The "ivy"

[panicking]

This had always bug me. But according to my information, Ivy League is just an athletic association, and have nothing to do with academatic excellence at all. Of course, there are plenty of high ranking (for undergraduate) schools in the Ivy League, but then there are also virtually unknown school such as Dartmouth. And then there are strong school that frequently was mistakenly thought to be in the Ivy, like MIT and Stanford. So I understand that the line is somewhat blur between "ivy" being used to refer to an athletic association and being used as a stamp of academic excellence.

However, that's for undergraduate. Now when it comes to graduate school, there are way way too many field, too many different specialty, so a general ranking is already impossible. This make the word "ivy" even less clear on what exactly what kind of quality are people talking about.

Given this, I still see the word "ivy" get thrown around when talking about which graduate school to go for. So what do you think it means in those context?

[Monochrome Spring]

I assume (and I'm guessing many other users assume this as well) that any reference of Ivy League is for the standard eight institutions:

Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth (which is not "virtually unknown"), Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Yale. It is typically noted in a comment if someone is referring to a school like MIT or Stanford as an Ivy that the school is more Ivy-like, since it doesn't fit into the standard definition.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Monochrome Spring

[GeoDUDE!]

'Ivy', in the colloquialism, refers to a hand full of truly elite colleges. There are 5 or so truly elite colleges in United States: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton. If you want to include the sciences, MIT and Caltech make the list, and perhaps if you want to include a non private institution you can include Berkeley.  After that list, the reputation of the schools gets fairly homogenous, whose rankings move up and down by the decades. 

 

There are plenty of good schools and research done at other places. Oxford, Cambridge, University of Tokyo, KAUST, and ETH Zurich are among the best international schools as well. But the general sentiment of going to an "ivy" really refers to those first 5 schools.

[m-ttl]

I assume (and I'm guessing many other users assume this as well) that any reference of Ivy League is for the standard eight institutions:

Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth (which is not "virtually unknown"), Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Yale. It is typically noted in a comment if someone is referring to a school like MIT or Stanford as an Ivy that the school is more Ivy-like, since it doesn't fit into the standard definition.

 

I've heard HYPS (to include Stanford) but an Ivy is only the eight schools in the conference, and nothing else. If you say Ivy, it is understood to mean a real Ivy League school. It's called the Ivy League because it is a league, of eight schools - Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Pennsylvania. Anything else is simply an elite school because it's not part of the Ivy league. 

 

It would be downright nonsensical to term Cambridge or Oxford as an "ivy league" because 1.) the Ivy League is 8 American schools and 2.) both were founded prior to the Ivies. Dartmouth is not virtually unknown. It is a well established, highly elite and respected member of the Ivy league. By virtue of being an Ivy, it's well known.

 

But the Ivies don't change in Graduate school, and that's why you'll see people discuss the Ivies and the Top Ten in their field, as well as elite schools/top tier in general.  I would wager to say that all eight of the Ivies *are* an excellent undergraduate education -- certainly they're not playing Tier 1 across the board in sports. However, the Ivies don't necessarily overlap with the best research for graduates in every field. But calling a good school like MIT an Ivy doesn't make it part of the Ivy league. 

[GeoDUDE!]

The "ivy" colloquialism I am referring to is explained in this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Other_Ivies

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

The "ivy" colloquialism I am referring to is explained in this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Other_Ivies

You're wrong that Ivy generally refers to those 5 schools you mentioned (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton). Stanford isn't even an Ivy League school so that makes no sense. m-ttl summed it up perfectly. Ivy League is an athletic conference, much like the Pac-12, Big Ten, etc. They were some of the very first schools built in America, built to emulate the elite British universities like Cambridge and Oxford, and are all in the northeast. There are certain schools that are thought of more highly than some of the lower ranked Ivy League schools (like MIT, Stanford, even schools like Duke and others). But Ivy league is specifically the 8 schools in the Ivy League athletic conference. People might say they want to go to an Ivy-caliber school, but most Americans know what the Ivy League schools are. There are also unofficial lists such as the Southern Ivies, Public Ivies, Liberal Arts Ivies, etc. These lists are dependent on whoever came up with the list. For example, the guy who create the Public Ivies list created it mainly based on the look of the school--stone buildings, landscaping, etc. 

[Plissken]

It bothers me when potential applicants ask about their chances at "Ivy League schools." There's this nagging misconception that "Ivy" means "best," and while the Ivies are certainly great schools, there are also plenty of other great schools. Yet for some reason, it persists.

 

But what really baffles me is graduate level applicants who are dead set on attending "Ivy schools"--not one school in particular which is strong in their particular field of interest and also happens to be an Ivy, but "Ivy schools" in general. At the graduate level, there is more than enough variation between schools and departments at schools (and specific faculty at schools) that the "Ivy" designation really means nothing.

[QASP]

In my subfield, only 4 Ivy League schools even offer a degree; only 2 of those are well respected, top programs; one of them is really not well regarded. Still, people come in with this "Can I make it into an Ivy" question all the time, and are very resistant to hearing that these are not necessarily the best programs. People who throw the term "Ivy" around are people who generally don't know what they're talking about.

[bsharpe269]

I won't be applying to any ivy schools because none of then have strong faculty in my field.

Program ranking and faculty fit are important. The athletic conference that the school is in has zero importance.

[overworkedta]

I won't be applying to any ivy schools because none of then have strong faculty in my field.

Program ranking and faculty fit are important. The athletic conference that the school is in has zero importance.

 

I don't know.  The fact that my current school is in a TOTALLY different conference from Indiana was a selling point.  I won't lie.  That's not even in the top ten reasons I came here, of course, but it was a factor haha.  I didn't apply to Purdue for undergrad for a number of reasons (much more rural, didn't have as strong a political science program, etc) but "basketball" and "family legacy" were all reasons I avoided it.  I also had a preconfigured notion of campus when I toured and hated it (much to my father's happiness).  Good school but I wasn't interested.  I didn't apply for grad school either.

[bsharpe269]

I don't know.  The fact that my current school is in a TOTALLY different conference from Indiana was a selling point.  I won't lie.  That's not even in the top ten reasons I came here, of course, but it was a factor haha.  I didn't apply to Purdue for undergrad for a number of reasons (much more rural, didn't have as strong a political science program, etc) but "basketball" and "family legacy" were all reasons I avoided it.  I also had a preconfigured notion of campus when I toured and hated it (much to my father's happiness).  Good school but I wasn't interested.  I didn't apply for grad school either.

 

haha I understand this. I think I would be dead in my faimly if I went to michigan.