It’s happened again. A high school senior has made the news for getting accepted to all eight Ivy League schools. (The eight Ivies are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.) Whenever this happens, many—like me—use it as an opportunity to discuss fit, focus, and why applying to all the Ivies is probably not in your best interest. Also, whenever this happens others use it as an opportunity to discus why pointing out that it’s not in your best interest is itself not a good move. So there’s the news, the commentary on the news, and then the backlash on the commentary. What’s that all about, and what does it mean for you? Let’s explore.

What’s the problem with applying to all the Ivies? People who would warn you away from applying to all eight Ivies usually point out that it’s highly unlikely that all eight of those colleges are actually a good fit for you. And they’re right. All of the schools are old—the youngest was founded in 1865—and they belong to the same NCAA conference. All are prestigious and have extremely low acceptance rates. But they’re not all alike. It’s hard to see that a liberal arts college in rural New Hampshire (Dartmouth) is a good fit for you and also that a university twice that size in the middle of New York City (Columbia) is also a great fit. It’s conventional wisdom that you shouldn’t waste your time and energy applying to schools that aren’t a great fit, and so one student’s success gets used as a cautionary tale for you.

Some also point out that there’s only so much good that can come from being accepted to all the Ivies since you can only go to one college. And they’re also right. But that has nothing to do with the Ivy League. Everyone going to college next year can only go to one, no matter which ones they apply to. I think the “you can only go to one” advice is about applying to too many schools, not applying to all the Ivies. I think we just use the “all eight Ivies” angle as an excuse to bring up cost-benefit analysis for applying to that many colleges.

Some have concluded that because the Ivy League schools aren’t all that similar, and because you can only go to one at most, that people who apply to all of them are probably just doing it for the attention, to pat themselves on the back, or just to see what happens. And maybe they’re not wrong. I imagine there are plenty of high school students who apply to all of the Ivy League knowing that not all of them are a perfect fit. But it would be cool to have all eight acceptances, and be in the news, and have strangers like me discuss your strategy. And to that I say: go for it! Why not?

Some time in 2000 I was flipping through a magazine I wouldn’t normally read while in a dentist’s waiting room. I noticed some blurb about how Bill and Hilary Clinton had really great stationery for replies to all the wedding and party invitations they would get from strangers. I had never thought of such a thing, but it sounded kind of fun. So when I got married in spring of 2001, we invited not just the Clintons, but every living former president too. I didn’t know what would happen, but we did indeed get a response from all of them. We actually framed and displayed the reply letters at our wedding. We thought it was fun, and I still have two of them on a bookshelf in my house. (Sure enough, the Clintons did have the best stationery, but the personalized message from George and Barbara Bush was my favorite.) This is my long way of saying that if you want to apply to all the Ivies to see what happens, I’m all in favor. 

There are two warnings, though. The first is that you have to be honest with yourself. I understood that it was just for fun, and that no president was going to show up at my wedding just because I asked. I know that it was a social secretary or intern who actually processed the invitation and that no president actually even saw it. I was genuinely surprised that we got responses from all of them. While I don’t think “I believe that all eight Ivy League colleges are a great fit for me and what I’m looking for” is an especially realistic reason to apply to all of them, I can imagine plenty of completely legitimate reasons for applying to all eight. I even think “status is important to me, and there are fewer status markers more prestigious than an Ivy League education. Because that’s more important to me than geography, size, major, cost, or campus culture, I’ll go to any of them that accepts me” is ok so long as you’re honest with yourself about your motives. That to me is no more or less legitimate than something like “I only want to apply to schools I’m confident I’ll be accepted at because I’m afraid of rejection.” 

When we talk about fit, it’s about the why, not the what. Fit has to do with why you want to go to college and why you’re choosing the ones that you are, not what your GPA is or what their acceptance rate is. Self-knowledge and honesty are incredibly important. If you can be honest with yourself about your reasons for applying to all of the Ivies, fine. Even if it’s just “what have I got to lose?”

But that’s the second warning: remember what you have to give up in order to apply to all of them. I don’t remember how much our wedding invitations cost, but it was a lot. We had a limited number of them. So each one we sent to a former president as a fun experiment was one we weren’t sending to someone who might actually have come to our wedding. If you’re applying to all the Ivies, that’s a lot of work. If you don’t qualify for fee waivers, it’s a lot of money too. And it ought to go without saying, but let’s be clear: you shouldn’t only apply to Ivies. No matter how qualified you are, that’s just too big a risk. So applying to all eight Ivies means applying to a bare minimum of nine colleges, probably more like 12 to 15. There’s a lot you could be doing with that time and energy other than college applications.

But still, if you’re honest about why you’re doing it and are comfortable with the cost in terms of money, time, and energy, then by all means apply to all of them.

Well, then what’s the backlash about? What’s wrong with advising against applying to all the Ivies? The short version is that it’s elitist and petty to scold kids for applying to all of them, especially when there are so many bigger problems in higher education. And they’re right, too. For possibly the best take in this vein, see Jon Boeckenstedt’s piece from 2017, “Our Annual Entitlement Ritual.” In it, he says:

First, most of the people making these accusations see the world through their own lens: One where every student has access to good college counseling. One where every student knows why someone who loves Dartmouth, for instance, might not be happy at Brown. One where students have been talking to parents over dinner since they were four years old about going to college, and especially, about going to the right college <wink wink>.

“How could they make such an admissions faux pas?” they scream in unison. “Don’t these students know that one simply does not apply to every Ivy?” You can almost see Thurston Howell III and Lovie getting light headed.  “What were they thinking?” they say, pressing the backs of their hands against their foreheads, while they grab onto something to help prop themselves up.

I’ve always seen myself as more Flavio Hippo than Thurston Howell III, but point taken. There’s absolutely no need to get upset when a student makes the “mistake” of applying to all the Ivies. We shouldn’t shame, guilt, scold, or make fun of someone who does. It’s ok. They already know that they can only go to one. So then why do I bring it up? How can I say that it’s probably not a good idea to apply to all the Ivies if I’m not criticizing the people who do? I think I can safely marvel at someone else’s feat and still remind the people I care about not to try it. It’s kind of like free solo climbing or memorizing Pi to 60,000 digits. It’s amazing that people can do that, and worth celebrating. But seriously, don’t try it unless you’re very sure of what you’re doing.

There’s one more aspect of the “All Eight Ivies” thing that gets to me: the Ivy League is really so limited. They’re not the only high-quality schools, the only prestigious schools, the only selective schools, or the only old schools. As I’ve said before, “making such a big deal out of the arbitrary list of Ivy League schools seems slightly unfair to people who have other accomplishments that don't fit the ‘Bingo!’ nature of hitting all the schools in that particular conference.” Anyone who is choosing among more than one school that would be a good place for them is truly fortunate. And anyone who has at least one acceptance is worth celebrating.

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