<p>Despite the fact this thread has been done A MILLION TIMES...how exactly did we get on college sports again?</p>
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It’s all very well and good with Ivy fans when these things are going on for their colleges. But somehow it’s not a big deal (and may even be an image destroyer???) when other non-Ivy schools are demonstrating similar (or better) academic prowess and also providing this great athletic excitement for its body of supporters and on a more consistent, broader, sustained and national basis?!? Sounds like a double standard to me.
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<p>What a minute. You are going to compare a Cinderalla story, "David vs. Goliath" upset like Princeton over UCLA to the kind of pervasive Stepford-like sports mania at a large public university? </p>
<p>And as you've mentioned, in other sports (such as lacrosse, rowing, hockey, etc. the Ivies are very well represented indeed -- NCAA National Championship level representation -- and without sports scholarships to boot). But, and here is the point, that is NOT what the Ivies are KNOWN for. So if we get recognition for a sports achievement (heck ANY recognition) on a national level, well, then its just icing on the cake isn't it? The Ivies already enjoy exceptional reputations as premier academic institutions and no one is ever going to mistake any one of them for simply being a "jock" school no matter what achievements happen on any court, field, ice hockey rink, etc.</p>
<p>You are never going to find an Ivy League school embroiled in a recruiting scandal or a booster donation scandal or a red shirt scandal. Because the simple fact of the matter is, the big time money (and I mean BIG TIME $$$) has already been taken out of the equation. They aren't sullied by the dirty hand of big time collegiate sports. Period. What other group of schools uphold the highest academic standards and at the same time field competitive collegiate sports programs while refusing to kneel at the altar of big time collegiate dinero? Frankly, they should be congratulated not mocked IMO. Kudos to the Ivies for refusing to sell out their integrity for a few championships and booster money.</p>
<p>So let's not confuse things here. That's not a having a double standard. Its simply a group of schools with a very high singular standard. Period.</p>
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It’s all very well and good with Ivy fans when these things are going on for their colleges. But somehow it’s not a big deal (and may even be an image destroyer???) when other non-Ivy schools are demonstrating similar (or better) academic prowess and also providing this great athletic excitement for its body of supporters and on a more consistent, broader, sustained and national basis?!? Sounds like a double standard to me.
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<p>You can't compare success in a single season (or game!) to a history of being an athletic powerhouse. Ivy League schools clearly put little effort into fielding impressive sports teams. When a team has a successful team it's usually due to a lucky match-up of players or something along those lines rather than pumping huge amounts of money into the program. That's also what makes the success exciting- it's unexpected. In contrast, the schools that the_prestige mentioned (although I disagree about Duke) and other academically strong athletic powerhouses ARE potentially hurting the academic strength of their institutions. And not just because of the issue of public perception. When so much money and effort is put into a sport, academics can placed on the back-burner. I know plenty of people at UNC that are more proud of its basketball reputation than its academics. I'm not saying this should be changed because college isn't all about academics and these are very good schools..but you do have to differentiate between that sort of atmosphere and the one at the Ivies.</p>
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top tier colleges, which just happened to be located in the NE.
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<p>I guess the point is conceded already by that sentence fragment. </p>
<p>I should note that the revealed preferences working paper is being prepared and submitted for peer-reviewed publication by at least some of the original co-authors, so there may be some changes of details in the final published form. And the authors would be the first to say (as one has said by email to me) that a different data set (e.g., a more recent data set) might show some differences in preference order among various colleges. </p>
<p>But to me, there is value-added to see what colleges students choose WHEN THEY ARE ADMITTED TO MORE THAN ONE and especially when those students are choosing colleges far from home. </p>
<p>In the region that includes the states of CA, HI, OR, and
WA, the preference order in the revealed preferences working paper was </p>
<p>Harvard (out of region)
Caltech (in region)
Yale (out of region)
Stanford (in region)
MIT (out of region)
Princeton (out of region)
Brown (out of region)
Columbia (out of region)
Dartmouth (out of region)
Amherst (out of region)
Penn (out of region)
Wellesley (out of region)
Notre Dame (out of region)
Cornell (out of region)
Swarthmore (out of region)</p>
<p>This is all from Table 8: An Example of Regional Preference Rankings of Colleges </p>
<p>For the region that includes the states of KS, MN, MO,
NE (this grouping feels unnatural to me, but it is a United States Census grouping), the preference order is </p>
<p>Harvard (out of region)
Caltech (out of region)
Yale (out of region)
MIT (out of region)
Princeton (out of region)
Stanford (out of region, but not in the northeast either)
Brown (out of region)
Amherst (out of region)
Dartmouth (out of region)
Notre Dame (out of region)
Penn (out of region)
Swarthmore (out of region)
Williams (out of region)
Cornell (out of region)
Duke (out of region)
Georgetown (out of region)
Virginia (out of region)
Rice (out of region) </p>
<p>This looks plausible to me, based on my experience of living in one of those states (and knowing a lot of relatives and friends who live in the other states) for most of my life. Perhaps today's data is slightly different, but what I see in my own region is not "northeast bias" but rather an awareness of which colleges have strong academic programs worth going out of state for.</p>
<p>Hawkette,
My problem with your focus on athletics is that you treat it as a central factor in decision making. I agree that, as a sports fan, I would likely get more excitement out of athletics if I had gone to UCLA - the school whose athletic programs I grew up supporting - than I do at Yale. At the same time, athletics are not equal in importance to academics, social life, or general extracurricular life for most good students. I think you undervalue the quality of social life at the Ivies, but more importantly, you ignore the importance of extracurriculars. The kind of people who get in to an Ivy-league school were not just great students, but had passions outside the classroom as well. For many of these passions, many Ivy schools are just as top-of-the-line as they are in academics. They have some of the country's best student newspapers, best MUN and debate teams, and best (non-conservatory) student orchestras. They bring in the most interesting guest speakers and provide the most funding and support for projects and programs during school vacations. Obviously, none of these are the exclusive province of the Ivy League (talking about a sports league in this context is, as many have already pointed out, quite silly) but they are part of what make HYP stand out, and mean that, whatever the athletic differences may be, choosing Columbia over Duke or Penn over Vanderbilt is a good decision for more people than your logic would imply.
Moreover, for many students the Ivies provide a better athletic life because they allow students to be on varsity teams who couldn't be at Stanford or Duke. When you look at participation in varsity athletics at the Ivies, you realize that for many, it's not a choice between going to USC football games or Dartmouth football games; it's between going to USC football games and being on the Dartmouth football team. If you're an athlete who isn't at the major-conference level, the Ivies offer the best of both worlds - the chance to be on an athletic team, but at the same time be at a school where athletes can be successful scholars (and the term scholar-athlete still has meaning, even in football and basketball).
Look, I'll admit to getting excited when Yale beats Harvard, and would get even more excited if we went to the NCAA basketball tournament and pulled off an upset, and I'm sure there are many others at Yale who feel the same way. But I, and most others that I know, did not choose Yale because we ignored athletic life in favor of prestige, but because we considered other things more important than a great football team. It's a nice thing to have, but there's no reason to make it one of the primary parts of your decision about where to go to school.</p>
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<p>This is a very important point about the colleges formally in the Ivy League and the few other colleges that can be said to belong to an "Ivy Plus" group. </p>
<p>I note for the record that this point was brought up by a student who went to high school in California. </p>
<p>After edit: Yes, one of the little known facts about how strong the Ivy League is as an athletic league is that most of the Ivy League colleges have HUGE levels of actual participation in athletics (not just watching or tailgating, but actual playing). The largest number of different Division I intercollegiate athletic teams at any NCAA college is Harvard's.</p>
<p>I think sports are huge. I know at the high school level, they are something of great school pride and tradition. At my school, basketball and hockey reign supreme. No one comes out in droves for high school hockey like our school. Last year we were in the state championships at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, and more than half the student body made their way down there to watch, not to mention numerous parents, teachers, girlfriends of students(all-male school), and other interested fans from other schools in our area. It was awesome. The memories of singing our Alma Mater afterwards still brings me chills.</p>
<p>That said, I am hoping to find somewhat similar school spirit in college. All of the colleges I applied to had at least one decent sports team (LAX at JHU counts). Yes, it was quite a sizable factor in my decision process. Maybe my priorities are wrong, but I wasn't going to go 4 years without singing my alma mater/fight song with my peers after a big game.</p>
<p>Duke = Harvard
Vanderbilt = Princeton
UVA = Yale
Emory = Upenn
Wake Forest = Dartmouth
WUSTL = Columbia
Rice = Cornell
UNC = Brown</p>
<p>I tried to match the "southern ivies" with actual ivy league schools. I think I had strong reasoning for most of the match ups except UNC and Brown which don't go together at all. Georgetown and Hopkins are not southern schools and geographically are not really southern but merely Mid-Atlantic. Southern schools need to legitimately be in the South or at least have a strong southern feel to them.</p>
<p>Somehow this news story fits in the discussion. </p>
<p>I've been counting the days until that blasted NBC contract ends.</p>
<p>Have not read every post, but hope someone mentioned the nation's number one public ivery: William and mary, fillowed by UVA.</p>
<p>Would Wisconsin University be considered? Sorry for posting at such a late time.</p>
<p>token:</p>
<p>I'm sure you know that there are a gazillion peer reviewed publications that don't hold water. But, don't fall into the trap of acceptance-driven preferences. There are hundreds of qualified kids who choose NOT to apply to HYPM bcos it ain't close to home. And, those kids, were not surveyed! Of course, of those that apply to OOS HYP, they will try to make it happen if they are accepted, but the simple fact is that many just don't apply bcos they don't want to attend, even if they could be accepted.</p>
<p>Focus on the author's findings of BYU and you'll see the statistical folly in their survey. Sure, the math may be correct, but in the old days we called it GIGO.</p>
<p>btw: since you have communicated with the authors, why not ask 'em what happened to the published list of high schools in thier survey?</p>
<p>I firmly believe that the quality of Ivies is really exaggerated. In my opinion, no better than schools such as Lehigh, Carleton, Colgate, Holy Cross etc.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>If you are really impressed with some quality of Lehigh, Carleton, Colgate or Holy Cross over the Ivies, then that school is better quality for you.</p>
<p>The Ivies really are better.</p>
<p>I would say so, the thing is that ivys are world renowned. Do those schools have a low quality education? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>I'm going to start merging together all the Ivy threads in this forum, for one-stop shopping.</p>
<p>This should contextualize many of the discussions on CC and frame the too often incrediby myopic, pointy-headed and status-conscious debates which result. It should be required reading before anyone posts on Ivies and their reputation on CC. </p>
<p>The article cited by BalletGirl is not a primary source but is largely based on the flawed working paper by Krueger and Dale, which by its design understated the effect of going to a more selective college (by how it aggregated the raw data the authors had). I see the author does an honest job of also referrring, much farther down in the article, to the work of Caroline Hoxby, which reaches a different conclusion--the majority conclusion of most researchers who have looked at the data--that going to the most selective college that lets you in does matter for your future. And as the magazine article author notes, </p>
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<p>So if you come from tough life circumstances, all researchers agree you might as well apply to the best colleges you can, and attend the best college that will admit you.</p>