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you know what hits my ear wrong: i had a discussion with a mother of a child attending a northeast liberal arts college (i forget which one). they mentioned that it was in the ivy league and i said it wasnt (i dont think the school even has a basketball team) but they were very insistent that it was so i just agreed with them.
is it general consensus that all schools that have good scholastics are automatically in the ivy league ?
as an engineer, my opinion is that certain ivies are not top rank for sciences (does this conflict with general consensus ?).
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Originally Posted by stanley-88888888
you know what hits my ear wrong: i had a discussion with a mother of a child attending a northeast liberal arts college (i forget which one). they mentioned that it was in the ivy league and i said it wasnt (i dont think the school even has a basketball team) but they were very insistent that it was so i just agreed with them.
is it general consensus that all schools that have good scholastics are automatically in the ivy league ?
as an engineer, my opinion is that certain ivies are not top rank for sciences (does this conflict with general consensus ?).
... is it general consensus that all schools that have good scholastics are automatically in the ivy league ?...
Maybe among Moms, but not among folks in higher ed.
There are 8 Ivies: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale.
You'll hear about other well regarded schools as being Ivy caliber, like Northwestern and Chicago, Stanford and Cal, and so on.
(In fact, when I went to Northwestern there was an apocryphal story about Dartmouth blocking our entry into the Ivy League back in the 1920s because both schools recruited for the same freshmen class. I think that's about as likely as a library sinking into the ground due of the weight of the books, but stranger things have happened.)
But no, Ivy is only Ivy. Just like the Seven Sisters are only the Seven Sisters and the Land Grants are only the Land Grants (except for Cornell, which is both an Ivy and a Land Grant).
^ yeah, it also hits my ear wrong whenever someone says that stanford or rice are in the ivy league. stanfords definately in the pac-10. they have been to multiple bcs bowls in the last several years; and their women have been to the final-4 twice.
The problem comes in because there are two meanings of "Ivy League." One is of course the actual Ivy League sports conference. Which basically no one but fans and sports followers even cares about.
The other "ivy league" is the general term most people use when discussing the top colleges and often only has a little association with the sports Ivy League. In this usage, ivy league is a measure of academic quality. So in common talk schools like Stanford (way over on the wrong coast) get included, along with various other colleges that people commonly think of as academically superior.
Ask random people on the street and you'll get the second usage much more than the correct one.
And as to the question of top rank for sciences, I think within the various STEM disciplines, there are various schools that are thought of as academically superior in that discipline that are not necessarily Ivies, though some are. And even then, the general public perception vs discipline perception differs.
The problem comes in because there are two meanings of "Ivy League." One is of course the actual Ivy League sports conference. Which basically no one but fans and sports followers even cares about.
The other "ivy league" is the general term most people use when discussing the top colleges and often only has a little association with the sports Ivy League. In this usage, ivy league is a measure of academic quality. So in common talk schools like Stanford (way over on the wrong coast) get included, along with various other colleges that people commonly think of as academically superior.
Ask random people on the street and you'll get the second usage much more than the correct one.
And as to the question of top rank for sciences, I think within the various STEM disciplines, there are various schools that are thought of as academically superior in that discipline that are not necessarily Ivies, though some are. And even then, the general public perception vs discipline perception differs.
I think more people than previously know (and certainly even more should know) that the Ivy League is 8 specific schools. Yes, "Ivy" is also sometimes used as shorthand to describe academic quality (hence, the term "Ivy quality" or, for example "Small College Ivies," or "Southern Ivies (simply meaning good, prestigious schools in the South), or more specifically "Harvard of the South". But, I think people can use these terms and still know that the ACTUAL Ivy league is, again, eight specific schools.
The thing is, hardly any non-Ivy elite schools need to be described in Ivy terms. They are their own prestigious entities, widely regarded in academia, industry, etc, attracting top students and professors and having heir own allure. Stanford, Rice, Cal, Chicago, Northwestern (just to name a few) absolutely can stand on their own and don't need to be known as "Ivy-like" or "Harvard of XX."
The Ivy League is an athletic conference like the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, etc. It also happens that those schools are very strong academically. They also do NOT give athletic scholarships.
I would agree that they are not always the top schools for everything, engineering would be one area where they are probably not the top school, but they are still good programs.
Being all-male or all-female wouldn't really have much effect on scheduling contests. It's not like they have to compete against schools that are all-male or all-female. Off hand, I can't think of any all-male colleges that are DI, there are several all-female schools but without looking into them, not sure which division they are associated with.
I'd say most people know the that the Ivy league is a group of elite and highly selective colleges. They can probably list 3 or 4 off the top of their head, more if they live in the Northeast. They may also think of other schools such as Stanford as being of the Ivy league or of comparable quality even if they know it's not part of the "official" 8 schools, or schools that call themselves "Public Ivies" or similar terms.
They may know secondarily that it's also a college athletic conference but I doubt very much that is the first thing most people think of.
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