What are some of the best non Ivy League schools?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-best-non-Ivy-League-schools
By undergrad reputation, selectivity, and breadth of academic offerings and recognized excellence â that are also private â I think the closest Ivy equivalents are:
MIT
Stanford
UChicago
Duke
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
Georgetown
Notre Dame
Rice
Vanderbilt
Washington U
The top LACs are also awesome, but they lack the breadth of majors that you get at a university.
The top publics are quite strong academically, but lack some of the support and amenities of the top private universities.
And if being in the Northeast is important to you, youâre looking at MIT and CMU and maybe BC/Tufts/Northeastern/NYU/BU down a smidge in rep and selectivity. Or, you have to give up the major breadth and check out top LACs there, like Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Haverford, Vassar, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Colby, Bates⊠and if you are a woman (sorry, I missed thatâŠ), add Wellesley, Barnard, Smith and Bryn Mawr.
So it depends on how closely you want to stick to what the Ivies share: they are top-rep, highly selective private universities in the Northeast, offering (by most measuring systems) outstanding undergraduate academics.
You can have most of those things outside the Ivy League, but probably not all of them except for MIT and CMU. And if you expand down to MD/DC, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown.
prezbucky, the amenities and resources at some public universities rival those at the top private universities, and not all Ivy League/private elites universities are known for providing undergraduate students with more/better âsupportâ than the wealthier public universities. I have attended Cornell and Michigan. Michiganâs amenities and resources easily match Cornellâs, as does the level of support offered to undergraduate students. Cornell is not the lone culprit. Most research-focused private elites have faculties and administrations that devote most of their time and resources to graduate programs and research. Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Penn, Stanford etcâŠare not known for having great support.
I agree with Alexandre in that some public universities have outstanding support⊠my daughter attends one.
Yeah, what does âIvy feelâ mean? Because pretty much all the Ivies are closer in âfeelâ to some non-Ivy than they are to some other Ivy.
Columbia is far closer in âfeelâ to UChicago than to Dartmouth. Cornell is far closer in âfeelâ to UMich than to Brown. I can do this for almost all the Ivies.
Thatâs why people are falling back on the definition of âelite private research Uâsâ in the Northeast (who play in a certain sports league). Thatâs a pretty generic definition and it has to be because the various Ivies are so different from each other.
âSo it depends on how closely you want to stick to what the Ivies share: they are top-rep, highly selective private universities in the Northeast, offering (by most measuring systems) outstanding undergraduate academics.â
Agree with Alexandre here, some ivies are known more for their graduate academics than undergrad. e.g. the ivies put a lot more emphasis on their graduate business program than undergrad business program, assuming of course that the ivies even have an undergrad business program. Ivies having great undergraduate programs is more perception, which I guess is what this thread is about anyway.
re #24:
âCornell is far closer in âfeelâ to UMich than to Brown.â
Not to me, FWIW. Cornellâs architecture and campus feel seems âsnootierâ than Michiganâs, to me, from what I saw of Michigan. Michiganâs law quad feels similar to Cornell, the rest no so much. Michigan feels more âpublic Uâ, to me. Aesthetically.
Michigan may be more similar organizationally though. . I guess it depends on what one means by âfeelâ, which is not a precisely defined term.
BTW, USC and UCLA may be great fits for some, but far from what any Ivy I know feels like.
@moneydad, I think Michigan and Cornell are more alike than different. Both are large research universities with academic excellence in most fields. Michigan is bigger (about twice as many undergrads) but the learning environment is similar (i.e. some large lecture style classes at the intro level, smaller classes for upperclassmen). Both have large and well regarded engineering schools. Michigan is a public university, Cornell is a private- public hybrid. Both are elite without being elitist. The out of state students at Michigan (about half the undergrads) are very similar socio-economically to the out of state population at Cornell (about 3/4 of the undergrads). Aesthetically, the Cornell campus may look marginally more âIvyâ but not enough to matter. the Arts quad at Cornell has the traditional âcollegiateâ architecture most people associate with the Ivy schools. Taylor Hall and the law school buildings are also attractive. Beyond that, the Cornell campus (particularly the libraries and engineering buildings) are not especially nice or even charming. As you note, the law quad at Michigan is classic âcollegiate gothicâ and the Michigan Union, the League, Angell Hall and many other academic buildings are very attractive. Beyond that, both schools are set in nice college towns, although Ann Arbor is bigger and has more to offer to students than Ithaca. Cornell is more selective, and somewhat more âintellectualâ . Both have greek life which is socially significant, but not dominant. Both have strong hockey traditions. Of course, the football and basketball programs at Michigan are at the elite level, which generates a powerful sense of pride and school spirit for the students at Michigan.
College of Wooster, not an Ivy but has A LOT of Ivy ! :))
A little known fact: One of Cornellâs co-founders, Andrew Dickson White, was a professor at the University of Michigan before joining Ezra Cornell in founding Cornell University. He also served as Cornellâs first president from 1866-1885. Whiteâs success as president of Cornell from 1885-1892, Charles Kendall Adams, was a Michigan alumnus and professor before being recruited by White to replace him as president. In recent years, Jeffrey Lehman, a Michigan alumnus and dean of Michiganâs Law School, served as Cornell president form 2003-2005. Cornellâs current president, Martha Pollack, served as Provost at the University of Michigan from 2000-2017. Altogether, 7 of Cornellâs 14 presidents have had ties to Michigan, either as alumni or as faculty.
As monydad points out, Cornell and Michigan look different architecturally. However, in terms of culture and feel/vibe, they have much in common.
- Before joining Ezra Cornell in founding Cornell University, AD White was a businessman living in Syracuse, and ja member of the New York state senate. Before that, he did teach at Michigan, but only for about 4 years.
-Jeffrey Lehman is a Cornell alumnus. He did get his graduate degrees at Michigan.
-I think the undergraduate library at Cornell is rather attractive, actually.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~edward/images/buildings/Uris-large.jpg
The graduate library is modern but I donât find it too bad either.
-And I donât agree that the difference is âmarginalâ. Based on what I saw of Michigan.
To each their own.
I agree with much of the rest of the âlaundry listâ of features in #28, but again it depends on what one means by âfeelâ. I did not get the same âfeelâ walking around Michigan as I do at Cornell, or Princeton.
FWIW, it ranks #6 here:
http://www.deseretnews.com/top/3163/7/6-Uris-Library-The-27-most-beautiful-college-libraries-in-America.html
and the law library is #7
"Uris Library is the universityâs first dedicated library building and is considered to be architect William Henry Millerâs masterpiece. "
https://www.â â â â â â â â â â /photos/autisticreality/27562811760/
As for the campus generally, lots of people seem to like it:
26 here: http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/
6 here: http://www.greatvaluecolleges.net/40-most-beautiful-college-campuses-in-rural-areas/
15 here: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a47320/the-most-beautiful-college-campuses/
no ranking, but listed first FWIW: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/purewow/americas-prettiest-colleg_b_7950514.html
10 here:http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/americas-most-beautiful-college-campuses#cornell
Uris (the old library) is a nice building. I was thinking of Olin, which was built in the 60s and is a typical concrete and glass modernist style building. Obviously, what makes a campus âniceâ or even âIvy feelingâ is subjective. Some people love Dartmouthâs rural New England look and feel. Some prefer campuses that blend into the adjacent streets (e.g. Yale, Harvard and Brown). There is no correct answer to this question.
Cornell is a great schoolâŠthe finger lakes setting is beautiful, and there are many lovely buildings. However, once you get past the Arts quad, the Cornell campus has the sprawling feel of several Midwest flagship state universities. Also, similar to flagship schools, most Cornell upperclassmen live off campus. Collegetown, down the hill from the Cornell campus, has a grittiness that doesnât exist at Princeton. All of this makes sense when you consider that Cornell is a state land grant school with close to 15,000 undergrads. Very different from Princeton.
âUCLA and USC. Both have a ivy type feel and Greek life is big. UCLA (18%) USC (30%) and both schools have 30k plus students so thatâs a lot of people in letters.â
Having been on a few ivy campuses and UCLA and known people attending both, there is very little to suggest that UCLA has any kind of ivy feel. UCLA is a large, sprawling, public school with great weather, a school that takes sports (even the non-revenue) ones very seriously. The demographics are also different. Westwood has a much different feel than Ithaca, Hanover and New Haven. UCs are more stem focused and pre-professional than ivies as well.
monydad, Cornellâs campus is definitely prettier than Michiganâs although in terms of facilities, I would give Michigan the edge. But I was not alluding to aesthetics. I was referring to the campus culture and academic/social experience.
Andrew Dickson Whiteâs first and only faculty position prior to co-founding Cornell was as a professor at Michigan from 1858-1863. He co-founded Cornell in 1865. He did live in Syracuse in 1964 though, but his only experience in academe was at Michigan.
Jeffrey Lehman did not than just study Law at Michigan. He was a professor at the Michigan Law school for 16 years (from 1987 until 2003). He was the Dean of the Michigan Law School from 1994-2003.
I still donât quite get what OP means by Ivy feel. It is hard to generalize all Ivies other than the overall reputation and low admission rate. They are very different schools otherwise. Perhaps he is just asking for top tier private schools?
@billcsho what I meant was a school with a feeling of academic seriousness. Somewhat elite.
Then, it would include MIT, CalTech, Stanford, NU, USC, Duke, etc. Basically most of the schools in the top 20 or so.