<p>is it true that JHU turned down the offer to be an Ivy League 3 times? I remember I read it off from some source - it would be greatly appreciated if you could guide me to that link. Thankss!!</p>
<p>No, it's not true. The Ivy League is a FOOTBALL conference, people. No one has ever been invited to be an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>i remember i read it off from a JHU athletics guidebook, perhaps maybe AdmissionsDaniel can verify this??</p>
<p>JHU is not an Ivy and likely never wil be. However, it is at a similar level academically to the Ivy League.</p>
<p>When I went to Hopkins in the dark ages, I was told that Hopkins was not made part of the Ivy League because it was south of the Mason-Dixon Line (it really is), and the League was Northeast schools only. Pennsylvania was as far south as they wanted to go.</p>
<p>oh i see.. but what's a Mason-Dixon Line??</p>
<p>^Maryland/Pennsylvania border.</p>
<p>i also heard that they turned down the ivy league thing 3 times...who knows.</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an athletic conference - it is more than just a football conference.</p>
<p>its mostly a lax conference truthfully, that is what they care most about</p>
<p>i remember reading that a long time ago, when the ivy league referred solely to an athletics league (similar to one of the Pac-10/Big 12/etc conferences), hopkins was invited to join. hopkins turned the offer down, and as time went by, the ivy league became synonymous for higher education.</p>
<p>do you guys rather want JHU as an Ivy or no?</p>
<p>shwack, I heard so too.</p>
<p>I don't think it really matters if JHU is an Ivy or not; I think the term "Ivy League" is just a label and nothing else. For example, universities like Stanford and LACs like Amherst can be regarded as great institutions without the Ivy League label.</p>
<p>I spent a good portion of the day speaking with people to see where this myth/rumor/urban legend began and if it was even true. From all accounts it is not, and it does seem to be quite a ridiculous rumor to me.</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an Athletics conference of eight teams that share a lot of commonalities, one beging excellent academic institutions. It was founded as an athletic conference (Read Wikipedia's page for more info). These are Division I schools for all their sports, and Hopkins is Div I only for Lacrosse -- no match so therefore, no invitation.</p>
<p>The term Ivy League has grown to mean so much more than just the athletics conference idea - but in fact those 8 schools are very comparable to a number of other institutions in this country, including good old JHU. </p>
<p>In the end, does it all really matter?</p>
<p>now that i think about it, i might have read it in the fiske college guide, 2004 edition. i don't have it in front of me, but it'd be great if someone could check it. don't mark my words, though!</p>
<p>Nowhere in Fiske's 2004 guide does it say that. Sorry bro.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://thraxil.org/users/lani/posts/2004/10/05/ruining-my-game/%5B/url%5D">http://thraxil.org/users/lani/posts/2004/10/05/ruining-my-game/</a></p>
<p>"Ivy League has 8 schools, but its just an athletic conference.
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell
Should be noted that Johns Hopkins was invited to join and declined."</p>
<p>Is this site misleading? (AdmissionsDaniel, not that I don't respect your comment or anything, it's just bothers me knowing that I read it off from JHU's source itself!! :))</p>
<p>Sorry folks, but the "my school was invited to join the Ivy League" rumor is an urban legend that floats around certain northeastern universities every year. It is also popular at Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and probably others. You can find more references to it simply by searching the collegeconfidential forums.</p>
<p>As far as I know, the only non-Ivy that has a credible claim to have been considered as a possible member of the Ivy League is Colgate. According to this</a> history in the Daily Dartmouth:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Under the stewardship of College President James Dickey and the president of Harvard, a formal proposal for the Ivy League was drafted in 1945. The only schools to have expressed serious interest in joining the league are the ones that are still the current eight members of the league.</p>
<p>Colgate University was initially interested in being included in the agreement, but talks ended before the Dickey approved the 1945 agreement.
[/quote]
You could make a case that three other northeastern schools have turned down opportunities to "join" the Ivy League by merging with an Ivy school. Vassar rejected an offer to merge with Yale in 1969, MIT rejected offers to merge with Harvard in 1904 and 1915, and Rutgers rejected an offer to merge with Princeton in 1793.</p>
<p>iwannabeadoc - I have no idea where you found that website but it is definitely not a credible source nor is it a Hopkins website. Those quotes are not from a JHU source!</p>
<p>Corbett is correct with the term "URBAN LEGEND."</p>