Some parents opting for rural life to get kids into Ivy League
By Faune Evans, Dray Clark, Sean Noone | September 22, 2023, 05:24 PM CDT
Getting into college can be tough, and getting into the Ivy League is even more difficult. As a result, some parents are pulling out all the stops and leaving big cities in exchange for life in a small town.
For most Americans, being accepted into an Ivy League school is only the first hurdle; the second is paying for it.
The Ivy League comprises eight schools, and the chances of getting into one are notoriously slim. The national average for college admission is 68%. The admissions rate for an Ivy is between 3% and 7%, according to Forbes.
Ivy League institutions include:
- Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
- Columbia University, New York, New York
- Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
- Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
- University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Nearly 57,000 students applied to Harvard for admission to the Class of 2027. Less than 2,000 were admitted, with most students coming from mid-Atlantic and southern states.
The difficult odds are why some parents are searching for ways to give their students an advantage — particularly wealthy families who can afford test preparation services.
Some parents, however, are uprooting their families for rural life.
“A lot of families are moving to more rural areas, not necessarily just the South, but you know, kind of like the flyover states. They’re moving there because there’s less competition,” said Christopher Rim, the CEO of Command Education.
With fewer students from rural communities applying to Ivy League institutions, parents make the move to increase their kids’ chances of being accepted.
“If you live in New York City, and you attend a private school, the majority of your classmates are most likely vying for the exact same schools,” said Rim. “So let’s say you move to Arkansas — like one of our clients did — there’s going to be less competition there. Not every single student who is attending a public school in Arkansas is necessarily trying to get into Harvard.”
Rim told NewsNation that, on the whole, the system just isn’t fair.
“It’s an unfair game; it’s an unfair playing field,” he said. “It really comes from if you attend private school versus public school. So this entire process from the beginning is designed to be unfair.”
Originally published on NEWS NATION on September 22, 2023
