(Preface: my info is a decade old)
Upon reflection, a key distinction between an Ivy and the ACC/SEC, is this: you are essentially forced to develop an identity which extends far beyond athletics.
So, at son's school it began before matriculation when the entire freshman class headed into the wilderness for a one week camping trip with a dozen soon-to-be classmates (and few had ever been camping before). During that week you get a peak at the non-athlete classmates. You could share a tent with a diplomat's son, talk music with an actual music prodigy, hike with people way out of your prior experiences. And, you now know a dozen new people - peers - who you'll see from time-to-time over the next years.
(One of the guys on that trip was a scion to a mid-eastern power family and son went to London on winter vacation with his family.)
Athletes that first year were assigned random roommates (like a prison my son initially said) - so most roomed with non-athletes and began networking. (Networking is the Ivy secret sauce.)
There were no special athlete classes (tho the "easier" electives were well-known in the athlete community), no special study tables, no designated tutors; every student was treated the same academically.
That first year was a time to try new things - for example, my son (just a regular athlete with no real passions beyond baseball) went to acapella shows, poetry readings (yes, really), plays, and all sorts of things which were out-of-his-box. Why? Because he was immersed with non-athletes and they have passions, too!
From second year on, you could chose roommates and he never roomed with an athlete.
Academics were hard, really hard. Kids used to cruising academically were in the same swimming pools as those who will eventually become judges, professors and other intellecual-type pursuits. The median physics mid-term grade was 19%! What a shock!
In second year, athletes tended to gravitate to specific "dining clubs" (I know them as frats/sororities); but those clubs weren't primarily athletes- so even more mixing with other real students.
In third year, they all wrote "Junior papers." Not really research papers, more like deep reviews of other peoples' research. This created the groundwork to the "senior thesis."
The senior thesis is truly an independent research thesis - it is a year long project under a professor, it's novel and substantial. At the conclusion, the thesis is bound and placed in the library with all the thesis' from those before; frequently during the interview process, the prospective employer will ask for it. (It's graduate level work.)
Then there were the senior "comprehensives" - an exam which captures your entire major and which must be passed to graduate.
(Now, this is just for my son's school, I am not familiar with other Ivys, but suspect it's similar.)
The entire time, you are surrounded by chronic over-achievers whose focus isn't baseball and offers those athletes perspectives they otherwise wouldn't seek out - a broadening of interests if you will.
(Mom and Dad are state flagship grads and our undergraduate experience was way different.)
IMO, when a player is surrounded by kids who are just as driven - but in non-athlete pursuits - it provides a fertile ground to explore non-athlete pursuits.
An athlete Ivy experience is just way different from most other D1s.
