Why are Ivy League applicants — even the overwhelming majority who apply legitimately — so desperate to get in, and why is this set of schools so renowned? Ivy League alumni conspicuously crowd some of our country’s most prominent institutions: Seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were undergraduates at Ivy League colleges, and all nine of them attended either Harvard or Yale for law school . Every president after Ronald Reagan has had a degree from the Ivy League, often multiple. Ivy League graduates were most represented in industries involving media, including publishing, journalism and the arts — but even there, they were a decided minority. Attending an Ivy League college is far from a prerequisite for leadership in America’s major institutions.

Source: Washington Post March 22, 2019 13:30 UTC