What's Happening on Campus- Part 3: It's One Big Club

College Safety
Written by Larry Betz

Putting a Face and a Number on the Ivy League

By Larry Betz | Prepared Not Paranoid https://www.preparednotparanoid.com/

Updated October 31, 2026


Ivy League campus safety starts with a question most families never ask: who actually gets in the door, and what happens to them once they're inside? Here's what the schools' own numbers show.

It's One Big Club, and Most Families Can't Get In the Door

Before we ever get to a single crime statistic, I want to start with a harder question: Who actually gets to attend these schools in the first place?

Because here's what the research shows, and this isn't speculation, it's peer-reviewed economic data from Harvard economist Raj Chetty and the Opportunity Insights team, the same research the New York Times built its well-known 2017 analysis around. At five Ivy League schools, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton, and Yale, there were more students enrolled from families in the top 1 percent of income, roughly $630,000 a year or more, than from the entire bottom 60 percent of American families combined. Not the bottom 10 percent. The bottom 60.

Their newer research, published in 2023, found something even more specific: a student from a top 1 percent family is twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus school as a middle-class student with the exact same SAT or ACT score. About two-thirds of that gap isn't explained by wealthy families applying more or choosing to attend at higher rates. It's the schools themselves admitting the wealthier student at a higher rate for the same test score. The researchers point to three specific levers driving it: legacy preference for children of alumni, "non-academic" personal ratings that quietly favor students from expensive private schools, and athletic recruiting, which skews wealthy because sports like rowing, fencing, squash, and sailing require money and access most families simply don't have.

Legacy admissions alone tell the story on their own. All eight Ivy League schools still consider legacy status in admissions. Harvard has the clearest documented number, pulled directly from court records in the Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit: for the classes of 2014 through 2019, legacy applicants were admitted at 33.6 percent, compared to 5.9 percent for everyone else. That's a nearly six-times advantage, before you even factor in test scores or activities. That same court case showed that recruited athletes, legacy applicants, children on the dean's or director's interest list, and children of faculty and staff, a group known collectively as ALDC, made up only about 5 percent of applicants but roughly 30 percent of Harvard's admitted class. At Princeton, children of alumni made up 11.2 percent of the Class of 2028 and 12.4 percent of the Class of 2029.

Then there's the raw math of just getting in the door at all. For the class that started this fall, acceptance rates across the eight Ivy League schools ran from roughly 4 percent to about 7 percent. Columbia and Yale admitted just over 4 percent. Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell stopped publishing official numbers, but estimates put Harvard below 4 percent and Cornell near 7. That means somewhere between 93 and 96 out of every 100 applicants, valedictorians, athletes, published researchers, kids who did everything right, were turned away. The small sliver who get in are disproportionately the ones whose parents already went there, already write checks to the endowment, or already play a sport that requires a boathouse their public high school never had.

I'm laying this out first, before a single fraternity name or crime statistic, because it matters for everything that follows. These are, quite literally, some of the most exclusive private clubs in the country, dressed up as universities. Once you understand who actually gets a seat inside that club, and how much of it comes down to family money and family history rather than merit alone, the rest of what you're about to read, how these same institutions have handled sexual assault, hazing, and discipline inside their own walls, starts to make a lot more sense. It's not a coincidence that a system built to protect insiders when it comes to who gets in has also, in case after case, protected insiders when something goes wrong once they're there.

Now Let's Put a Number on What's Actually Happening Inside

Everything below comes directly from each university's own federally required Annual Security Report, the document every school has to publish under the Jeanne Clery Act that we walked through in Part 2. These aren't estimates, and they aren't secondhand summaries. Every Ivy released a new report this fall, so these are the reported on-campus rape and fondling numbers for 2023, 2024, and 2025.

First, the price of a seat. These are each school's published 2026-27 costs of attendance: tuition, fees, housing, and food, plus books and personal costs at most schools.

Here's what each school charges this year.

One fairness note: that's the sticker price. Most of these schools give generous financial aid, and many families pay far less. But the sticker price still tells you who these schools were built for.

Eight schools in, the pattern is impossible to ignore: some of the most expensive, most selective, most prestigious institutions in the country, the same ones that turn away more than 90 percent of everyone who applies, are also reporting dozens of on-campus rapes and fondling incidents every year, inside a system we already know significantly underreports what's actually happening, for the exact reasons we covered in Part 2.

Notice how much those numbers jump around from year to year. Cornell went from 23 reported rapes to 6. Harvard went from 16 to 7. That doesn't necessarily mean campuses got dramatically safer overnight. A drop in reports can mean fewer assaults, or it can mean fewer people coming forward, and the official report can't tell you which.

Hazing: The Newest Numbers

Thanks to the Stop Campus Hazing Act, which we covered in Part 2, every one of these schools now has to report hazing incidents and publicly name student organizations found responsible for hazing. The first reports are in.

Here's what each school has disclosed so far.

The details are worth reading. Cornell's own public hazing violations page, with a record going back to 2004, lists seven student organizations found responsible during the 2025-26 school year, including Alpha Kappa Psi, Delta Sigma Pi, the Men's Lacrosse team, Men's Lightweight Rowing, Phi Delta Theta, and Zeta Psi. The conduct ranged from forced heavy drinking and drug use to blindfolds, degrading tasks, and, in one case, burns. Cornell's new security report also counted 18 hazing incidents in 2025.

Penn's January 2026 Hazing Transparency Report found two organizations in violation. Alpha Iota Gamma, a pre-health fraternity, was cited for zip-tying new members together, forcing a new member to drink a bottle of champagne, making new members carry a raw egg and other items every day, and publicly belittling them. An unrecognized organization calling itself the "Lotus Society" was cited for mandatory activities between midnight and 8 a.m. and initiation demands of more than 10 hours a week.

These aren't fringe groups at fringe schools. These are sports teams, pre-professional clubs, and fraternities at the most selective universities in the country.

The Prepared Protector Looks Past the Name

A famous name on a sweatshirt doesn't keep anyone safe. The Prepared Protector looks past the brand and asks the same questions at a $100,000-a-year Ivy as at a state school: What do the security report and the climate survey say? Which groups are on the hazing report? Who investigates a sexual assault report here? Prestige isn't a safety plan. Preparation is.

Every Number Here Is a Floor, Not a Ceiling

Before you read a single one of those school-by-school numbers as the full picture, go back to what we actually proved in Part 2. Every rape and fondling figure listed above is only what got officially reported, and Cornell's own climate survey showed that number is nowhere close to what students actually said happened to them. Twenty-three reported rapes in 2024 sits next to roughly 2,000 Cornell undergraduate women who told the university's own survey in 2023 that they'd experienced nonconsensual sexual contact during their time on campus, out of an undergraduate population of about 16,000. That's not a Cornell-specific problem. There's no reason to think Harvard, Yale, Penn, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, or Columbia's real numbers look any different from their official ones than Cornell's do. So every single figure in this section should be read as a floor, not a ceiling: the smallest possible version of what's actually happening on each of these campuses, not the real total.

What to Say

When your student gets that acceptance letter

  • "I'm so proud of you. Now let's look at this school the same way we'd look at any other: the safety report, the hazing report, all of it."

  • "A great school doesn't mean a safe school. You still need a plan, and you can always call me."

On the campus visit

  • "Which student groups are on your hazing transparency report, and what happened?"

  • "Who investigates a sexual assault report here: campus police, local police, or state police?

If your student is joining a team, club, or Greek house

  • "If anyone asks you to do something that feels wrong to get in, you can say no and call me. Nothing is worth that."

5 Quick Wins You Can Start Today

  1. Look up the hazing transparency report for your student's school, or the schools on your list.

  2. Pull the newest Annual Security Report and read the footnotes, not just the totals.

  3. Use each school's net price calculator so you know what you'll really pay.

  4. Ask your student which teams, clubs, or houses they're thinking about joining, and check them against the hazing report.

  5. Make the rule: "If something feels wrong, you can leave and call me. No questions first."

Ask Yourself

  • Am I treating a famous name as a safety plan?

  • Do I know which groups at my student's school have been found responsible for hazing?

  • Would my student call me if a team or club asked them to do something that felt wrong?

Remember

The most selective schools in the country turn away more than 90 percent of applicants, but they can't keep every danger out. A school's name is not a safety plan. Your preparation is. Read the reports, ask the hard questions, and make sure your student knows they can always call you.

The Bottom Line

Ninety-five out of a hundred kids never get through the door. The small number who do are paying a sticker price close to $100,000 a year for the privilege. Once inside, the same institutions that spent months deciding who was worthy enough to admit have, in report after report, struggled to consistently protect the students they let in. That's not an accusation against any one school. It's a pattern, backed by the schools' own numbers, and it's exactly the kind of pattern a parent deserves to see clearly before move-in day, not after.

Get Started Today

Get the free College Safety Conversation Guide. The conversations every family should have before move-in day, no matter which school their student picks, with the actual words to start each one: the Red Zone, calling for help, manipulation, boundaries, parties and drinks, rideshares, digital safety, housing, and life-saving response. DM the word [KEYWORD] on Instagram or Facebook and I'll send it to you. [Get it here: LINK]

Go Deeper

Navigating the Red Zone and Beyond. This post shows you what the Ivy League's own numbers say. The book shows your family how to stay safe at any school, Ivy or not: what the Red Zone is, how manipulators lower a student's guard, boundary scripts, drink and party safety, situational awareness with SCAN, rideshare and housing safety, how to support a friend, and what to do if the worst happens. [Get it here: https://link.amazon/B030JRBPp]

Tools I recommend: The dorm safety gear I recommend for your student's first year is in my College Dorm Room Essentials Amazon store. https://link.amazon/B061T3Evk

Related reading:

  • What's Happening on Campus, Part 1: The Cornell Case [LINK]

  • What's Happening on Campus, Part 2: Why Reporting Is So Hard [LINK]

  • What's Happening on Campus, Part 8: Hazing [LINK]

  • College Safety Resource Center [LINK]

References

Disclaimer

This article is for general informational and educational purposes only and is meant to start conversations in your family. It is not legal or financial advice. Crime statistics, hazing findings, admissions data, and costs come from the schools and sources cited, may be revised, and change every year, so check each school's current reports and financial aid pages. Hazing findings are university disciplinary findings, not criminal convictions. Laws on hazing, sexual assault, and consent vary by state, so check your state and county for the exact laws where your student lives and goes to school. If you suspect abuse, assault, or hazing, contact a professional or law enforcement immediately. Prepared Not Paranoid and Larry Betz are not affiliated with any school named here and are not responsible for the content of third-party websites or resources linked here. Affiliate disclosure: I've linked to products from my Amazon store that I personally recommend. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my work.

If you or someone you love is in danger, call 911. For confidential support after a sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 (800-656-HOPE), any time, day or night.


Awareness gives you time. Time gives you options.


The Prepared Protector is someone who's decided that loving someone means being ready for them, not just hoping things go fine.


Prepared Not Paranoid. Protecting the Most Vulnerable Among Us.

Larry Betz https://www.sedonastrengthandmobility.com
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What's Happening on Campus- Part 2: Why Reporting Is So Hard
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What's Happening on Campus- Part 4: Who Campus Police Actually Work For