<p>It turns out that the Ivy League label doesn’t provide nearly as much lift to non-HYP members as one might think. Using Wesleyan as a benchmark, Dartmouth and Brown barely register a bump. After 1954, it’s all HYP:
[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Harvard+University%2CYale+University%2CPrinceton+University%2CDartmouth+College%2CWesleyan+University%2CBrown+University&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Harvard+University%2CYale+University%2CPrinceton+University%2CDartmouth+College%2CWesleyan+University%2CBrown+University&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>
<p>You are every bit as geeky as I am. I think this is incredibly fascinating. You, me and 23 other people.</p>
<p>I suppose it begs the question, how well the other members of the Ivy League have fared since 1954:
[Google</a> Ngram Viewer](<a href=“http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Harvard+University%2CYale+University%2CPrinceton+University%2CDartmouth+College%2CColumbia+University%2CBrown+University%2CCornell+University%2C+University+of+Pennsylvania&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3]Google”>http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Harvard+University%2CYale+University%2CPrinceton+University%2CDartmouth+College%2CColumbia+University%2CBrown+University%2CCornell+University%2C+University+of+Pennsylvania&year_start=1701&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3)</p>
<p>I would say, the results are not all that different from how individual members of the Ancient Eight might be viewed by fellow members of the AAU. In other words, this is almost a proxy for how much “chatter” has been produced by a combination of Ivy League graduate schools, Ivy League professional schools, Ivy League research labs and yes – Ivy League academic presses. None of that is unique to the Ivy League and in the end it may reflect the degree to which even the most hide-bound of institutions have been buffeted by changes in academic fashion and necessity over the past century.</p>