<p>How do you guys feel about the term public ivy?</p>
<p>Defines the prestigious public state universities that are typically well funded (<em>rich schools</em>) and quite competitive with acceptance. Those who apply for Ivy leagues also apply for Public Ivies usually. They don’t hold the same name as Ivies obviously, but have built up their own reputations as being comparable in education quality/rigor. Courses are quite tough at Public Ivies.</p>
<p>I go to one…
Many if not most of my friends applied to Ivies too, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. (several got accepted or waitlisted but came here for other reasons - way less expensive, more scholarships offered, in state tuition for them, etc.)
Just about everyone I know has taken tons of APs.</p>
<p>But there is a wider mix of people at them than an Ivy school, since they are public universities. Ivy material like I mentioned before, very good students, normal student, and then those who just barely scraped in because it’s in their state.
Though it varies depending on which Public Ivy, at mine typically students who have GPA 3.5, ACT 26 are in the lower third of the admitted ones. Middle third or average is like 3.7, 29, Top third 3.9+, 32+.
My friend from high school who had a 3.4 GPA and 25 ACT was wait-listed and rejected.</p>
<p>Also, there is also a large number of wealthy or smart international students who are sent to Public Ivies.</p>
<p>In light of the term “Ivy” being used to refer to prestigious private universities in general, I fully support the concept of the phrase “public Ivy”. It does justice to the academic rigors of these universities while emphasizing the advantages of publiceducation (such as greater accessibility and lower net cost for families who do not qualify for financial aid at private schools).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the phrase “public Ivy” is too often used by disappointed Ivy-hopefuls whose college dreams did not come true as a means to salvage their self-image as Ivy-bound academic superstars. As such it embodies too much of the college prestige craze in this country.</p>
<p>I am saddened that so many Americans tie their self-worth to the educational institutions they are affiliated with.</p>
<p>I don’t feel too strongly one way or the other, although barium’s post is pretty spot-on.</p>
<p>I am an alum at a school that is occassionally referred to as a public ivy, and I don’t really like it. I think it’s selling ourselves short just a bit to use a phrase that implies that one needs to be an ivy of some sort to have a reputation for rigor and solid education. My school’s reputation speaks for itself, it doesn’t need an “ivy” identifier.</p>
<p>Eh. It’s neither here nor there for me.</p>
<p>Down here, people could care less if you go to Harvard or Yale or wherever. People would probably recognize the names of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but schools like MIT, Dartmouth, and Cornell, not so much. I was talking to my mother the other day and mentioned MIT and she was like “Isn’t that the school you guys laugh about people attending?” (She mistook it for ITT Tech). Anyways, my mom is just an example of the average thoughts on colleges here.</p>
<p>I swear people are more impressed with the fact that I go to my state’s flagship than they would be if I went to somewhere like Cornell or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>People are super impressed by Wofford and a lot of people like to call it the “Harvard of the South”, but it hardly compares to a lot of northern schools. That being said, if you’re in SC, people will be impressed with a Wofford degree just as if you were in the north people would be impressed with a public Ivy or an Ivy League degree.</p>
<p>So, all in all, I say I could care less. It doesn’t really impact people’s views of schools in this area. I hear enough people talk about how great of a school Carolina is and how “impressive” it is to be a student there.</p>
<p>I live by a school that’s known as a “public ivy” and it was where the lower-scoring college bound kids from my school all ended up going. Apparently it has a great out-of-state reputation but it seems to accept every idiot from my high school, so I didn’t even bother. It’s known for its business school, greek scene and preppiness. Not much else.</p>
<p>Hm, I just looked it up. I go to a Public Ivy. Really, I couldn’t care less. Labels don’t mean much to me. If they did, I would have been going to Ema’s school rather than my own :p</p>
<p>Agree with Sparkles that it’s hard to think of a scool as a public Ivy when its mandate is to accept as many in-state kids as it can afford. We used to call UVa a PI, back when it and the Ivies attracted a large % of wealthy kids from professional families and prep kids. Back in the days when it and most of the Ivies were male only.</p>
<p>I mean, as far as name recognition, I might be talking out of my behind here but I would think that a prestigious public schools like UNC-Chapel Hill or Michigan are likely to have almost as much clout as, say, Dartmouth or Brown. (for everyone that matters). </p>
<p>Although I agree that calling them “Ivies” implies the Ivy League is a standard they should live up to instead of focusing on being good institutions in their own rights.</p>
<p>I think it’s stupid and a little sad, it makes people sound ashamed of their school. “Yeah, it’s public, but it’s a <em>public ivy</em>, so there!” Anytime the president of a university says that his/her school is a public ivy I cringe on the inside. Especially since the Ivies are a bit more diverse than people tend to think. The quality of a school is discipline-dependent, I find. Some Ivies are strong in the sciences and engineering, others are stronger in the liberal arts. I think Dartmouth’s engineering school is ranked below my own, does that make my school a “public ivy”, at least as far as engineering goes? I don’t know.</p>
<p>The number one thing that makes ivy league schools valuable FOR UNDERGRAD is the name recognition of the degree once you graduate. So no matter how cool your science labs, no matter how many planetariums or Nobel prize-winners on your faculty, if the name of your alma mater doesn’t get the same “oh you went there? Impressive…” reaction from people, it’s not a “public ivy” in the way that matters most (in the job world, anyway).</p>
<p>I don’t worry about stuff like that. Let over-anxious high-school juniors worry about that. But maybe I don’t worry about it because I already go to a public ivy. :-D</p>
<p>AUGirl, there are about 5,000 "Harvard of the South"s’s’s’s. Also, it boggles my mind that somebody in America doesn’t know what MIT is. It’s not just famous among nerds, it’s THE school mentioned in any movie or tv show when you want to show how smart a character is: “he went to MIT/he teaches physics at MIT/etc.” Even somebody who doesn’t know a proton from Motown ought to have heard of it.</p>
<p>b@rium: word.</p>
<p>Sparkles21: Miami?</p>
<p>DavidSS: Many people <em>do</em> hold Michigan and UT Austin and UC Berkley in the same regard as Stanford and MIT. Like I said in another thread, it may depend on your discipline.</p>
<p>Tom, I’m actually going to dispute MIT. I’d say a large chunk of people outside the academic world have no idea how good of a school MIT is. In movies, Harvard is the go-to “smart” school, not MIT. MIT just isn’t marketed as much as Harvard.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good Will Hunting</p>
<p>… most movies.</p>
<p>And now I want to rewatch that.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> in popular culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture#Movies_and_television]MIT”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture#Movies_and_television)
I would think that most people have heard of MIT as well.</p>
<p>Once you get outside of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and maybe Columbia, the Ivys typically aren’t as well known outside of the northeast and a few other areas. That doesn’t take away their quality, but the phenomenon does exist.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> in popular culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture]MIT”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_in_popular_culture)</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Harvard University - Wikipedia”>Harvard University - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I’m going to argue that Harvard is typically relied on to give a character an air of sophistication, wealth, Frasierness, etc. <em>coupled</em> with intelligence but not necessarily genius, whereas MIT is relied upon to say “this character is a genius, okay?”</p>
<p>interesting transition from “public ivys” to “popular culture.” But seriously, who cares?</p>
<p>Btw seven pounds was a really weird movie. It’s just really hard to fathom someone trying to exonerating himself not by doing good deeds, but by killing himself and giving away all his organs. “enter to grw in wisdom. depart to better serve thy country & thy kind… by donating all your organs??”</p>
<p>Caltech, there’s a great school that a lot of people might not recognize as being the MIT of the West Coast.</p>