Watch a video tour of Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale shot by Eddie Walneck of Safford High School. Most of the Ivies reported a record number of applications this year. A few other highly selective schools, including Dartmouth, Columbia and the University of Notre Dame, had a slight decline in applications from last year, perhaps because of uncertainty over the economy. Parents see an Ivy League education as an investment in a good career. And, unlike their baby boomer parents, today's students aren't rebelling against an older generation's educational values.
Many students see no reason to stay close to home or go anywhere but the best schools.
But the sense of freedom and entitlement comes to a sudden thud at the Ivy admissions doors. Arizona's academic stars are competing not only with other students around the country but with a larger pool of students in their own state. Applicants for the Ivies used to come almost exclusively from Valley private schools such as Brophy and Xavier college preparatories, Phoenix Country Day School or a few public high schools with long records of high-achieving students, such as Scottsdale's Chaparral High School or Tucson's University High School. But competition now comes from all the public high schools in the state. The process of getting into a prestigious college was always a major trauma, but a smaller percentage of the population was involved.