Elite students, ivy-covered walls, and prestigious alumni are all things that might come to mind when you talk about the eight notable Ivy League schools that cover the Northeast Coast. The schools consist of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.
You might consider these schools if you wish to live out your Gilmore Girls dreams; however, the schools may be losing their status and prestige.
At Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and very recently the University of Pennsylvania, the universities have had reported incidents regarding discrimination and holding back on financial aid, and the accusations continue to pile up.
Even as recently as January 2, 2024, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned over antisemitic comments made in light of the Israel-Hamas war, leaving many Harvard faculty members and students to rush to her defense. It is also noted by Nature that Gay was facing concerns about plagiarism in her scholarly papers.
“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay wrote, “When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education.”
The University of Pennsylvania president, M. Elizabeth Magill, resigned as well on December 9, 2023, four days after she appeared in Congress where she evaded answering the question of whether or not students who called for the genocide of Jews should be expelled or reviewed on campus. Even months prior, Magill had been facing controversy, causing many influential graduates to question her leadership, and some wealthy contributors moved to withdraw donations. Public officials, such as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, called for the university to change its president.
In addition to the various social and political controversies surrounding the Ivy League schools, some students and parents have begun to also show concern with the schools’ new test-optional policies. Within the past five years, school acceptance rates have dropped to a historic low.
“The number of students who applied to Harvard in early admissions… fell about 17%,” Harvard University said.
With the Supreme Court overturning Affirmative Action through higher education, many of these schools have begun to unenroll from some of the financial aid programs that allow students from lower-income families a place at school.
This year, Yale University reports that they only admitted 9.02 percent of early applicants, making it the lowest admissions rate in over two decades.
This leads to the question, what does the future hold for these once prestigious institutions?
