Holy Cross offered to become an Ivy?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I read somewhere, on another forum, that College of the Holy Cross was asked to become an Ivy, does anyone know any information about this.</p>

2

<p>Hahaha. The only schools that would ever compare to the prestige of the Ivy League are
Stanford, MIT - Harvard, Yale, Princeton level
Duke, UChicago - Columbia, UPenn, Dartmouth, Brown level
Northwestern - Cornell level</p>

<p>There is no reason for the Ivy League to ask Holy Cross to join them. If any college were asked to join, it would be one of the 5 listed above.</p>

3

<p>I’d argue that there are a couple of more schools (JHU, WUSTL) at the Northwestern level, but yeah, MrPrince is right.</p>

4

<p>Being an Ivy league has nothing to do with prestige. It’s just an athletic conference.</p>

<p>While I haven’t heard anything about this, I couldn’t see it happening.</p>

5

<p>The Ivy League is comprised of colleges that have strong Protestant origins (Brown- Baptist, Harvard- Puritans, Dartmouth-Congregational, Princeton-Presbyterian. etc) and would never have had a Catholic college in their club. That said, Holy Cross has played many of the Ivies in football (Harvard, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth) for nearly a hundred years due to geographic proximity.</p>

6

<p>^^ True, but all those denominational affiliations are in the past. The real question is would a Catholic - Jesuit college really want to be aligned with colleges whose oldest pedigree is 100 years younger than its own? What could Holy Cross possibly gain from it other than being lumped together with a bunch religiously established has-beens?</p>

7

<p>The athletic conference was founded in 1956, but the Ivies (except Cornell) as peer institutions with a special identity all their own goes back centuries. Even the term “Ivy League” significantly predates the athletic conference. The other seven Ivies were the only seven (currently) private universities to be in existence during the Colonial era.</p>

8

<p>And since the 1960s, the Ivy League has been much more substantive than just an athletic conference. The schools share some academic philosophical and programatic initiatives, or at least they used to. As regards undergraduate admissions, the U.S. Department of Justice cracked down on Ivy League admissioners offices sharing information about applicants (a violation of antitrust laws, said the government). The schools formerly shared data to fashion financial aid awards, in order to minimize “competition” for students.</p>

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<p>Huh? All the Ivy League schools except Cornell were founded well before Holy Cross. Maybe you meant to say “…100 years older than its own.”</p>

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<p>I suppose that instead of saying “the Ivy League IS an athletic conference” it would be more accurate to say “the Ivy League HAS an athletic conference.”</p>

11

<p>coureur,</p>

<p>When was the Jesuit order founded? Hence, Holy Cross’ pedigree is older.</p>

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<p>^^Sorry, but viewed that way Holy Cross still loses. Harvard’s “pedigree” extends directly back to Oxford and Cambridge - and was founded by the early Puritans to be the American colonial version of those schools. The Jesuit order was founded in the 16th century. Oxford was founded in the 9th century.</p>

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<p>Haha, perhaps the Ivy League should consider issuing a “request for applications” and make the presentations and deliberations open to the public and news organizations. What a hoot that’d be … the ultimate peek at the works of an admission committee.</p>

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<p>True, the term “Ivy League” predates the athletic conference by a couple of decades, but the term was first used by New York sportswriters in reference to football competition among the same group of schools that later formed the athletic conference. Ironically, it had a slightly pejorative connotation, as the Ivy League colleges were not exactly football powerhouses even then. Hate to quote Wikipedia, but I’ve seen this same story elsewhere:</p>

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<p>Yes, coureur, that’s true and let’s try to recall under whose auspices Oxford and Cambridge operated from their very beginnings until good ol’ Henry VIII, a mere mortal, decided he was above the church of Rome – yes, that would be the Roman Catholic Church. </p>

<p>Try really hard, perhaps you can dredge up some even earlier connection to the pagans as the starting point of academia in Albion.</p>

16

<p>Xiggi, private peer assessment surveys would be a better method, IMHO… :D</p>

17

<p>The Ivy league has football schedule agreements with the Patriot league, in which HC is a member.</p>

<p>Maybe you are confused with the Big East conference. When the BE was forming, they asked HC to join. HC turned them down. So the BE invited Boston College.</p>

18

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<p>UCB, check your calendar. You’re way too early to reignite debates about peer assessment surveys … we only should have those after Bob Morse releases his annual numbers. Also, heated debates fit the month of August much better. </p>

<p>/wink</p>

19

<p>A similar thread was posted in October of 2007.</p>

<p>I think KY Crusader 75 sums it up best:

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-holy-cross/402666-wasnt-holy-cross-invited-into-ivies.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-holy-cross/402666-wasnt-holy-cross-invited-into-ivies.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

20

<p>nyquist,</p>

<p>Is that right about the Big East? It was formed in 1979 for Div 1A football as well as other D1 sports. Was HC still D1A in football then? Furthermore, why would it have been asked to join over BC, when its sports program was markedly weaker. Don’t say it was for the academics, when the BE had the likes of Temple in its fold.</p>