<p>Keep in mind that, for most sports, the Ivies are Division I in name only. Their level and athletic scene is much more akin to what is found in Division III than to what you’ll find in the major conferences. If students want to attend colleges that field major sport teams (football, basketball, baseball) that are nationally competitive and relevant, then the Ivy League is not the place to be. </p>
<p>But choosing a college just for its athletic scene probably isn’t the best strategy, so….</p>
<p>I have posted many times on the colleges that offer the best combinations of great academics, great social life and great athletic life. While it will never happen, IMO the following would constitute the Dream Conference for the best mix of these elements:</p>
<p>Stanford
Duke
Northwestern
Rice
Vanderbilt
Notre Dame
USC
Wake Forest</p>
<p>Alternate: Georgetown (but need to significantly upgrade their football scene)</p>
<p>di,
Just checked Sagarin/USA Today for mens basketball from last season. I think that your impressions about men’s Ivy basketball are wrong. The Ivies stink in mens basketball and don’t compare well with the “Dream Conference.” </p>
<p>The best Ivy team (Cornell) ranked 117th nationally out of 347 teams. Next were Harvard (249th), Yale (253rd), and Princeton (271st). Overall, the Ivy conference ranked 28th out of 32 Division I conferences. </p>
<p>Of the colleges in my “Dream Conference,” only Rice (231st) was weak. None of the others finished outside of the Top 85. </p>
<p>I dont think they compare with the ‘dream conference’, but Ivy basketball is not a joke overall. Cornell, Yale, Harvard, Penn and Princeton are all very legit.</p>
<p>One thing that makes the Ivy League work as a sports league is that the schools are not that far from each other, and that they have very similar recruiting and attitudes towards sports. I think the Magnolia League might work quite well, because those schools might really like to play each other, and they are in the same region.</p>
I suppose this is a reasonable list, but it doesn’t seem terribly creative. If you simply take the current list of top 30 USN&WR National Universities, and strike out all Ivies (minus 8 schools), Division IIIs (minus 8 schools), and publics (minus 5 schools), then you are left with 9 schools, which in rank order are: </p>
<p>4 Stanford
10 Duke
12 Northwestern
17 Rice
17 Vanderbilt
20 Notre Dame
26 USC
28 Wake Forest</p>
At the graduate level, UCLA blows Hopkins out of the water. One could argue the same for undergrad.</p>
<p>In international prestige (particularly in Asia), UCLA has a distinct lead. I would give Hopkins an edge in domestic prestige, although UCLA has considerably more name recognition.</p>
<p>nice team, nice rationale… but how can this new group be able to vigorously compete with the Ivies - in the prestige race - when you have something like USC or Vanderbilt in it? Those are not ivy material nor near it. I have very strong doubts that this new league that you’re forming couldn’t compete with the Ivy League and would only taint the good name of Stanford. </p>
<p>I must insist that this new group must include all the top 6 very prestigious universities: Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, Chicago and Northwestern as they are academic super powers. That’s what I personally view what Ivy League is mostly about. For me, it really isn’t just a sports league - it’s a club for super smart, highly breed, well-connected students across the US.</p>
<p>Confusedboy: I’m on vacation, so I have plenty of time to do weird things right now. :D</p>
<p>There you go!
Harvard vs Stanford
Princeton vs MIT
Yale vs Caltech
Columbia vs Chicago
Penn vs Duke
Dartmouth vs WashU
Cornell vs Northwestern
Brown vs Johns Hopkins</p>
<p>Technically it is. But it’s not what most people think it is right now. Every time someone hears Ivy League is mentioned, he thinks it’s a great, EXCLUSIVE, very prestigious, very expensive, very old, highly-endowed school. that’s it.</p>
<p>You could align it into 3 regional sub-conferences, West, Midwest, and Southeast. These are all big-time sports schools, and all have solid academic bona fides. With a collective identity as elite schools with stellar sports, they could give the Ivies a real run for their money. Will it happen? No, conference loyalties are too strong. But by not doing it, they’re leaving money on the table.</p>
<p>The Patriot League was an attempt to do that. It has been marginally successful, but is now facing daunting problems and some teams threatening to bolt…openly so, by offering football scholarships.</p>
<p>Good points have been made by various posters regarding the importance of geographic proximity.</p>
<p>College sports, for most schools at the Division I level, have to make money or a least break even. Travel expense is a huge factor that can sink the “bottom line”. Generally football (sometimes basketball) pays for everything else in the athletic department.</p>
<p>The most geographically diverse conference I know of is the University Athletic Conference (UAA), a Division III sports association.
<a href=“http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/[/url]”>http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/</a>
All of these schools, like the Ivies, have good endowments and aren’t too concerned with travel costs vs. revenues.</p>
<p>The idea that the Ivy League is “just a sports conference” is incredibly naive and reflects a huge misunderstanding of the way in which US society is actually ordered and controlled. As a Dean at a non-Ivy top 25 university grumped with regard to rankings of academic programs and professional schools; “Ivy begets Ivy”.</p>