<p>Alright, after yesterday when a friend of mine said his school (which isn't a bad school, but not even in the top 50) was trying to become an Ivy. Now, if this was the first I've heard this from a not-so-amazing school, I'd brush it off, but after hearing the same thing from my school (Hofstra) and even students in my school, I can't help but wonder why!</p>
<p>Not only do these schools not really deserve an Ivy status, they're also delusional to feel it could actually happen. Then, they even get their students to believe this?</p>
<p>Am I wrong here? I feel like they are just making these extraordinary claims to retain their students. If their students think that the school is on the rise (which they might be, but not enough to become an Ivy, LOL), then they'll consider staying because they feel their school will become increasingly prestigous. </p>
<p>What do you guys think about this? Has anyone heard a school make this claim before? It's ridiculous to me and what is even worse is that students believe it!</p>
<p>I'm not trying to downgrade my school, my friends school, or any schools who say the same thing, but to compare a school (that isn't even of equal caliber to a top 50 school) to an Ivy and try convincing their students they're becoming one is ludicrous!</p>
<p>It's not the school, but the students who are saying it.
Maybe you are just hanging out with whacky people, get some sleep, hit some books and make new friends :D</p>
<p>I've heard many people say that their college is "up and coming" and will become a top 10/20/30 school. What I want to know is what "down and going" colleges do they plan to replace?</p>
<p>Last I checked, the Ivy (athletic) League was not looking to expand. Since Hofstra is in the Colonial Athletic League, it'll never happen. [Moral: the ancient 8 just happen to be linked together in the same athletic conference, no different than the SEC, ACC, Big 10 or Pac-10.]</p>
<p>I don't know where the origin of these crazy thoughts come from, but the point is, they are out there!</p>
<p>I personally don't remember which kids I've heard said this (and don't recall hearing this from the school itself), but they seemed confident they heard it from the school itself. My friend was very confident about what he said about his school. He definitely didn't just randomly make it up, it seems someone out there was trying to get the students to believe this.</p>
<p>Now, as I said, I have no idea where these thoughts come from, but I'm not doubting someone high up said this and it worked its way down.</p>
<p>And with regards to what someone said about where are the "down and going" colleges come from... I don't know! Unless schools raise their standards, actually pay better students to come, and get better professors, they are not overtaking any colleges.</p>
<p>Sure, I can see schools going up slightly, but it's doubtful schools will just all of a sudden jump up, 10, 20, or even 50 ranks.</p>
<p>Where the hell do these ideas start? It's nuts, and now that I've heard it from two seperate schools, I highly doubt it's a rare thought at schools across the nation.</p>
<p>And kemet, I agree with you, they are not going to expand. I don't know what the hell any schools or their students are thinking. They are all delusion.</p>
<p>I've heard people from Georgetown saying that Gtown was invited to join the Ivy league but they declined. However, this never happened. Most students who say these things are just in denial because they were rejected by Ivys. From the times i've visited Gtown I've noticed that many students there are bitter about not getting into Ivys. I've also heard people from Colgate claim to have been invited to join.</p>
<p>Historically the only schools that can claim to have any ties to the Ivy league are The Naval Academy (USNA), Westpoint (USMA), and Rutgers.</p>
<p>It's sort of like capital "D" Democrats and lower-case "democrats." There is "Ivy League" (capitalized) which is the athletic conference, and then there is the adjectival "ivy league" (lower case) which can describe anything from haircuts to clothing, including a sort of traditional, elitist, high-quality, non-professional-oriented educational institution. I think everybody should settle down and assume these people are using the latter term, rather than the Ancient 8 athletic conference term.</p>
<p>That story about Colgate is true to some extent. Someone on one of these threads cited an article from the Dartmouth paper in 2003 saying that Colgate was initially interested in joining the Ivy League when talks began in 1945, but later decided against it. The article kind of insinuated that it was difficult to get schools to agree and they only could get the eight. Remember after all, the Ivy League started as football conference and Colgate did have a reputation of consistently playing these schools in football, which it has still maintained in modern times to some degree (~ 4 games a year in football). Actually, in the decade leading up to the formation of the Ivy League, Colgate had more games in common with the current members of the Ivy League than Brown or Penn did.</p>
<p>actually, there is more to the Colgate story....an article I read on the founding of the football Ivy indicated that Colgate was considered, but the other, non-NY schools recommended against another NY school joining, which would have made three. Thus, Brown was invited to join.</p>
<p>I've heard something like it was down to these two, but didn't know the rationale. While Brown was older, it was considered a lower academic school than Colgate until the 1970's. Where did you read that?</p>
<p>Many colleges have "aspirational peers" which means they have colleges they look up, and would like to emulate (and already do in some respects). However, I've never heard a school say they were "trying to be an ivy."</p>
<p>There is no shortage of schools who claim they want to be a "Top 30 Research University" or some other number, and by that they don't mean the US News ranking but rather a ranking based amount of federal research dollars awarded or a similar measure.</p>