Ivy League is a sports league, not a term for competitive colleges. No Little Ivies, Public Ivies...

Applying to College
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There are threads on this site where people who got into top colleges like U of Chicago or Johns Hopkins are wondering if they will be able to transfer into an “Ivy League” school-- not even specifying which college, just saying “Ivy League”-- before they have even begun at their new college. The term means that much to them.

There are threads on this site where posters are actively debating which Jesuit schools are “Jesuit Ivies” and which small colleges are “Little Ivies” and which public universities are “Public Ivies” and which colleges of any sort are “New Ivies.”

Point #1: The Ivy League consists of only eight colleges and is a sports league-- a sports league that was formed many, many years ago and whose membership has not been changing. The term Ivy League does not refer to their prestige, quality of academics, etc.- although those aspects happen to be stellar for these eight schools as well.

Point #2: The eight Ivy League schools are very different from one another in culture and some may be more similar to other schools than to one another. For example, a student who likes Columbia might prefer U of Chicago, with its core curriculum and urban location, to rural Dartmouth or open curriculum Brown.

Point #3: Nothing else is an Ivy League school because nothing else is in that sports league. The other schools being discussed are prestigious colleges with low admissions percentages. Period. Nothing to do with Ivy. And yes, some of those non-Ivy schools are as prestigious as members of the Ivy League-- e.g, Stanford. We should stop calling them Ivies, New Ivies, etc. They are just good colleges.

Point #4: Prestige or renown is one factor to consider in selecting a school, but there are many other aspects that make a school a good “fit” for any given student. In addition, a good student can be successful at almost any college. A big part of it is what a student makes of his/her education. So, for all those who seem to think that their life depends on getting into a school that is part of the Ivy League-- or that might be considered to belong to a fanciful and non-scientific term of Little Ivy, Jesuit Ivy, Public Ivy, or New Ivy… Relax. It does not.

But certainly don’t argue over which schools are, for example, “Little Ivies,” because there is no such concrete, definitive list. And really, do you need to get into a bragging contest with someone else over whether your school or prospective school is more prestigious than theirs?

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Thanks for making us idiots so much more well informed.

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This thread is pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Many of these terms (public Ivy, little Ivy, etc.) have been coined by media outlets and authors over the years. It is not as if people on this site are constantly sitting around drafting list after list trying to fit x college into this particular group.

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@bradthegrad2019

“It is not as if people on this site are constantly sitting around drafting list after list trying to fit x college into this particular group.”

Ah, but they are.

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@bradthegrad2019 I laughed. Good one

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Good point lol; I’m fairly new here.

I guess I meant to say that most of these lists have been set and have been in place for years.

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Didn’t you do this last year, @TheGreyKing? I’m not going to waste my time looking. The Ivies are the Ivies. It’s a fact of life. Accept it.

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Like other successful brands, the ivy league has become a metaphor, one that stands for what is elite, excellent, hard to achieve, the very best, etc. It’s impossible to control a metaphor by insisting on its literal meaning, and why would we? “Ivy” is too useful a shorthand.

Michigan and Berkeley are excellent, and many people call them public ivies, just as Amherst and Williams are reasonably called little ivies.

“Ivy league” has entered the popular imagination as a signifier for excellence and prestige – and not only for educational institutions, so there’s no turning back the clock to “eight-member sports league.” That’s true but irrelevant to the way most people use the term.

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Personally, I’m a big fan of referring to Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale collectively as “The Academic SEC”

Although actually maybe “Academic ACC” makes more sense both given location and given that the reigning football and basketball champs are both ACC schools.

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@AboutTheSame based on my quick scan of the hits that came back when searching for OP’s name and the words “ivy” or “ivies” on CC it would appear that OP is very much internally consistent and was always referring to the 8 specific schools when using the term

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Point #1 is frequently repeated on CC in a sort of demeaning way… i.e., an athletic league as opposed to some academically elite group of schools. But it is the latter, too. NESCAC is, by definition, also an athletic league. Which of the major conferences (ACC, SEC, B1G, etc) is not an athletic league these days? Athletics is what shapes these conferences, but they are much more than just athletics. So this narrow definition is, to me, a nonstarter and somewhat disingenuous.

Agree with #7 that in modern usage, the term Ivy League is a metaphor for a certain level of excellence and prestige. Many schools aspire to reach that level and some do. Attempting to revert the term to its original basis as an athletic league is irrelevant and serves no purpose in most of these discussions.

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My favorite is Baby Ivy. Just heard that one…LOL.

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The term “Ivy” is a singular term that has more than 1 meaning. Ivy identifies 8 elite academic colleges. Ivy identifies top colleges in a certain region. Ivy identifies 8 top academic schools who also play in a particular sports conference. No other conference or league can boast these qualities save for the sports league they play in. People know exactly what is meant when they say he/she received an Ivy league education. Are there other top academic institutions just as good or better? Yes, absolutely. Is there any other term or league that encompasses every school as elite academically …no. Put it this way, the Ivy league would lose it’s one word identification if someday they let say Florida Southern College in. People would stop saying that they just wanted to get into or applied to all Ivy league schools.

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Ivy is a plant.

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The reality is that when people use the term ‘Ivy League,’ 99% of the time they are referring to the academic excellence of the 8 institutions…little or nothing to do with sports. That those 8 colleges happen to play each other is secondary. The term has a very real, very tangible meaning in the academic sphere. Nothing wrong with that. They are certainly not highly regarded due to their sports teams (Yale recent hockey title notwithstanding.)

And it is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: great students apply due to reputation, and their accomplishments fuel the reputation. But I would argue there is real meat behind the reputation because the schools truly have the best of the best: professors, students, facilities, campuses, clubs, networks, rich endowments, outlets for student talent, etc.

BTW, I always heard that the original 4 members: YHPColumbia were referred to as “The Four” or in Roman terms, “The IV.” Hence Ivy (IV) League.

(yes, I’m a Yalie)

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Agree with the above posts. Yes the Ivy League is an athletics conference, but in public consciousness is a group of elite schools. And that will not chance. he Ivy League brand is very sting around the world and close to no one actually associates it with sports, they associate it with academic excellence and prestige.

@pickpocket I think the “The Four” or “The IV.” referred to HYP and Dartmouth, according to some sources.
https://badgerherald.com/news/2003/03/03/origins-of-the-term/

Another source seems to say that IV referred to HYP and Penn.
https://penncurrent.upenn.edu/2002-10-17/ask-benny/ask-benny-ivy-league-fiction-facts

Other sources say it was HYP and Columbia.
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question4309.html

Columbia seems like the most probably scenario though.

In any case, the whole IV thing is a theory of how the Ivy League name came about, but apparently it has not been proven. The true origin of the Ivy League name still remains a mystery .

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Was thinking a little bit more about this today. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale should definitely be “The Academic ACC” so who is actually “The Academic SEC?”

My initial thought is that “The Academic SEC” consists of Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, UVA, Davidson, Washington & Lee, Hopkins, and Emory. Thoughts? I guess if we want to go strictly universities then Davidson and W&L could be replaced by Wake and UNC?

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Well, since the OP is itself a bit of a rant, here goes :-). I find it bothersome when someone brings out “The Ivy League is just a sports league” trope. Usually it’s pretty clear what someone means when they say “Ivy League” or “Ivies” – it’s a clear, easy, short way to refer to top/elite/prestigious schools – and such a response just shows condescension and self-importance.

It’s true that sometimes the usage of “Ivy League” is technically incorrect or misguided – but then just say that, explain why, rather than resorting to this response.

Also, the fact that the Ivy League schools are very different culturally from one another does not necessarily mean that someone could not be happy at any of several of them (or perhaps they’re just chasing prestige, which is hard to stop, and ultimately it’s their choice).

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I’d argue the opposite. It’s recognizing that top flight schools exist outside of the ivy league rather than insinuating that anything not ivy league is not top tier.

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Yes the Ivy league is a sports conference…
But how many people have you met that actually refers to the football played by the Ivies? Few to none, I’d bet. It has just become synonymous with ‘social elitism, selectivity in admissions and academic excellence (despite Harvard’s use of undergrads as teachers lol)’
The Ivy League, as mentioned before, has successfully branded itself as the ‘group’ of American schools where elites go. It does have Harvard, Yale and Princeton after all. They’re just kinda like Apple and the early iPhone. They’ve allowed themselves to become synonymous with elitism, selective and exclusivity, and academic excellence in the same way the early iPhone was synonymous with ‘smartphone’ and ‘high-tech’. Since these schools are already so conveniently packaged up, people can just refer to other amazing schools in the context of the Ivies, like ‘Ivy plus’, ‘little Ivy’, or ‘Public Ivy’. Through its use in the vernacular, it’s as though the term ‘Ivy League’ has taken on a new meaning completely.