Another thread (maybe a post by @Penn95 ?) got me thinking more about this - why shouldn’t Chicago form an academic league (e.g. for academic competitions) with Stanford, MIT, and Duke?
Nothing super formal or costly - I’m thinking once a year MIT could host a hackathon and invite the other three schools, maybe Chicago could host a math competition, Duke could do something in health sciences (biz comp for health startups?), and Stanford could do something in the humanities - like a conference on literature, poetry, to round it out. To sweeten the pot, employers could host receptions - so tech companies could go to MIT’s hackathon, pharma companies to Duke, quant and hedge funds to chicagos math comp, publishing houses, newspapers, etc to Stanford.
You’d have some of the best college talent in the world coming together, and this cements ties between the schools. It’s a breath of fresh air from traditional athletic competition, too.
Costs would be minimal - athletic teams travel a lot more frequently.
Then, just as Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Penn benefit from being able to rub shoulders with Harvard and Yale, Chicago and Duke probably benefit by association with Stanford and MIT. Heck, these are all great schools - they would all benefit from an association with each other.
Well it might work but who really gains here…UChicago and Duke. Stanford and MIT really can stand alone and do just fine, and BTW Harvard and MIT already have a fairly close relationship since there less than a mile from each other and students are allowed to take classes at each college. Interestingly, some at UT really wanted to join the PAC-12 when the Big 12 was breaking up just to be in the same athletic league as Stanford. Big money ended that idea.
They Ivy league is just a sports league given their proximity. The four schools you have mentions are, one, on completely different parts of the US, and, two, are in completely different sports leagues.The purpose of the league is to have a good system for sports tournaments. Worst of all, Stanford and Duke are D1 while MIT and Chicago are D3 meaning that they are on completely different levels of competition.
@Cue7 dont know which post of mine inspired this but thanks for the creds haha.
Tbh I don’t think Stanford and MIT would even bother with the idea. Their brands are stronger than all ivies except Harvard and also pretty comparable to the overall Ivy League brand. Also between them they cover the top of every field. So they have nothing to gain from this.
I agree that all other ivies benefit a lot from the association with Harvard, and also Penn, Columbia,Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell benefit from association with HYP. But that happened organically over the years and there is a lot of common history/similarities shared between all ivies going way back, especially between the 7 ones founded in the colonial era (even though the actual Ivy League name came much later).
Regarding the events you mention, they are already happening, such as the Penn Apps and MIT hackathons, which are open to any school.
@HorsesPwn42 - did you read my post at all? I suggested that Stanford Chicago MIT and Duke create an ACADEMIC league - where they have hackathons, math competitions, etc maybe 2-4 times a year total. No sports competitions. So, participants would travel infrequently - not nearly as much as sports teams.
@CU123 - I agree Chicago and Duke have more to gain institutionally, but from a student perspective, this could be a draw for all the schools. Better yet, the competitions/conferences could tie into signature events at all the schools. So, at the Chicago event, students could tour the (soon to be created) Obama presidential library or the museum of science and industry, or something in downtown Chicago - like the symphony. Participants at the Stanford event could go to a Stanford football game.
For students at any of these colleges that’d be a fun perk - Chicago students could experience a Stanford football game while also doing a hackathon at MIT. Students at Duke could go to the Chicago symphony, etc.
Doesn’t UChicago already compete in stuff like Quiz Bowl, Debate, Model UN and other academic competitions that have a strong geographical component? They do varsity vocals too (my D is thrilled).
The top students competing at these things are pretty good - regardless of their school. For instance, in quiz bowl the top 10 nationally include Northwestern, Michigan, Chicago, UMN - with WUSTL and OK right behind. All ranked ahead of MIT and Duke (though Stanford is up there too). Why should UChicago narrow its opportunity set?
Also, even given the age of the internet, proximity is still important. These four schools are pretty far apart and in completely distinct regions of the country. Clearly the Ivy’s benefit from their much closer physical relationship (some more than others, perhaps).
If UChicago is going to host a math competition as suggested in the OP, they should let CMU into their league. See this year’s Putnam results. Or, there could just be the Putnam…
This is interesting. How about regional Ivy Leagues combining LACs and private U’s?
Mid-Atlantic Ivies:
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Penn
Swarthmore
Cornell
Haverford
Wesleyan
Johns Hopkins
Georgetown
Vassar
Hamilton
Colgate
Barnard
Bryn Mawr
NYU
New England Ivies:
Harvard
MIT
Williams
Amherst
Dartmouth
Brown
Middlebury
Bowdoin
Wellesley
Smith
Tufts
Colby
Bates
Boston College
Brandeis
Holy Cross
Midwest Ivies:
Chicago
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Washington U
Carleton
Grinnell
Oberlin
Macalester
Kenyon
St. Olaf
Denison
Southern Ivies:
Duke
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory
Washington & Lee
Davidson
Richmond
Wake Forest
Tulane
Sewanee
Rhodes
Western Ivies:
Stanford
Caltech
Pomona
CMC
Reed
USC
Harvey Mudd
Scripps
Colorado College
Whitman
Occidental
Pitzer
I think that the current members are happy with the exclusivity of 8, and are not eager to open it up to 60 plus! And God help the schools on the bubble who are left out! LOL!
Of late, the “Ivy Plus” group (the 8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, and Duke) seems to have caught considerable traction. The NY Times grouped colleges this way in its article on economic diversity:
Nothing wrong to me about the “Ivy Plus” term getting more play - and nothing wrong with Chicago being grouped together with Stanford and Harvard as much as possible!
Interestingly, both articles include MIT, Stanford, and UChicago, but the second article throws in Duke to the “Ivy Plus” grouping, of course the second article was written by the Duke Chronicle.
Just scroll to the middle of the article - that’s where they identify the twelve ivy plus schools - and that’s the eight ivies, Stanford, UChicago, MIT, and Duke.
That’s been more or less the most constant grouping of the ivy plus schools - and something the schools should try to further cement with conferences, competitions, recruiting fairs, etc.
But here is a little blurb I found on the Ivy plus name.
"In searching for online information around “Ivy Plus,” I found several different organizations and groups that use that term, and the schools that are considered part of each group vary slightly. Of course, the eight schools of the Ivy League are always included, as are Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago.
But Duke, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins are part of the “Ivy Plus Sustainability Working Group,” according to a page devoted to that group at Cornell, while a Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences page announcing an annual “Ivy Plus Symposium” in 2014 (that appears no longer to be offered) lists 13 schools in its “Ivy Plus Consortium,” the other two being New York University and the University of California, Berkeley (generally regarded as the most prestigious of the “public Ivies”)."
So I think you could definitely include Stanford MIT and UChicago, but after that…
Interesting that CT is not mentioned at all, fairly specialized school though without much in the liberal arts dept. Probably wouldn’t fit in with this grouping.