<p>lol tokenadult we are aware of what the ivy league is. It's just easier to compare schools that are in a certain group.</p>
<p>i would say harvard or columbia. i just love the city</p>
<p>Cuz the ivies are the be all and end all of schools, obvi!!</p>
<p>I think tokenadult was pointed to the other "Ivies" (the public Ivies, Little Ivies, etc.).</p>
<p>What's your favorite Pac Ten college? </p>
<p>What's your favorite Big Ten college?</p>
<p>Cornell because of ILR :)</p>
<p>For the Big10, I'll probably go with Wisconsin. Madison sounds awesome.</p>
<p>For the Pac10, probably Cal. The Bay Area beats the **** out of LA or any other area along the west coast.</p>
<p>tokenadult: start threads about those schools.........I chose the Ivy League b/c its a well known grouping of schools that should be fun to rank. People like you that get really defensive when anybody mentions the Ivy League need to calm down.</p>
<p>my favorite ivy is MIT...oh wait, MIT's not an ivy!! that's cuz it's way too cool to be an ivy.</p>
<p>oh but otherwise i would chose Penn, just Wharton tho =)</p>
<p>I'm just wondering if you are looking at other colleges. If you are putting dissimilar colleges such as Brown (no required courses) and Columbia (lots of required courses) on the same list, it may be that you are doing so because you want to study in the northeast, or because you are planning to be a recruited athlete in the Ivy League with its genuinely distinctive rules for how to treat recruited athletes, or perhaps for some other reasons, but there are so many really cool colleges that have much of the appeal of one or another of the eight Ivy League colleges that I just wonder why "Ivy League" is the relevant grouping. It is a convenient grouping in much the way that Pac Ten or Big Ten is a convenient grouping, but possibly not relevant for many applicants.</p>
<p>Answering the question in the OP: </p>
<p>My favorite Ivy League college is Harvard, partly because it has the most interesting college-specific forum on CC, with great contributions by alumni and parents of current students.</p>
<p>yeah, I see what you are saying tokenadult, I just did it because they are all schools of high calibar that can easily be identified that are distinct enough that people should have strong opinions (such as favoring open curriculum or strict core etc.)</p>
<p>It's society's fetishization of the "Ivy League" ideal that puts it so high up on people's priorities for college selection.</p>
<p>Granted, no small part of it is the 5 "lesser" ivies riding on the coattails of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but hey, I can still say I'm an Ivy Leaguer. And it works. </p>
<p>Case in point: my employer (among others) only recruits at the schools of the Ivy League, despite their substantial differences.</p>
<p>I suppose I should do something about it, but it's just so much in my self-interest to keep up the charade that the Ivy League has a monopoly on excellence..which for the record, they don't (after all, there's Stanford ;)) But really, if I didn't get into Penn there would be a whole lot of schools that are more "Penn-like" than the rest of the Ivies in one way or another, be it large size, urban setting, student attitude, social scene, curricular breadth beyond pure liberal arts, or any other things.</p>
<p>uhm..i'll say cornell for now. i haven't heard anyone talk crap about it, have you?</p>
<p>Brown...at what other college can you do the Naked Donut Run?</p>
<p><a href="#32">url=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059719667-post32.html</a> ilovebagels:</p>
<p>My 'Ivy' education provided the critical thinking skills to conclude that there are a number of great schools in our country outside the 'league'. We are very lucky to have so many top-quality college options.</p>
<p>If I was doing it all again, I would be proud to attend any of the Tier 1, non-Ivy schools without giving it a second thought. There are several Tier 2 schools that have excellent programs and dedicated educators as well. A top quality, small LAC would be an option as well. </p>
<p>A lot of the "Ivy-this...Ivy-that" on these threads is a bit over-the-top and belies 'in-the-box', conventional thinking that would be shunned at the very institutions the posters are aspiring to.</p>
<p>Two books that expand on this are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Harvard</a> Schmarvard</p></li>
<li><p>Colleges</a> That Change Lives</p></li>
</ul>