<p>It is a waste of time but I have nothing better to do with exams over so...The Ivy League school are of course much larger than the NESCAC LAC's - aside from that, I'd say the academics are as rigorous, certainly grade school placement and percentage of profs with Ph.D's is comparable. Ivy's have larger alumni networks and endowment funds (which helps keep them high in the USNews ranking) but that's about it. The rest is simply PR swill....</p>
<p>The Patriot League School are also very good schools -- but with an entirely different feel than either the Ivy or NESCAC schools...</p>
<p>And less we forget, Trinity consistantly kills Harvard (and everyone else) in squash every year. Keep in mind that squash (along with golf and tennis) is a very important sport vis a vis future NYC and international Forbes 500 business networking (....!)</p>