Stanford isn't Ivy league?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everybody, quick question: Why is Stanford not part of the Ivy League? I mean it's definitely a good enough school, and it fits all the requirements, does it not?</p>

2

<p>LOL. The Ivy League is an athletic league that was established many years ago. It is not an academic league.</p>

3

<ol>
<li> Because the travel expenses to fly across the country week in and week out would be enormous.</li>
<li> Stanford’s athletic teams are far better than those of the Ivy League.</li>
</ol>

4

<p>Fiyero is sort of right. The Ivy League is an athletic league, but of course it is more than that as well. It’s a very specific group of old, highly selective universities in the Northeast. Other schools don’t become members of it by getting better, or more selective, or more prestigious.
But Stanford is certainly as selective and prestigious as many of the actual Ivy League schools.</p>

5

<p>Also while the ivy league doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, stanford does (I think)</p>

6

<p>the Ivy League is an athletic conference that only over time became synonymous with total awesome hotness.</p>

<p>If schools that initially turned down a spot in the Ivy League (like JHU) knew of the marketing miracle it would become, you can bet your bottom endowment dollar they would have joined.</p>

7

<p>OP, what are the “requirements” to be an Ivy League school?</p>

8

<p>If you are admitted to Stanford but denied admission to an Ivy League school, I think you will do just fine in life.</p>

9

<p>I don’t think Stanford’s football team was up to par back when the Ivy League was formed.</p>

10

<p>because it’s on the West Coast and more than 100 years younger than the Ivies (except for Cornell). and… it’s not in the sports league lol. It’s like asking why schools like Chicago and Johns Hopkins aren’t Ivies.</p>

11

<p>[Ivy</a> League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_league]Ivy”>Ivy League - Wikipedia)</p>

12

<p>The “requirements” for membership in the Ivy League are that the school be:

  1. older than dirt (Stanford: fail)
  2. in the northeast (Stanford: fail), and
  3. one of the 8 schools meeting the first two criteria that met and agreed to form an intercollegiate athletic conference in 1954 (Stanford: fail) which among other things prohibited the use of athletic scholarships (Stanford: fail).</p>

<p>So Stanford obviously doesn’t meet the “requirements” for Ivy League membership. Its academics, however, are certainly competitive with the best of the Ivies, and arguably better than several.</p>

13

<p>OP, the answer to your question is that there aren’t any “requirements” that stanford needs to fit. it just needs to be in the same general region as the other schools so that athletic competition is more practical. but it’s not.</p>