<p>Hi I am new to collegeconfidential but I was wondering why places like University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, and Brown are listed under “Ivy league” in the forum threads. Where I come from, in Atlanta, I’ve always been under the impression that the only schools good enough to be considered ivy-league level were Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and West Point. I never heard of the University of Pennsylvania before in my life. Neither have I heard of Cornell or Brown or Dartmouth etc. usually, we refer to ivy-league as the best of the best schools. </p>
<p>I don’t want to offend any of you because you guys must consider University of Pennslyvania to be a good school because it is listed under ivy-league. Who gets to determine why this school is listed under ivy-league? Is Univ of Penn hard to get into like Harvard or West point? Does it have a good reputation? </p>
<p>Please forgive me if I made offense to your school. I’m sure it is good even if I personally never heard of it before. Thanks.</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an old atheletic confederation. The member ships are set. Stanford never was in the Ivy League. Its just an atheletic league like the big tens. Nothing more.</p>
<p>I just posted about this. Although it has come to mean a certain implied level of quality (and elitism/pretentiousness), the Ivy League is an athletic orginization. It is not a quality issue as to "is school XYZ U good enough to be considered Ivy?" 8 schools are considered ivy league schools because 8 schools are ivy league schools. Certain schools are very comparable to these schools, probably better in certain areas, but they are not and probably will never be ivy league schools. Understand what ivy league means.</p>
<p>Who gets to determine why this school is listed under ivy-league?
Athletic shizz</p>
<p>Is Univ of Penn hard to get into like Harvard or West point?
No, it's not as hard. Wharton (Penn's School of Business) is pretty hard to get in to though (what was it, like 12%) (Penn's College trails not too far behind though, at like 15% or something), but Harvard is harder (I forgot... 9%ish or something), and West Point is the hardEST to get in to (even though it has an acceptance rate of like 10-13%, it's a different kind of school that has tough criteria for acceptance).</p>
<p>Since no one has actually explained on this thread: the Ivy League athletic conference was created by the 8 academically challenging schools in an attempt to stave off what they felt was an undue emphasis on athletic achievement to the detriment of academics (i.e.- letting in kids who would not have gotten in otherwise, due to athletic ability, and/or athletic scholarships which= paying for athletic ability)... the two most basic tenets of the league revolve around these two concepts... making sure qualified kids academically get in, and not giving athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>Large endowments the funds of which meet needs not award scholarships. You will often hear folks talk of scholarships but that is not correct. All monies awarded from Ivy Schools are to meet demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Sorry legend, I just wanted to make friends with the Penn board. And also because I didn't read the other posts clearly enough, so I didn't realize that others had already listed the Ivy schools. Sorry...</p>