Many academically qualified kids turn down Ivies for a number of reasons.
1) not much support for athletes as far as class selection, and real academic advising for athletes.
2) very little athletic culture at an ivy. Not much support from the non athlete student body.
You are looking at the Ivy institutions through the wrong prism. Out of a pool of nearly 30,000 applicants to Yale, 2,031 were accepted and 1,360 chose to come to campus this Fall 2013.
Harvard's yield (percentage of students accepting after being given an offer) was 82% and Yale was 70%. Dartmouth was the lowest Ivy with a yield of 48.5%. Although not specifically an Ivy, Stanford's yield was 76.7%.
These are incredibly high numbers - the best in the country. The thing you have to consider is the correlation factor between these schools. Simply stated, successful Ivy League applicants will typically get acceptances from more than one Ivy school meaning accepting one impacts the yield with all others.
These are Division 1 athletes that are providing a service for the school and they do not receive the same support with regards to physical and weight trainers, nutritionists, physical therapy and academic support. You can say what you want about athletes should not need tutors or advisors but when other schools offer such significant support many choose to go non-ivy.
Again, the concept at the very top schools is that you need to be a very top student. Individualized tutoring sessions can be purchased, usually with cash-starved graduate students, but these are not a function typically supplied for anyone at top level institutions.
4) no athletic $$$$. You can say what you want about early recruiting but it definitely comes with significant $$$. 50% or more from a public ivy such as Virginia, Michigan or UNC trumps an ivy any day. The real benefits of an is grad school. Take the money you save in athletic scholarship and put towards grad school!!!
We could have a long debate about the value of an Ivy League degree versus any of those schools named. Even within the Ivy League schools, there are differentiations in various disciplines.
You would need to explain what criteria you are using to decide between two or more schools to determine that one offer trumps another. Defining the factors that differentiate offers in an analytical as opposed to emotional manner underpins the Top Ten Academic and Athletic school choices that we often stress. After all, how to you know that a school belongs in your Top Ten?
