Ivy Plus is more of an academic/professor grouping. Last time I checked they have a real office at Yale that coordinates their common activities
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Amusing and thought-provoking as this discussion is, I have to register my dissent to the general proposition that the University should be seeking to join some form of other-than-ivy league of schools. Some will argue that this is just a matter of utility, but to me it sounds like a seeking after status. At one level this seems simply pathetic - as if the new club was to be a rival to the more prestigious one that these schools really wanted to be in. Unfair, I know, but it has that feel about it. I also don’t like the way it further reinforces the difference between the elite schools and all the other ones. We know this exists, and we know (much as I hate to admit it) that it is increasingly becoming part of Chicago’s appeal. That has not, however, been Chicago’s history. Even today I see it as a negative and unintended consequence of the sort of educational experience Chicago has always offered. It was always the un-ivy, with its emphasis on merit rather than class and family, with its essential seriousness of purpose, with its maverick history of educational experimentation in its College and its many Chicago-named schools of thought. Of course its undergraduate education and its departments can be compared with others, of course it is not utterly unique. But these multifarious and shifting comparisons are one thing as thought-experiments used for illustrative purposes, or even when actually created on the ground for this or that specific purpose. It would be quite another thing to rigidify them into a formal association something like the ivy league, at any rate a wanna-be ivy league. I grant that Chicago’s independent tradition would not be altogether lost, but it would be a misstep all the same, inconsistent with the core meaning of the place and a mimicry of the worst aspects of the ivy tradition - snobbery, wealth, social elitism, timid establishment-oriented thinking. Dare I say that UChicago’s soul (what others might call its “brand”) would be diminished?
@CU123 here is what wikipedia has to say about which schools are in the ivy+, it is referencing two books written about the top schools:
“The term Ivy Plus is sometimes used to refer to the Ancient Eight plus several other schools for purposes of alumni associations,[137][138] university affiliations,[138][139][140][141] or endowment comparisons.[142][143][144][145] In his book Untangling the Ivy League, Zawel writes, “The inclusion of non-Ivy League schools under this term is commonplace for some schools and extremely rare for others. Among these other schools, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University are almost always included. The University of Chicago and Duke University are often included as well.”[138] In their 2015 book Acing Admissions, Mehta and Dixit write, “The [Ivy Plus schools] include, but are not limited to: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University and Northwestern University. Besides selectivity, these Ivy Plus colleges are thought to share similar values around academic and professional excellence, intellectual curiosity, leadership and civil engagement.”[146]”
Collective groaning, head shaking, and palms on forehead coming from alumni and students of an athletic league comprising eight universities that happen to be old, geographically within driving distance of one another for team buses, and typically excel at solo sports and team sports other colleges don’t play. Okay, I’m exaggerating, they don’t totally suck at everything. Except Yale. (That’s a joke.)
Why bother appropriating the Ivy label for other whimsical and arbitrary categorizations? There are so many more interesting plants to choose from: Cactus League, Redwood League, Tulip League, Poison Oak League, Unidentified Impossible-to-Kill Weeds League (that’s actually pretty fierce). Besides, everyone is already part of some league or another. Extend these friendly rivalries to academic competitions. It will raise the bar for all the member colleges.