We (wife, '09 softball daughter, '07 baseball son, and Paps)have just returned from a fact finding trip to a few of the Ivy campuses; we flew in to Providence, and in 7 days visited and attended campus tours at 4 of the schools (Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Cornell). My son has been contacted (phone and letters) by Harvard, Dartmouth, and Cornell, and we met members of the coaching staff at Dartmouth and Cornell. Being from the west coast, the schools had a distinctly different feel to them when compared to the west coast schools we have visited, including my alma mater(s) San Diego State and UOP. If you like larger schools (campus, class size, newer facilities) Cornell would be attractive. Dartmouth, located in a small town, has an authentic old school feel to it, and offers class sizes of less than 30 students, and we were told that no TA's/grad students give lectures (all professors). Lately, Dartmouth has fielded the superior baseball teams.
My son has a high GPA and did very well on the SAT's, but doesn't yet have any real appreciation for the significance of an Ivy education when compared with non-Ivy schools. Being a homeowner in California pretty much knocks us out of the need based financial aid arena. I would love to see our kids get a degree with the social advantages of an Ivy school, however...our only real wealth is tied up in the house we are living in, and because we have ridden this California real estate wave we would have to pay full bore tuition at an Ivy school. Unless our son catches fire and just HAS to attend Cornell, or Dartmouth, or Harvard...he could attend a California school in the UC system, play baseball, and rely on his smarts and resourcefulness upon graduation to make it in the real world. And with his sister right on his tail, and her tuition and fees coming up just two years from now...YIKES!