<p>If "Ivy" were simply an adjective, then I could see the argument. Cal is a PAC 10 school, Michigan Big 10, UVA ACC, etc. They are not Ivies, which is its own athletic league. I never said that these were not excellent schools. In fact, I precisely said they were. To call them "public Ivies" though is wrong-headed. They are fine public schools. Agreed also though that appellation "Ivy" as denoting quality coulld be applied, in some fashion to such schools in a generic sense, as in these are the eight best public schools, in which case--again off pa's--they would be, in order, Cal-Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, UCLA, UCSD, UNC, Wisconsin and UT-Austin. This gets us down to the USNWR 47th rated university. One would think that the proponents of this classification would not dare go down further vis a vis a group of schools that are all in the top 15, with Brown at the bottom. Although it's catchy, this does not advance the argument any further than saying that these are the eight best public univerisities. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, as the foregoing discussion on this thread demonstrates, everyone has yet another pet contender for these slots including such obviously second rate public universities as Murray State, Evergreen State and NC State, which are not even the best public schools in their own states. In toto, and my eyes glazed over as I read UIUC's and SUNY Geneseo's, shills touted at least 43 other public schools for this category. Coupled with the eight best publics, that means that over fifty public schools were called "public ivies" on this forum alone, or more than the number of states and over 600% the number of actual Ivies. Give me a break. It seems this designation does more harm than good if even from an attempted "quality" comparison. We are down to some schools that can't even crack the national top 200 but because of the amorphousness inherent in this classification, everyone can trot out their favorite. </p>
<p>With respect to the concept of "new Ivies," I hope all could agree that this is just the shell under which nothing is found in the epononymous game. While "public Ivy" has some traction, anointing other private schools of demonstrably inferior quality as "new Ivies" is just, as I earlier said, bootstrapping cachet. If Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, MIT, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon and Duke want to be known as "new Ivies," so be it. I doubt they do, as they are strong in their won right. But no, it's a host of wannabes of dubious merit. Obviously, the designation falls of its own absurd weight. </p>
<p>So, okay, although they descend to barely a top 50 university, we can have eight "Public Ivies": U Cal--Berkeley, U. of Michigan, U. of Virginia, U. Cal-San Diego, U. of North Carolina, UCLA, U of Wisconsin and U. Texas-Austin. </p>
<p>That's it. For whatever it's worth to say, "gee we really aren't something, but we are really good, but we are just not good enough to say we are really good, we have to pretend we are something else." </p>
<p>And we could have eight "new Ivies" for whatever reason anyone wants: Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, MIT, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon and Duke. As you can see, each of these is actually a strong university and the poorest ranked comes in at 21 on the USNWR ranking. I doubt they care to be called "new Ivies" and that alone should show one the obvious jockeying prostitution of the adherents of such fabricated categories. Other good schools-- among them Rice, Washington U. St. Louis, Vanderbilt, Georgetown--do not make the list. </p>
<p>Any school good enough to be a "new Ivy" would not want the name. I wish that were so with the massive public schools who are apparently just dying to call themselves something other than what they are.</p>
<p>And no Truman States and Franklin & Marshalls. Okay?</p>