In 2010, The National published an article titled NYUAD Set to Join the Ivy League, describing NYU Abu Dhabi’s inaugural class. The main reasons for such a comparison, as outlined in the article, are comparable admissions rates and selectivity as well as incoming students’ standardized test scores and financial aid packages. Many students on campus, several of whom were also offered admission at one or more of the Ivy League schools, also compare NYUAD to Ivy League schools in terms of quality of education and way of life. NYU President Emeritus and NYUAD’s visionary John Sexton spoke to The Gazelle about students’ tendency to compare the two.

“It’s inevitable that a student that is considering NYUAD would also be considering the Ivy League schools because our students are of that caliber. When you’re dealing with the very best students in the world … they’re looking at the very best schools in the world,” said Sexton.

“I don’t think it’s right to compare schools based on some abstract reputational ranking. What’s right for one student might not be right for another … Certainly in all traditional numbers or measures, our student body is as good as, or better than, any student body in the world: that includes the Ivies, by all the incoming measures and the outgoing awards,” added Sexton, assessing NYUAD’s comparability to the Ivy League schools.

In saying that, Sexton was alluding to the high academic and extracurricular achievements of incoming students and the increasing number of prestigious scholarships — such as the Rhodes, Fulbright and Truman scholarship — attained by students in the graduating classes. While NYUAD, as the portal campus of a U.S. university with strong incoming and graduating classes, can definitely be held to the same standard as the Ivy League schools, the two are not necessarily the same enterprise. Many students accepted to Ivy League schools chose to come to NYUAD due to certain aspects of university life that they knew they could not find elsewhere.

Sophomore Emil Goldsmith Olesen, who was accepted by Yale University, chose NYUAD because of the cultural integration that he felt existed at this college more so than at any other.

“From friends … I heard that there’s quite a big segregation between international students and the local Americans [at U.S. colleges]. International students just end up hanging out with each other, and while it’s of course cool to hang out with other international students, I just found that a bit sad,” Olesen elaborated.

Sophomore Enrique López de la Peña also chose NYUAD over an Ivy League school for similar reasons as Olesen. He felt inspired by the multicultural environment NYUAD had to offer.

“I would say this is the most diverse campus on the planet and one of the most diverse places — after only the U.N. You can Google a lot of things about life in Pakistan, or in Gambia or in Zimbabwe, but it’s never going to be that same thing [as] when you live with people who actually are from those places who can directly tell you about their lives,” López de la Peña commented.

NYUAD graduate Krishan Mistry compared NYUAD’s diversity with that which he encountered at Brown University, where he continued his graduate studies. Mistry echoed Lopez de la Peña’s sentiments when he wrote to The Gazelle, “I really do think that the kind of diversity [on NYUAD’s campus] is unique. While many Ivy League schools, like Brown, have a great amount of diversity on paper, at the end of the day you do have large, often racially homogenous, American majorities that really control the culture of the school. And while NYUAD certainly has a very American feel to it … you simply don’t have the same kinds of majorities that are present at American universities.”

In addition to the multicultural environment, NYUAD’s location and liberal arts program were a big plus for students like senior Issa Nasr, when comparing it to schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University.

“I based my decision on the program itself. The liberal arts curriculum, being in the Middle East, the whole package, the whole international experience — that was the main factor,” said Nasr.

While NYUAD is certainly respected for its innovative concept and multicultural environment, many students also highlighted the generous financial aid as a factor that influenced their decision. Some students, like junior Alex Matters, chose NYUAD over a school like Harvard purely because of the scholarship they were offered.

“It’s hard to say if I would make the decision again. NYUAD has given me opportunities to travel, meet more diverse people and do a ton of exciting things. That said, it’s pretty clear it would have been easier to secure certain employment and other opportunities through name recognition and recruiting at Harvard that NYUAD just isn’t equipped to connect us to,” he said when asked whether he would make the decision again. In retrospect, Nasr would not retract his decision to come to NYUAD.

“Your experience here is much more tailored to who you are and what you want to do than in other universities, which are more like, it’s about you fitting into the program than the program fitting to you,” said Nasr.

Nevertheless, he does concede that in terms of employment, name recognition would have been quite an advantage for him in helping him get his foot through the door.

“Given my major, when I apply to internships at banks or consulting firms, the name of the university really matters, because that puts you in a particular applicant pool in terms of target schools and non-target schools. So coming from NYU Abu Dhabi, it puts you not on [the list] of target schools, so you are at a slight disadvantage because you’re not going to be considered first.”

Nasr did add, however, that things like study abroad and life on Saadiyat are things that NYUAD students can talk about once they do get to the interview. The initial difficulty has only made him want to work harder and gives him more motivation to seek out opportunities.

The Gazelle contacted six other students to talk about their choice to come to NYUAD instead of choosing an Ivy League school they were accepted into. All of the contacted students declined to answer, citing discomfort around the subject.

Perhaps a consequence related to the issue of reputation is the comparably uncompetitive starting salary of NYUAD graduates. In an assessment of the graduating Class of 2015, titled Life Beyond Saadiyat, the median starting salary for an NYUAD graduate working in North America is shown to range between USD 35,400 and USD 41,000. Meanwhile, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal that lists the median starting salaries of graduates at more than 200 U.S. universities, these numbers depict a disparity of approximately USD 20,000 between the starting salary of an Ivy League graduate and that of an NYUAD graduate.

Moreover, even when compared to graduates at U.S. liberal arts schools, the starting salary of an NYUAD graduate still falls short by about USD 5,000.

While it is advisable that NYUAD not compare itself to the Ivy League schools given its unique location, diversity, culture and liberal arts program, using the Ivy League as a yardstick for success is natural.

As Sexton puts it, “The Ivy League is a phrase that we use to describe the very best in higher education [and NYUAD] seeks to keep all the relevant attributes that we associate with the very best of higher education.”

NYUAD certainly upholds a high standard when admitting students. However, it appears that this standard is not reflected when it comes to employment opportunities and starting salaries, a luxury the Ivy League schools and other U.S. colleges in general have due to their well-established nature and instant name recognition.