teach them that's what it means to be a Jew. And know that in 100 years, your descendants won't be Jews, because they'll have had enough of the poverty that you're consigning them to. Because your ignorant and uneducated children won't be able to afford to buy apartments for their kids.

What are you so afraid of, Dolly? Are you afraid that you have failed to teach your children enough about Judaism? Afraid that if they're exposed to anyone else, exposed to other ideas, they'll abandon Judaism. Do you have so little faith in your own religion? So little faith in your own children? Do you think that the only way to keep them Jewish is to keep them barefoot and pregnant?

In any case, everything you say is unequivocally false. Let's take law for example. In 2010, nine months after graduation, only 62.(% of all law school graduates are employed full time in law jobs, and many of them were glorfied temp positions. 95% of the Harvard Law School class of 2010 was employed after graduation. I have never heard of affirmative action for religious Jews. Particularly as Jews are an over-represented minority at many schools. But if you can provide a cite, I'll be glad to reeconsider that.

We need to learn from the Muslims, who stand proud in their religion and demand respect for it. Because if we cower in corners and retreat to ghettos, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

sequoia

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 1:05 am

Barbara, I agree with every word you say! However, Dolly's BT syndrome is understandable. People mellow out after a while and stop seeing everything as so black and white.

Depressed

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 1:36 am

sequoia wrote:

Barbara, I agree with every word you say! However, Dolly's BT syndrome is understandable. People mellow out after a while and stop seeing everything as so black and white.

In theory Sequoia, in theory. Unfortunately, I know at least a half dozen ladies my age who 25 years later, are still tripping out. It aint pretty.

Barbara

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 1:42 am

Depressed wrote:

sequoia wrote:

Barbara, I agree with every word you say! However, Dolly's BT syndrome is understandable. People mellow out after a while and stop seeing everything as so black and white.

In theory Sequoia, in theory. Unfortunately, I know at least a half dozen ladies my age who 25 years later, are still tripping out. It aint pretty.

I just hate to see any type of education denigrated. There are people here who don't believe in higher secular education, particularly for men, but they certainly believe in a lifetime of learning. The suggestion to get married and have "lots of babies" just really got my goat.

amother

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 2:08 am

I went to an ivy league but didnt dorm. I dont think I was too terribly affected, I live in israel and dh is in kollel:) My high school prepared me very well for it.

When I was there, I had a cousin in law school of the same college, we would hang together sometimes. He was married, though.

We are both fine LOL

Shuly

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 5:51 am

I know 3 BY girls who went to IVY League colleges. Not one of them is a BY girl anymore. One is MO, one is lite MO (wears pants, short sleeves, not shomer negiah, keeps shabbos) and I don't think the 3rd considers herself frum at all, maybe just traditional.
Neither of them has a high paying job and all 3 will be paying off student loans for the next 10 years.

ora_43

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 5:52 am

Barbara wrote:

In any case, everything you say is unequivocally false. Let's take law for example. In 2010, nine months after graduation, only 62.(% of all law school graduates are employed full time in law jobs, and many of them were glorfied temp positions. 95% of the Harvard Law School class of 2010 was employed after graduation.

That could mean that it pays to have a degree from Harvard, or it could say more about the type of people who get into Harvard in the first place - and those same people may have been employed even if they'd graduated from a different school.

In general, I think there are very few cases where it pays to go davka to an Ivy League, or any other private college/university. Not that there's anything wrong with private higher education if people want it for non-financial reasons, but financially it's not usually a great investment. IMHO. Almost anything a person might want to learn is offered on a very high level at one state university at least.

hop613

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 6:12 am

Shuly wrote:

This doesn't necesarily say anything about what college does to a BY girl. Unless you know these girls really really really well, it's impossible to say whether they were already heading in the MO direction, or whether they went in thinking they would come out Yeshivish.

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 7:03 am

amother wrote:

Actually, not necessarily - some undergraduates understand networking, the ones who are business-focused and sophisticated. Going off to college as a teenager - or even by graduation - kids in my experience didn't have that mindset. And many, many highly educated people voluntarily choose careers without high earning potential.

My Ivy degree, my sister's, our friends', didn't make us rich. Hardly. We went there for education, or for the "experience," or because it was expected, or some combination of the above. My parents weren't disappointed in their ROI; they didn't send us to become millionnaires as much as to give us a valuable, perhaps invaluable, educational experience.

In "today's economy," and actually in the econonomy of the past ten years or so, highly educated people have been clobbered. The old-boys' network won't save you. Success takes expertise, savvy and luck. Connections might help, but it's hardly a guarantee.

I was raised Conservative, and became more frum during high school and college. Being away from home made it easier to find my way. There were many temptations, and different kids respond in different ways. In my college days, many kids moved off campus to their own apartments after the first year, which can make the environment more civilized. Would a BY grad do ok? I don't know from experience as I don't know any BY grads who tried it, but I think it would have more to do with the individual student than anything else.

Ruchel

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 8:10 am

I don't know Ivy league but I certainly know charedim, married or not, in university. No dorm.

How did they get in, well they were in non charedi schools, or in charedi schools graduating HS normally, or supplemented by themselves or with a tutor. It's much more common problem for the boys, as almost all girls schools graduate. I can only think of one or two kulo kodesh sections for girls here.

imasinger

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 8:31 am

I know 3 BY girls who went on to an Ivy. One graduated and married in the same year, and last I heard was living in Crown Heights with a decent job and a growing family. One just graduated and was immediately offered a high paying job at a well-known and prestigious computer corporation. For all that she stayed completely on the derech (lived at home, which was nearby, and maintained her commitment in every way), she is not having an easy time finding a shidduch. One is still in school, also living at home, and very clear on her derech.

I think it's disgusting that so many boys' families are unwilling to look harder at these girls, who are models in every way -- AND able to support a husband in learning for a considerable amount of time, thanks to their education.

OTOH, I know of a bunch of MO kids who went to Ivy schools. Some stayed very connected, and others... did not.

All in all, I strongly support a good education, whether one gets it through Raizel Reit, an elite university, or something else.

JAWSCIENCE

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 9:01 am

An ivy is NOT just going to take you because you went to a Yeshiva and this increases diversiyy. You need to have the right grades and good application material. Period. They don't lower their standard to accept orthodox Jews. They lump all Jews together in the diversity category and they feel they have plenty of those.

The choice of where to send a child for school should not be made by a bunch of knee jerk reactions like Dolly's IMHO. You have to look at the child and what is best for him/her. I very much agree with Barbara's statements about the importance of education. Things like price and value are best assessed bye very family and individual who knows what they have int he bank to work with. You also have to consider what the child wants to do in the future - is it a possibly lucrative career or do they want to major in "far east women' sstudies" which just about never allow them to pay off loans? Some fields look for people with ivy degrees while others do not and focus on experience and the resume.

I know plenty of frum ivy league grads who got married, have nice job, still live frum lifestyles (some even on the upper West sides, and they got married in that "flytrap" !shock!) and their educations are what helped them get to this comfortable place in their lives. They are even supporting some of the people who went and "got an apartments in Jerusalem and had kids" (instead of getting an education first) because they have a genuine chibas haaretz. I even know some people who became MORE religious in some ivys because a small community can be very close knit whereas a giant community in Touro or Brooklyn college can be very impersonal, people get left out of cliques, infighting happens etc..

I also know people who became less religious. These were kids who had these tendencies beforehand. They were all ready having some issues at home and bucking the standards set by their parents. Even if it was subtle. Those are ones who should not have been sent to these places without a good support system and several friends in place.

On a side note I really don't think someone becoming modern orthodox is something to cry over like a person that went off the derech. I find that offensive to modern orthodox people who are fine, upstanding, frum Jews. Is the person a Torah observant Jew? That's ll that matters. Certain forms of orthodox Judaism do not mesh well with certain people. Not everyone can be chasid. Not everyone has the zitfleish to learn all day or the patience to support a husband in kolel. Not everyone believes in taking on extra chumras that are not halacha or refusing to teach our children the difference between chumra and halacha.

Certain labels are handed out by others. When I chose to go to medical school I became "modern orthodox" in the minds of everybody who knew me merely because of my getting this higher education. Enough with the labels. Focus on the person and their actions. If they are following halacha (NOT chumrahs, make sure you know the difference) stop griping about what they are labeled by others.

Our nation has benefited tremendously from people with ivy league educations. Our nation has also benefited tremendously from MO people, their Torah learning, their kehila institutions and their tzedakahs. If you are going to run around making offensive statements and basically calling all such people bad Jews and considering them no better than Conservative or Reform Jews then you are missing out on a great deal.

Oh and if anybody wants to talk about their childs personal educational choices or application, PM me. I can try and put you in a touch with a person who went to some of the schools considered or help you with the application. I've been reading application essays for years. I feel it is important to keep some of our nation educated and employed if that is the right thing for that child.

ora_43

Thu, Aug 18 2011, 9:14 am

I agree with those who said frum Jews won't be accepted just for diversity reasons, and add - NOBODY is accepted to an ivy league just because of diversity. Even if you're, say, a half-haitian, half-eskimo paraplegic mormon who speaks fluent Indonesian, you'll still only get in if your grades and test scores were good enough to put you in the "maybe" pile anyway.

Diversity and college acceptance is like a 5-point bonus question on an exam - it might bump up your grade a tiny bit, but it only gets you an A+ if you already had at least an A.

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