<p>This is not just a phenomenon of the ESPN announcers. This is exactly how the majority of the shared CC “knowledge” of colleges is promulgated. Think how many times we have heard “Harvard is cut-throat and doesn’t care about undergraduates” from people who have little or no experience of the place much less actually went to school there. Or “Undergrads at universities (vs LACs) don’t get to do research because it’s reserved for grad students” or any other stereotype that is mindlessly repeated by people who don’t really know until it becomes “everyone knows…”</p>
<p>Ghostt, I think if an Ivy refused to participate the rankings would lose credability. If Harvard refused than I think people would stop looking at the rankings because they know if Harvard is there or not Harvard is number 1 or 2.</p>
<p>Very true, coureur. Or, when some other ranking shows some college that few have ever heard of near the top, there’s always an outcry. “How can Centre College in KY be higher than Famous Name School?” (just picking on Centre as an example, since I’ve seen it in such lists) Well, why couldn’t it? Maybe it belongs right there where it is above Famous Name School. Maybe it really is That Good and You Just Haven’t Heard of It. </p>
<p>Look at how WUSTL got dissed for its rise. It really was That Good when no one outside St. Louis heard of it, and it really is That Good today. But provincial people from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, who couldn’t find Missouri on a map if they tried, “hadn’t heard of it” – so it must not have deserved its rating. What utter nonsense! How good a school is has NOTHING to do with how widespread or well-known the name is. Nothing. And it’s a particular mark of lame-ness on CC to assume that “because I haven’t heard of something, it can’t be good.”</p>
<p>Nobody needs to be reminded how good Harvard is! If some punk ass students don’t apply to it because it’s name got taken off of a stupid ranking then they don’t deserve to go there. There’s plenty of other equally qualified kids would would get in instead of them. Despite what you might believe, rankings do not control the world.</p>
Or the Ivies would lose credibility. The Ivies aren’t as strong as many people believe. Most of the non-Ivy (and LAC) top universities frequently top them in dozens of aspects and none of the Ivies can engineer for the life of them, which is a MAJOR sect of academia. </p>
<p>Stanford isn’t simply the “Harvard of the West”, it’s “Harvard performing in 21st Century standards”.</p>
<p>^But that’s the thing. Most people think Harvard is the best of the best and if it left the rankings people would still view Harvard as number 1 no matter what the number 1 was on the list.</p>
<p>Yeah, and Reed–whose reputation is nowhere near as powerful as Harvard’s–has been enjoying a steady increase in applications recently, despite not submitting any materials to US News and consequently being punished for it in the rankings. The average high-school GPA of its freshman class is ~3.9, with SAT scores comparable to those of the freshmen at the top 10 LACs. And Reed’s acceptance rate is much higher than theirs, so its applicant pool must be quite self-selective.</p>
<p>I don’t think a school like Harvard would suffer from a severance of ties with US News. The report itself would be the one to lose credibility, I feel.</p>
<p>With a nod to Dennis Miller, this thread is like listening to Snooki explain the infield fly rule in Farsi while drunk.</p>
<p>That said, some things clear to ME:</p>
<p>Now that Duke and Georgetown have risen to national prominence, I think their administrations, faculty, and alumni would GLADLY surrender March Madness for the year-round unchallenged academic superstardom that Ivy League membership would provide.</p>
<p>Georgetown and William & Mary have the age and history going for them, and could easily tweak their athletic programs to fit the Ivy mold. Oh wait, I forgot that the Ivy liberals’ devotion to diversity doesn’t include Catholics and public school riff-raff.</p>
<p>Looks like most people agree that: Dartmouth/Brown - Ivy League = Tufts</p>
<p>I get a laugh out of those who think the present Ivy League will be the Ivy League forever. We’ve got a black President, Nebraska is in the Big 10, and soon there will be male Marines marrying each other, no Kennedy in Congress, and no Daley in Chicago politics…everything changes sooner or later.</p>
<p>I think people are overreacting a bit on this thread. I mean the original person started this as a what if and now people are arguing over whether it would really happen or not. It’s just a big what if question and what we thought would happen if it did happen.</p>
Um, no thanks. Duke is already an “academic superstar” that is as good as or better than half the Ivies. There’s no incentive for it to join an inferior athletic conference.</p>
<p>Seems to be quite a bit of bitterness in this thread. None the less I think people are jumping to conclusions. This was just a ‘what if’ thread, it is not actually happening.</p>
<p>"Duke is already an “academic superstar” that is as good as or better than half the Ivies. "</p>
<p>Um, no, not in the minds of most people. I said “unchallenged” academic superstar. To a LOT of people it’s an just an overrated blend of pampered basketball players, dreadful football, knee-jerk-PC faculty, and abrasive students from New Jersey who got rejected by Penn. In other words, Tufts with basketball scholarships. There’s a reason there’s so much hate for Duke on CC, and so much respect for UNC-CH.</p>
<p>Any school who’s alumni could give us both the bankruptcy of GM (Ric Waggoner) and the Watergate scandal (Richard Nixon) has got to be doing something right. While it is still a ways down from Harvard which gave us the Enron bankrupcty (Jeff Skilling) and the unibomber (Ted Kaczynski), it does indicate that Duke is trying to reach Ivy Level. Stanford is in great shape in this competition with the legacy of Herbert Hoover and the great depression.</p>