The power of prestige: “Ivy League” syndrome

Ivy League schools attract fierce competitiveness from students all over the world, bagging consistent top spots in worldwide university rankings and results: but is being accepted into these schools all we make it out to be?

When Angela Noronha went back home to Manila in the summer of 2009 from the University of Pennsylvania, she witnessed the massive rescue efforts of the people and the government to repair the damage done by the dreaded Typhoon Ketsana. Being someone super fixated on the Ivy League, she saw this community and how people with no fancy background whatsoever come together and address this issue. This helped spark a revelation in her.

“None of these people have Ivy League degrees, some of these people have never even travelled on an airplane probably in their whole lives… but they were doing exactly the kind of work that I saw myself doing in the future. The nobility and impact of your work has nothing to do with pedigree.”

Now, 9 years later, she tells us how staying in the Philippines that year changed her life. Whether it was strengthening her brother’s relationship with her parents or creating partnerships with social entrepreneurs, she narrows it all down to one question she asked herself: “where can I love more?”

A young boy is carried to safety through floodwaters caused by Typhoon Ketsana in the Quezon city suburban of Manila on September 26, 2009.
(Source: boston.com)

A former University of Pennsylvania student, she talks about how prestige was so important to her that it resulted in anxiety and some decisions she would now heavily disagree with; things like refusing scholarships to some really good schools and deciding to go to the University of Pennsylvania even when she knew that it would be financially unsustainable. Realizing that prestige and esteemed universities wasn’t what was needed to solve problems and change the world like she wanted to has changed her outlook on life.

“Whatever choices I’ve made that have lead to the reality I have now, I wouldn’t trade for anything. But if I were to go back in time and maybe redo it or advise kids about what to do today, I definitely wouldn’t have them turn down scholarships to really great schools to go to the one school that has a higher ranking,” she said as she recollected her refusal to take a full scholarship to Wesleyan University, a liberal arts college in Connecticut.

Angela, now living in Singapore and raising two young boys, is a senior manager at an education startup business called Cialfo for college applicants. She credits her rather worrying experiences of the university application process as the motivation behind this line of work.

Angela visited school as a part of Writer’s Fortnight. She is one of the many prospective human interest stories that the Grade 10 FIBs and Grade 9s have to choose from to write their very own feature or op-ed articles.

The Cialfo Team (Angela Noronha, third from right)
(Source: Atlas by Cialfo)
UWCSEA East University Advising Centre Team (Joan Liu, second from right)
(Source: UWCSEA East University Advising Centre)

Who doesn’t want success and recognition? Before I heard Angela’s story, I recognized myself as “infected”, if you will, of the Ivy League fever common among my peers and classmates. Always looking to aim for the big leagues and not take anything lower, I found myself fiercely motivated in my academics by this. The mere idea of one day coming home to a Harvard or Yale acceptance letter in the mailbox appealed to me extremely. Little did I realize the plethora of options available to me, and what my idea of a “good school” was really wasn’t the only path to a successful life, as Angela so regretfully recollected before.  

I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Ms. Joan Liu, a university advisor here at UWCSEA East. Based on her experience as a university advisor, she explains how students come in to her office wanting to go to a “good school” in the USA. Usually, this “good school” is one of the eight Ivy League universities. “It’s kind of like being an athlete,” says Ms. Liu, “and saying,  ‘I’m only going to settle for the Olympics. Otherwise I’m not going to be an athlete at all.’” She herself can relate to the process these students are going through, as was the daughter of immigrants who came to the US in part because of its educational opportunities.

The standards and pressure brought upon us as students when applying to university is determined by the extremely high boundaries set by our school culture, which we feel we have to cross to deem ourselves successful.

“People feel the pressure to get to an Ivy League School. It’s unrealistic to insist on this standard. Quite frankly, only a very small minority of people will be able to get to a high selective school,” explains Joan.

She also feels the top 1% here at UWC is defined very narrowly. “Sometimes kids come in upset  about getting a grade like a 38 for their IB scores – a score that only 13% of the world can achieve. Yet, here they are in tears because the standard at UWC feels like you’ve got to be above 40 here.”

The eight Ivy League schools in the USA.
(source: The Hatter’s Herald)

Another potential trigger for the stress we feel in the time of university applications is our cultural background and our families. Do we feel we have a certain standard or reputation to live up to, when it comes to our tertiary education?

“In Asia, it’s really rather seen as a family achievement if you manage to get to particular school. In this region, there is so much heavy emphasis on brand recognition, versus true value.”

Coming from a Taiwanese family that immigrated to the US, Joan herself recollects how she had a lot of pressure put on her when applying to college. She believes her university experience was not a good one because of the standards and pressure she felt she constantly had to work to live up to.

One of my classmates, Megna Srinivasan, was happy to share her stance on the matter; she herself finds the majority of colleges on her list of where she wants to go to be the eight Ivy Leagues, and very weakly informed on the rest of the some 5,300 schools in the US. “I think that I would trust an Ivy League more than another college, because I have heard about their reputable teaching and would trust them to handle my education well but that’s only because I have heard about these colleges more than any other colleges and so don’t really know what other colleges offer.”

International students at an Ivy League undergraduate programme comprise no more than 10% of the entire student population on a campus. UWCSEA East saw 1 out of every 4 students of the graduating class of 2018 enrolling to the USA for tertiary education. Usually, the percentage of those applying to the USA is at 60% but 25% choose to go in the end. These statistics consolidate Joan’s idea of our categorization of being a top 1% here at UWCSEA; we have so much pressure put on us as students here because of the consistent offers from some of the most reputable colleges in the world. We feel we are expected to live up to this reputation, this unspoken duty we have as being a student at UWCSEA.

After hearing Angela’s story, It would seem that Ivy League syndrome is, in fact, curable. “You might be a big fish in a little pond, but what is that in the ocean? I was putting so much pressure on myself to be this person other people look up to, definitely out of pride. At the end of the day, no one is better or worse than another. It helped to see how humble other people are even though they have achieved incredible things,” says Angela, as an answer to when she was questioned about the impact of her dependence on prestige.

I questioned my mindset regarding these elite schools, and if they really were all they were made out to be after hearing Angela speak. Making choices for the right reasons is what is really important. Of course, the people that Angela met at university inspired her everyday and she continues to be inspired by the brilliant minds that she encountered during her stay at the University of Pennsylvania, which she really loved being a student of.

Seeing how her path has lead her to where she is now, I think had she stayed at the University of Pennsylvania for what she claims were the “wrong reasons” she wouldn’t have been able to share such an amazing story with our community. Even if it is something that your family or your culture says doesn’t make sense, if it’s something that gets you heavy criticism from all sorts of people, but it’s something that you know and believe in, do it. Do it, or you will regret it.


Angela stayed back in the Philippines rather than graduate from an Ivy League college to spare her family the financial burden – and be closer to the people she said she wanted to help; I can think of a lot of people who would question that action. But, in the end, she believed in this and felt it was the right thing for her to do, and from what I’ve seen, she’s extremely happy the way it’s turned out.

If you believe in something, then you owe it to yourself to do it. Whatever it may be, making choices for what we believe are the right reasons is the most important. Do it before you regret it. Life offers us many paths, and every choice opens new doors for us. Be it a student at Harvard, or a Red Cross worker in war torn Syria, all of us have our own definitions of what holds value and makes us feel accomplished. Work towards your own definition of success.

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