<p>^ at least USC was snubbed too. 
I consider UCLA an academic big-boy (although for whatever reason, I always considered UCLA more of a “girl”… I don’t know why I subconsciously assign genders to certain universities, haha :p)</p>
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Why… Stanford of course. It has the best athletic program.</p>
<p>What? The people on here just said that Stanford isn’t even an ivy league school though.</p>
<p>It is common for many (particularly for non-Americans) to assume that if a university is good, it must necessarily be an “Ivy League”. Very few realize that there are only 8 members to the Ivy League, that they do not change with time, that the term is less than 70 years old and that it is just an athletifc conference. </p>
<p>It should be noted that the US has 3,000 academies, colleges, institutes and universities, of which over 50 are world-class universities. Below are some excellent universities that are not (and never have been) members of the Ivy League:</p>
<p>Amherst College
Barnard College
Bates College
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Claremont McKenna College
Colgate University
College of William & Mary
Davidson College
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Grinnell College
Haverford College
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Macalester College
Middlebury College
New York University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Reed College
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Tufts University
United States Air Force Academy
United States Military Academy
United States Naval Academy
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Southern California
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Washington University-St Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College</p>
<p>I consider Cornell to be the best Ivy League School. It leads in both criteria that factor into my rating system, the Greybeard Index, which is computed by adding the aggregate bio-mass of the student body of an institution to the date the institution was founded.</p>
<p>I agree Greybeard! </p>
<p>But if I were neutral, I would have to go with Princeton.</p>
<p>To OP, there is nothing like the “best” Ivy League school (although most people might disagree). Check out the rankings, and the criteria on which they are ranked, i.e. endowment, selectivity, quality of teaching from other websites, particular programs, breadth in curriculum, class size, location, internship opportunities and so on. And select the criteria which is important for you (like for me it’s the particular programs) and discard the things that do not matter to you (like for me it’s the selectivity and no of internationals…i don’t understand how that is related to quality) and then make a mental ranking yourself.</p>
<p>"Fwiw the academic big boys of the predominant athletic conferences are:</p>
<p>Stanford and Berkeley in the PAC 12
Duke and UVA in the Atlantic coast conference
Vanderbilt in the south east conference
Georgetown and Notre Dame in the big east conference
Michigan and Northwestern in the big 12
Harvard Yale and Princeton in the ivy league
Rice in conference usa"</p>
<p>Michigan and Northwestern are in the BIG 10, there just happen to be 12 teams in that conference. Also, Notre Dame is an independent school for almost every sport.</p>
<p>The other thing to remember when thinking about ‘Ivy League’ internationally is that most of these schools are well known because of their graduate programs - they educate students from all over the world who return to their countries and talk them up. As a result, excellent schools, especially liberal arts colleges, are relatively unknown. D of international friend was an Amherst grad who did a year abroad at London School of Economics. No one in home country had heard of Amherst, so her boss kept introducing her as an LSE grad. She didn’t want to keep correcting him, so LSE has gained a ‘new’ graduate and Amherst is still unknown there.</p>
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<p>In US culture the Ivy League is far more than just an athletic league. In fact athletics is one of the things the Ivy League is least known for.</p>
<p>Stanford isn’t in the Ivy League, but it is arguably BETTER than half of the schools in the Ivy League. The Ivy League isn’t the best 8 schools in America, but the Ivy League contains three of the strongest schools in America - Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.</p>
<p>I think that the “Initiation Test” for Stanford’s admission to the Ivy League was the competition for the New York City Tech Campus. Stanford lost to Cornell, so they’re out. (Yeah, I know Stanford technically quit, but this fools absolutely no one.)</p>
<p>Seriously though, pretty much everyone thinks that Stanford is a true peer to the Ivy League Schools (unless you want to study Hotel Administration, in which case Cornell has no peer!!!)</p>
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<p>Did you not hear that Stanford has also applied to enter the next Olympics as its own country? They pulled their application for London 2012 to better prepare for 2016. </p>
<p>On a (more) serious note, Stanford might finish among the top 15 … if it were possible. On an even more serious note, pulling out of the New York campus scam ought to be the most applauded decision by most everyone associated with Stanford.</p>
<p>If you really want to understand how good the various selective schools are, based on (ahem) scientific criteria, you can consult this old thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/978040-ranking-colleges-prestigiosity.html?highlight=prestigiosity[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/978040-ranking-colleges-prestigiosity.html?highlight=prestigiosity</a></p>
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<p>Actually, it’s in the Big East for almost every sport. It’s only independent in football.</p>
<p>Is OP sure she is Asian?</p>
<p>After all, an “Asian student” should know that Stanford is not an Ivy League school, as well as the Ivy League hierarchy by heart.</p>
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<p>Just leave.</p>
<p>HYPSM is the new Ivy!</p>
<p>[Urban</a> Dictionary: HYPSM](<a href=“http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=HYPSM]Urban”>Urban Dictionary: HYPSM)</p>
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</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> officials reflect on NYC proposal | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/01/30/stanford-officials-reflect-on-nyc-negotiations/]Stanford”>Stanford officials reflect on NYC proposal)</p>
<p>Cornell said “yes, yes, yes” to all the bait-and-switch crap that the EDC was pulling, because it was more desperate to do it. If that’s what your yardstick for “admission to the Ivy League” is, then I think most are glad not to be one of the Ivies. ;)</p>
<p>i never expected my forum to be this long ._.</p>
<p>Haha i love the mean comments. they make me smile (:. It just goes to show how inaccurate a person’s judgments are. and yes i’m a proud Asian :D. I’m not a robot.</p>
<p>Oh I’ll stay just to agitate you ;)</p>