Ivy League schools, sometimes referred to as the “ivies” include some of the oldest schools established within the original thirteen colonies and these universities are often regarded as the most prestigious in the country due to their high level of education. .

However, when considering various controversies and scandals among the Ivy League schools, a question emerges: are Ivy League schools really worth attending?

The prestige of the Ivy League universities is not shiningly innocent as it is widely discussed that Ivy League schools are not what their surface level appearances portray.

Some Ivy league schools will only reconsider rejected applicants after a personal donation of over a million dollars from the students parents.

Some parents have even gone to the extent of using the “side-door mechanism” which is a way to “cheat” students into the university by posing their children into a projected higher standing. There have been several cases of parents paying others to take their child’s SAT for them, pretending their child is an accomplished athlete, or even posing their child as a black student.

The United States Department of Justice publicized 2019 scandal known as the Varsity Blues Scandal Involving the Ivy League Schools, in which parents went as far to pay Rick Singer, who was an admission counselor, $25 million dollars in order to bribe coaches into faking a student’s athletic status.

Another scandal took place back in May 2012, where half of the students taking a government exam were suspected of cheating with the help of a teacher assistant and other students within the class. This makes it extremely difficult for students who actually try to get into the university.

Ivy League schools have an incredibly high tuition cost while also having low admission rates. Poor students often feel unwelcome in these communities because of the culture that have been cultivated by the wealthy and privileged atmosphere of many accepted students.

The Ivies are luxury brand name schools, but students earn almost the same or even less education that students would at another college. In fact, there are many other universities within the nation that exceed the reputation of the Ivy League schools without an associated number of scandals.

At the end of the day, students will still get a degree from whatever universities students attend, whether that be a local school or an Ivy League.

I know that students may feel sad that they didn’t get into a brand named school, but it really doesn’t matter, plenty of students have gone into community college and with that they have saved much more money than they would have if they stayed at a university, and even have been able to transfer into their dream school.