<p>Maybe they would be competitive with Cornell, Penn, or Princeton. But Columbia loses enough as it is! </p>
<p>PS Vienna: I would never cast doubt on the rigor of Georgetown academics. I was choosing between Georgetown SFS/College or columbia at one point. What I do suspect is that certain Ivy Leaguers look down on it, for whatever reason (campus, Catholicism, arguably Southern location, what you will). </p>
<p>It seems most can agree that the addition of Georgetown, Duke, Chicago and Stanford would be most desirable, irrespective of distance or travel costs. Now let's take up the more delicious question of which schools ought get the boot from the League?</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Why? I doubt if being in the "Ivy League" actually helps these schools as much as the others. If the term Ivy League is a brand that helps schools with name recognition, then these three certainly do not need said help as they are probably the most universally known schools in the country. But then the question of legitimacy would be raised; would the Ivy League maintain its luster should these schools be removed? I think not. If you ask me, the whole premise of the Ivy League rests on the fact that those three institutions are a part of it.</p>
<p>I agree with kk19131 if you take away HYP then the ivy league won't be seen as the 'top' universities. Probably if they leave the ivy league HYP with S and M would get a name (they're already called HYPSM) and that would be used instead of 'ivy league'</p>
<p>There are vast swathes of the country that haven't heard of any of these schools save Harvard. Consider: it's really the only university that inspires movies to name it in their titles.</p>
<p>Columbia pre-1969 was in the same position Stanford holds today. Then came the riots of 1969 and the decline in the early 70s until Michael Sovern took over. Now, it is giving the big 3 a run for their money. I was shocked,for instance, to learn that Columbia is second in the world to Cambridge in the number of Nobel prize winner associations (graduates and faculty) ahead of each of the Big 3. Columbia actually stole Jeffrey Sachs from Harvard. If the BIg 3 left, the current remaining 5 would be pretty potent and with Columbia's NYC location, an exit of HYP might well be handing the keys of the Kingdom over to Columbia to potentially become #1 in the world. I think the current HYP would rather have Columbia in the tent as a family member than out of it as an overt competitor.</p>
<p>It's true that being perceived on the level of HYP is practically Columbia's raison d'etre, at least within the high circles of the administration. Simply mention the endowment per student at Yale, or the space per student at Princeton, and they're instantly motivated to try and match them. </p>
<p>But it will never be best in the world, not with its small and outmoded facilities, not with the prohibitive costs of being located in Manhattan. If stronger faculty can still be induced to relocate to boring Princeton or somewhat sketchy New Haven, location is not the advantage one would assume it to be (not to mention that NYU draws faculty who know it has a better location within New York). The diffusion of the student body across the city is not as bad as some here would have it, but it does cut down on the ability to forge long-lasting alumni connections, as does lax school spirit. I would be really surprised if Columbia manages to actually meet its $4 billion endowment increasement goal; I'm not sure where so much money would come from (save for being stolen from the vaults of Harvard, which might not even notice such small change). </p>
<p>Before 1968, of course, it was a different story. Daniel Bell even stated that Columbia was the greatest university in the world in the immediate postwar years. There was still an air of possibility. Now that it can no longer empty vile heroin-addict filled hotels in the neighborhood, as it did in the 60s, or expand without encountering fierce resistance pandered to by local politicians, it will not matter how low its admissions rate is, how high its endowment is, as long as it continues to prioritize town over gown. In other words, the ghost of 1968 still stalks Columbia.</p>
<p>I also dont think Columbia shall raise that high. Whats more, I still hold that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are the most widely known universities in America. As for competition, I dont see how having HYP leave would give Columbia any more of an opportunity to rise in the rankings than it has now. The fact of the matter seems to me that, the hierarchy of colleges, while it may shift from time to time (Penn, Stanford, Duke etc.), is pretty sturdy and wont be having any big shakeups anytime soon.</p>
<p>Schools like Notre Dame with widely followed sports programs probably have more name recognition in the interior than Princeton or even Yale.</p>
<p>Judging from sentiments in small barbershops in the Midwest alone (not a scientific survey!), Notre Dame seems like virtually the only private university some people are aware of. </p>
<p>Of course, Local State U. will always have the greatest name recognition wherever.</p>
<p>I didn't mean to say it would unseat Stanford. We're speaking primarily about the Ivy League.</p>
<p>But as an aside, I never hear anyone in the Northeast mention Stanford along with HYP in one breath (save for acolytes of college admissions fora like this one). However exceptional it is in terms of scientific research (which is Shanghai's primary criterion for measurement), and however popular it is in Asia (where the Ivies are quite competitive as well, in addition to having greater name recognition domination in Europe) Stanford is simply too new (it lacks the intangible qualities of history and pedigree) and far from the centers of power in the United States (New York and Washington) to have the cachet of HYP, or other nearby universities aspiring to their positions. In fact, much of its prominence is due to the fact that it has so little competition in the western half of the country. How many easterners attend Stanford, as opposed to Californians in the Ivy League?</p>
<p>Those ranking seem kind of silly to me, I mean, any ranking that has size as a criterion is not that reliable to me. Also, I was unaware that Nanyang Technological University is a peer institution to schools like Harvard.</p>
<p>What you say about Stanford is pretty true. Indeed the main reason that people reported that they didn't attend Stanford (other than the cost) was its location. Stanford is young (very young compard to HYP) but that doesn't mean that its education couldn't be better. Indeed in engineering Stanford is better than HYP. I don't imagine Stanford could ever become the new Harvard as the most famous and prestigious as universities but I really don't think location in this high tech era would hinder a university too much. Stanford does realize it is pretty far away from Washington DC and that is why they have tried to amend it by having a campus there.</p>
<p>I didn't know Stanford had a campus in DC. Is there some kind of "study abroad"-like program offered there?</p>
<p>Location still plays a major role. Colleges in the Northeast can get major political figures to come teach or speak much more easily. It's also easier for students to interview and get internships/jobs in New York and DC, and the alumni communities are denser for those schools in those cities. They also get more media exposure in the national press (NYT, Wash Post, CNN and other networks with big studios in NY and DC) which increases the awareness of national elites to them. An outlandish example: small news about Columbia is printed in the nationwide edition of the NYT, which nonetheless retains its "New York Report" section.</p>
<p>Proximity to centers of power is a major factor in university prominence worldwide. Oxford and Cambridge are both less than an hour from London, all the best French universities are in Paris; the University of Tokyo virtually supplies all of Japan's leaders. </p>
<p>Where Stanford can be a leader is in anything related to the high-tech and entertainment industries, which are more prominent on the West Coast (and arguably no less influential). It certainly overshadows MIT's location in this regard.</p>
<p>^^Yeah it is like a study abroad program in order to try to offset its location.
Yeah Stanford is located pretty much located in the silicon valley so that definitely is a plus in terms of technology.</p>
<p>Holy Cross and Colgate have competed against the Ivies for well over a 100 years. While HC and Colgate are half the size of most Ivies except Dartmouth, they hold their own against the Ivies in the major sports-football, baseball, hockey, and basketball (HC dominates most Ivies in hoops). It is in the olympic sports of crew, squash etc that Colgate and HC fall short. Like most Ivies, HC and Colgate have very loyal alumni as giving rates are in the 50% range among best for LAC's like Amherst and Williams.</p>
<p>Look no further than the 1-AA football schedules of the Ivy's to see what out-of-conference schools they best align with. The schools themselves have already answered this question. Of course, there are many elitists on this board that find that answer unacceptable...hence the endless parade of absurd answers like Stanford, MIT, Chicago.....</p>