What's so great about Ivy's?

College Search & Selection
21

@cofb2020 I beg to differ on many levels. While I would not call Harvard undergraduate intensive, that is certainly not the case with places like Yale and Princeton–which dedicate the vast majority of their sizable assets to undergraduate education. The residential college system of Yale is the epitome of what great undergraduate education looks like, when you deploy sizable resources. But, to directly answer the original question, here are but a few of the profound attributes of what I call the Ivy-plus schools ( Ivies plus MIT, UofChicago, Stanford…) Four-year graduation rates of over 96%; attrition less than 3%, incredible depth of class (so, while many schools have a special honors programs, from top to bottom these schools have top notch students), about 20-25 percent go directly into graduate and/or professional schools upon graduation, incredible opportunities both on-campus and off (e.g. job prospects), and financial aid that is unsurpassed.

For instance, even at the retail price of tuition and room/board, that comes to a tad over 60K, annually, if one were to attend Yale, and your family income was at about 80K, you would pay literally nothing out of pocket. All aid (for many of these schools) is exclusively grants and do not utilize student loans.

22

@moooop, I don’t see the correlation.

Northwestern is definitely pre-professional, but not only new-Ivy Cornell but also old-Ivy UPenn are as much if more so. On the other hand, UChicago has been through most of its history probably the most anti-pre-professional private elite out there (life of the mind and all that). CalTech is also far more academia-focused than pre-professional (CalTech is at the HYPSM level in all respects except for placement in to elite professional grad schools, where it lags by quite a bit). However, UChicago, JHU, Stanford, Rice, and Duke (& Vandy) were boosted to the top tier by one major benefactor (not the case for NU, MIT, and I believe, CalTech as well as WashU).

In any case, accusing the newer elite privates of being more pre-professional seems strange when the Ivies send so many of their students to Wall Street, law school, and med school.

If you want to make a distinction, it’s that all of the old-Ivies (besides UPenn) were started as LACs (as were also Northwestern and Duke) while UChicago, JHU, Stanford, MIT, CalTech (and Cornell as well as a bunch of public land grants) were started as research universities in the late 19th century modeled after the German universities of that era (which were seen as the most cutting-edge and innovative places of higher learning at that time).

23

Agreed, Penn more like Cornell. But the other 6 seem more focused on educating the overall person than preparing for a.career.
I didn’t say PRE-professional…I said practical and professional…so at the newer elite( Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, MIT, Stanford, and to a lesser extent, Chicago)the sciences are big, engineering big (except Chicago), social sciences pretty big…and big professional schools. They have the humanities , but.that doesn’t seem to be where the focus is. Eliminate the history epartments from Harvard or Yale, and they would no longer be Harvard or Yale.E liminate history at Northwestern or Stanford and nobody would notice. Chicago, for all of the life of the mind stuff, still has more of a roll-up-the-sleeves and split an atom or devise a new economic model feel than it has a let’s lounge about and write poetry feel.

24

Is that based on some kind of research? According to USNWR, the History departments at Harvard and Stanford are ranked identically.

25

History is one of the “most popular majors” at Harvard (9%) but not at Stanford (USNWR).

26

It appears to me that the departments are roughly the same size and stature.

27

Yes, I agree, very few other institutions (but more than zero!) quite measure up to the 8 Ivies for the combination of great students, great faculty, great facilities, and great financial aid. If you want to put 8 other private universities in the same company, fine. I’d probably include all the USNWR top 20 national universities, except Berkeley.

Why not Berkeley? Berkeley is great. However, it generally does not offer great financial aid to anyone but California residents. Like other state universities, at the undergraduate level it is not truly a “national” university that competes for the very best undergraduate students regardless of where they live or their family income.

Why not a bunch of small liberal arts colleges? In my opinion, many of them offer even better undergraduate learning environments than some of the Ivies. These are the schools where I’d send my own kids (if they listened to anything I say). However, LACs cannot offer the same breadth and depth of truly distinguished faculty. You won’t very often find the likes of a Noam Chomsky, a Milton Friedman, or a Stephan Jay Gould teaching at a LAC. You may find many equally good (or better) teachers, but not nearly as many scholars who are advancing the state of the art in their fields.

For many good students, the in-state public flagship is the school to beat for a good balance of high quality and value.
Many people are familiar with these schools. So, if you want to explain “what’s so great about the Ivies”, state schools represent a convenient benchmark for comparison. If you’re even better than Berkeley, Michigan, and UVa, you’re pretty good.

28

I agree that the ivy league is comprised of America’s oldest and richest colleges. The one thing missing, however, are big time sports, especially football, of which I’m a huge fan. There’s nothing better than hanging out with alumni groups during the fall and rooting for your Division 1 team. Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, and even Cal and Stanford, have competitive teams that are fun to watch and most have large alumni groups nationwide. Had the University of Chicago not ditched football decades ago, it would probably be a dream college today.

29

tk, many of your points in post #13 are lacking in accuracy and/or relevance:

“For example, they are among the most selective colleges in the country. Harvard’s admission rates are under 6%; its median SAT score range is 1410-1600 (M+CR) meaning that about 25% of its students scored perfect 800s on both the CR an Math tests. The least selective Ivy (Cornell) appears to be slightly more selective than the most selective state university (Berkeley).”

First of all, Michigan and UVa’s ACT and SAT ranges are currently identical to Cal’s, and all three have similar, albeit slightly lower, ranges as Brown and Cornell. Currently, their ACT range is 29-33 (Cornell, Brown, Penn and Dartmouth are at 30-34) and their SAT range is 1280-1480 (compared to 1330-1530 at Cornell, Brown and Penn). Like I said, slightly lower, but certainly comparable.

“The Ivies tend to have smaller classes than most other research universities.
Harvard’s student:faculty ratio is 7:1; Princeton’s and Yale’s are 6:1. Compare these numbers to Berkeley’s (17:1), Michigan’s (15:1) or UVa’s (16:1). You won’t necessarily escape big lecture classes at the Ivies, but you will tend to get a higher percentage of classes with less than 20 students and a lower percentage with 50 or more.”

I thought we already agreed that the way that the Ivy League report their student to faculty ratios is not accurate, borderline unethical. They leave thousands graduate students from their calculations. Public universities include graduate students in their calculations, as well they should since graduate students are a major drain on faculty resources. If Ivy League schools, as well as other private research universities included graduate students in their student to faculty ratios, theirs too would resemble those of public universities. You know this, so I am not sure why you even bring it up. It is almost dishonest of you to do so.

And while classes at the Ivy League may be insignificantly smaller than those at Cal or Michigan, I am not sure their faculties are any more devoted to undergraduate instruction.

"The Ivies generally have excellent 4 year and 6 year graduation rates.
Their 4 year graduation rates range from 84% to 90%.
Only 3 public colleges have 4 year graduation rates above 80% "

Some elite private universities, like Stanford and Rice, have four year graduation rates under the 80% range, which is not higher than Cal, Michigan or UVa. While a high four year graduation rate is desirable, it cannot always be accomplished if the curriculum does not permit. Cal, Michigan and UVa have 4 year graduation rates in the 75% range, and a 6 year graduation rate in the 92% range. That is comparable to most elite private universities.

“The Ivies generally have long lists of distinguished alumni.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harvard_University_people
5 of the 8 Ivies are among the world’s top 20 universities by numbers of affiliated Nobel laureates, with Harvard topping the world list.”

I would say that Michigan’s list of distinguished alumni is at least as long as those of most Ivy League universities. More undergraduate alumni from Michigan have gone on to win the Nobel Prize or Fields Medal (Richard Smalley in Chemistry, Robert Shiller in Economics, Thomas Huckle Weller in Medicine, Stephen Smale won the Fields Medal and Hugh David Politzer and Samuel Ting in Physics) than undergraduate alumni from Brown, Dartmouth, Penn or Princeton. Cal has produced even more than Michigan. Whether looking at Fortune 500 CEOs (Larry Page, Thomas Wilson, Richard Lesser) billionaire clubs (15 or so living alumni), cultural icons (Madonna, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Kasdan, Lucy Liu, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps etc…), I think Cal and Michigan’s alumni are just as distinguished as those of most Ivies.

“The Ivies tend to draw students from all over AMERICA (and to a lesser extent, the world):
http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Does-Your-Freshman-Class/129547/#id=166027
Even the most respected state universities don’t have nearly the same national drawing power (since they are committed above all to serving the people of their own states):”

Not so with Michigan. Currently, Michigan enrols close to 10,000 undergraduate students from other states (5,000 from California, Florida, Texas and New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania alone), and an additional 2,000 international undergraduate students. I am not sure how many Ivy League universities enrol close to 10,000 OOS undergraduate students and 2,000 international undergraduate students, but I would estimate that none of them do…or even comes close for that matter.

“The Ivies are among the richest universities in America.
Three Ivies top the following ranking of colleges by endowment per student:
http://www.reachhighscholars.org/college_endowments.html
5 of the 10 universities with the largest endowments are Ivies:”

Again, Michigan’s endowment is larger than that of most Ivies (save HYP). Michigan’s endowment currently stands at $9.6 billion, which is slightly higher than Columbia and Penn’s, and significantly higher than Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. Furthermore, Michigan, like any other public university, receives money from the state. In the case of Michigan, $275 million/year, which would be the equivalent of $6 billion endowment for a private university. UVa, Texas-Austin and Cal also have large endowments that rival those of the Ivies.

“They generally have excellent facilities.
5 of America’s largest libraries (including the largest academic library) are at Ivy League universities.”

Have you visited Michigan’s facilities? Its engineering, business, law or medical facilities? Its biotech labs purchased from Pfizer? I have visited all 8 Ivies, and none of them have impressed me more than Michigan when it comes to facilities. Michigan has spent $5 billion in the past decade alone on facilities.

“All 8 Ivy League schools are among the ~60 US colleges that claim to meet 100% of undergraduates’ demonstrated financial need.Of the 6 U.S. institutions that are need-blind and meet full demonstrated need for both U.S. and INTERNATIONAL students, 4 are Ivy League colleges.”

I cannot disagree here. Unfortunately, considering the highly subsidized in-state tuition rates, it is very difficult for public universities to be generous with OOS and international students. However, that is changing, and I would not be surprised if some public universities matched some of the Ivy League in this domain as well in the future.

All in all, I think Cal, Michigan and UVa, match some of the Ivies (obviously not HYP, but certainly Brown, Cornell and Penn).

30

Though it may not be the type of football you appreciate, Chicago does play intercollegiate varsity football. The ditching you might be referring to may be their 1939-1969 hiatus in the sport. More trivially, I’m sure you know that the Ivy League does not consistently comprise America’s oldest and richest colleges. By endowment per student, several are outside the top 25, I believe.

31

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Harvard: $33 billion endowment.

Columbia: $8.2 billion endowment

Princeton: $19 billion endowment

Pennsylvania: $8 billion endowment. And Wharton.

Yale: $21 billion endowment

Brown: $2.5 billion endowment.

Cornell: $5.3 billion endowment

Dartmouth: $4 billion endowment.

32

@hungryteenager, a number of non-Ivy privates (and a few publics) are comparable in wealth:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

33

I gotta say the name. Take Williams College, great school, costs the same as an Ivy, but it just doesn’t have the universal name recognition Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc have. Ask anyone in Botswana, Fiji, Azerbaijan or any other far flung country to name one college in the US and I guarantee it will be an Ivy.

34

@PurpleTitan For the “top” 5 Ivy’s, there are nearly no colleges with comparable endowments. You have Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, MIT, and Duke. And all except Stanford are blown out by the “top” 3.

35

“Ask anyone in Botswana, Fiji, Azerbaijan or any other far flung country to name one college in the US and I guarantee it will be an Ivy.”

Mandalorian, first of all, I do not think the majority of people in Fiji, Azerbaijan or Botswana would be able to name a single US university. Those that can are as unlikely to name Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn as they are to name most other top universities. Granted, HYP will often be named, but then again, so will Berkeley, MIT and Stanford. Those are the 6 most recognized US universities globally, with Columbia joining them as well.

36

For me, it was definitely their generous FA policies.

37

What you fail to breakdown for U of M, endowment is that 9.6 billion figure is factored towards near 30,000 undergrads, where at place like Yale, 24 billion supports about 5,000 or even Cornell which is around 14000 undergrad—huge difference.

38

@hungryteenager, in other words, there are about as many wealthy non-Ivies as there are Ivies (and you didn’t count the 2 TX university systems and UMich). If you didn’t do that because they don’t measure up in per capita wealth, then look at the per capita numbers at the bottom of that page.

You’ll see that there are 10 schools between HYP and the next Ivy (Dartmouth) by the per capita ranking. Then another 11 undergraduate schools (including one public: UVa) before the next Ivy (UPenn). Brown is next, but then you can see that on a per capita basis, there are 21 non-Ivies along with 5 Ivies in the top 26.

Now, I agree that the top of the Ivy League has tremendous resources (that’s why we have the HYPSM acronym), but why do Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell get credit just because they’re in the same sports conference as HYP?

If Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy, ND, Rice, Cal, UMich, UVa, & JHU got together and formed a sports league, would those schools suddenly rise in prestige? Should Vandy and ND get to ride the coattails of Stanford?

@boolaHI, on a per capita endowment basis, UMich is just one place below Cornell while UVa is smack dab in the middle of the Ivies. BTW, in the Wikipedia calculation, they spread the UT system’s endowment over the the total number of students in the UT system, but according to this article (http://alcalde.texasexes.org/2012/07/how-ut-shares-its-endowment/), UT-Austin gets at least 45% of the income generated by the UT system endowment. When you allocate that way over UT-Austin’s student body, their per capita endowment puts them right next to UMich.

Just counting other private research universities outside the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Rice, ND, Northwestern, Chicago, Duke, WashU, & Emory all are richer than the bottom 4 Ivies on a per capita endowment basis (as you can imagine, @OrchidBloom, those schools, as well as some others, tend to be just as generous as the non-HYP Ivies in fin aid).

Finally, I think it’s fair to count grad students because PhD’s are usually funded and grad students tend to use even more resources than undergrads; you don’t see giant lecture classes for grad students.

39

“What you fail to breakdown for U of M, endowment is that 9.6 billion figure is factored towards near 30,000 undergrads, where at place like Yale, 24 billion supports about 5,000 or even Cornell which is around 14000 undergrad—huge difference.”

What you fail to account for are economies of scale, graduate students (why are you leaving them out?) and state funding. Even in an absolute scale, Michigan’s endowment per student is roughly the same as Brown and Cornell, but when you factor in state funding, it matches Columbia and Penn as well.

40

Well, the discussion is squarely centered around undergraduate education…and if you wanted to talk about graduate /professional school level, YLS, has them all beat with about 1.1 billion supporting just about 600 students.