The Ivy obsession.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Ivy League - Brief article

One of the most depressing trends over the last few decades has been the increasing tendency to deem an Ivy League education as essential to success and the resulting desperate pressure parents exert on their children, even preschoolers, to do everything necessary to gain admission to one of these institutions. I am therefore delighted to see a column by the Washington Post's Jay Mathews listing individual after individual in field after field who has achieved conspicuous success without an Ivy League degree.

The alumni of this magazine are well known for doing well in their subsequent careers. Many of them are Ivies, but many others are not. Here are some of the colleges the latter group attended: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Augustana College, Occidental College, University of Michigan, Colorado College, Northwestern University, Johns...