Although both Ivy League and Big Ten are technically athletic conferences, and in terms of athletics, Big Ten is a far bigger name than Ivy League. In terms of academics, however, I heard people qualifying Big Ten schools as being in a tier immediately below that of Ivies.
In my mind only some Big Ten schools truly are on an academic level just below that of Ivies: Northwestern, Michigan, UIUC, Wisconsin and possibly Minnesota and a couple of others… I wouldn’t put Nebraska (and possibly IU, Iowa) on the same academic level as NWU, Michigan, UIUC, Wisconsin.
Are you asking a question? Certainly Michigan, Northwestern, and Wisconsin can hold their own academically against some of the Ivy League schools. But just like the Ivies are not monolithic (it s a SPORTS league, just like the Big 10 is!), all the schools are on the same level. But I don’t really see the point of this post… it only makes sense if you assume that the Ivy League schools are all on the same level academically (they aren’t), or that the lowest Ivy is better than the best Big 10 school (it isn’t). So… what is your point?
It’s really “on average” that these two conferences are not on the same level… sure, on a school-by-school basis, Michigan, NWU, Wisconsin, UIUC could be academic comparables to Brown, Dartmouth, but it’s really at that level that there is any academic overlap between the conferences.
Only does the term Big Ten really have any widespread usage for academics?
Michigan & Cornell have a lot of parallels, actually. I often recommend the “other one” to students who like one of those schools. But really, has anyone actually said that on the whole the two conferences are academically comparable? I doubt it…
Cornell and UMich have similarities.
Pre-professional private Penn and pre-professional private Ivy-equivalent Northwestern have similarities (and IMO, only the ignorant would put Northwestern on a tier lower than the non-HYP Ivies; by every metric that you can look at, NU is well within the range of the lower Ivies).
But count me as one confused by the purpose of your post. Both the Ivy league and B10 are athletic conferences with schools of varying academic strength within them. Just like the Pac12 has both HYPSM member Stanford and, uh, non-HYPSM school WSU.
So would you refer to the Pac12 in an academic fashion?
Also, are you talking about undergrad or grad school? Because a ton of B10 schools are research powerhouses. H & P (and maybe Y) are at the top, but most of the B10 compare very well with the non-HYP Ivies in research. Indeed, most outrank Brown and wallop Dartmouth if you talk about research.
I think the B1G 10 is a lot higher than one tier athletically over the Ivies. Each Ivy might have an outstanding team in one or two sports per year or have no teams that are very competitive (nationally) at all, but most B1G 10 schools have several superior teams year after year, with the exception of Northwestern.
Athletic conferences usually try to form with other similar schools in the same area of the country. The B1G 10 is really starting to stretch over the country, from Nebraska to Maryland. Originally, it was expensive and almost impossible to travel around the country just to play a football or basketball game so teams played their neighbors. Now it is easier for Wisconsin to play Florida or Arizona because they just hop on an airplane. For Maryland to play Nebraska is just a little longer plane ride, not 2-3 days on a bus, so being in the same conference can now work. Both land grant colleges, lots in common, why not?
The schools in a conference are usually the same size, same type (land grant school, small private school, midsized private school), and still most common to be in the same area. They usually spend that same amount of money on athletes, sponsor the same types of teams. B1G 10 schools might have hockey but not fencing and the hockey teams may be in a different conference, WCHA, to bring in other schools that can compete in hockey but not football.
Although I see a similarity in most schools in the same conferences there are always exceptions. Northwestern is not like most B1G 10 schools in size or type of school. PAC 12 is mostly large flagships, but then USC and Stanford are in it too.
I’m not sure I understand why the OP is rating schools by which football conference they belong to.
It depends on lots of factors and what academic area you are considering. If you look at engineering, for example, Michigan is arguable superior to Cornell, especially in terms of sheer volume and scope of research and citations, and superior to the rest of the Ivys. Each university has strong and weak departments academically.
You should examine the ranking methodologies carefully too, USNWR rates Michigan #29th domestically and #14th globally. Princeton is ranked #1 domestically and #13 globally. So they are essentially the same ranking globally, but are 28 schools apart domestically. Does that make any sense to you?
The two largest schools from a research perspective are Hopkins and Michigan.
@twoinanddone, please read up on Northwestern athletics before spouting off from a position of ignorance.
The NU women’s lacrosse team just had the most dominant run ever by any school in that sport (arguably the most dominant run ever by any school in any NCAA sport outside of Wooden’s UCLA basketball team). 7 NCAA Div I titles in 8 years from 2005-2012.
NU’s football team has also been solidly in the B10 middle-class for 20 years now (not an insignificant achievement for a small private school that demands rigorous academic standards even for its athletes) and the school is competitive in some other sports as well.
OP’s post seems to have no point that I can discern, but if OP is comparing the academic opportunities for athletes in these two conferences, they couldn’t be further apart.
Ivy athletes enjoy a conference that is geographically close, and therefore the travel demands on athletes are hugely less than the travel demands on Big Ten athletes, who must travel across the nation for contests (necessitating many days away from campus out of each week in season, depending on the sport).
Ivy athletes cannot get athletic scholarships (like D3’s). Big Ten athletes can and obviously do receive scholarships.
Big Ten athletes are expected to put in a ton of voluntary hours toward their sport, typically well in excess of NCAA maximums (note: the time is “voluntary” and therefore OK by NCAA rules). Ivy athletes have a much more sane schedule geared toward allowing the athletes to prioritize academics over athletics.
Revenue from certain sports is a huge deal at Big Ten schools, who have their own network deal that pays handsomely. Athletes in these sports are carefully chosen and prized with the expectation that they will generate more revenue. Not really the case (in the same direct, commercial way) in the Ivy League.
There are many blatant as well as subtle differences between these two athletic conferences from a student-athlete’s perspective. Even the fact that most of the ivies are much smaller schools than most of the Big Ten schools plays a part in the treatment and perception of athletes on these campuses (for example, a significant portion of the student body at Dartmouth plays a sport, but the student athlete population at Michigan is proportionately tiny).
I really don’t see how these conferences can be compared in any useful way.
“The NU women’s lacrosse team just had the most dominant run ever by any school in that sport”
Most dominant ever? I think Maryland may argue that. I didn’t say that Northwestern doesn’t have any good athletes or any good teams, but compared to Michigan or Wisconsin, they are the little guy. I know about the lacrosse team, but rather ironically, woman’s lacrosse (and men’s for that matter) is not a sport that is strong in the B1G 10 and is just becoming popular with the other schools adding D1 teams (many played club teams, but not D1 teams). With Maryland joining the B1G 10 this year and Hopkins in 2017, there will certainly be more conference competition for NW. NW is more like Hopkins, and Hopkins only plays D1 in lacrosse, so adding them to the B1G 10 in lacrosse doesn’t change any B1G 10 rankings. NW is more like a lot of D3 schools, but doesn’t want to leave the B1G 10; it gets a lot of shared revenue.
You aren’t going to convince me that NW, on a regular basis, will compete with Wisconsin or Michigan in football for a trip to the Rose Bowl. They’ve had some good years, but many not so good. It’s exciting when they play the spoiler, but that doesn’t happen often.
NW is not like the other schools in the old Big 10, and it’s getting farther and farther away from the schools in the new B1G 10 in size. They don’t compete in nearly as many sports as the bigger schools, and that’s fine, they don’t have to. If the league was being formed today, I don’t think NW would be in the B1G 10. Of course, the Ivy league might pick different members too if it were just picking teams to play sports. Sports league certainly weren’t formed with female athletes in mind and certainly not with the NW women’s lax team being the best team at the school.
Maryland won 6 NCAA titles in 6 years. Impressive. Not as impressive as 7 titles in 8.
Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Rutgers, and Maryland also play football in the B10, not just the power schools you named. How likely are they to win a B10 football title? So why don’t you single them out instead of slagging on NU? I did say that NU football is solidly in the B10 middle-class. You seem to disagree. If you want, I can show you the W/L record over the past 2 decades.
NU does offer less sports than some other schools, but Wisconsin doesn’t even have baseball (which, while not part of the Big 2 sports, is in that tier of college sports right below).
I’m a product of both the Ivy and large state conference universities You can find something great about each type. Generalized rankings mean little to a specific individual.
Too general. B1G hockey is not competitive. Yale won the NCAA tournament a couple years ago. It really does depend on the sport. Would be surprised if they were competitive in crew either.
I’d think you’d just about have to be a big 10 grad to consider them near equals even though a couple of them made the Public Ivy list some years ago. But “public” is a big qualifier, an acknowledgement.
For graduate school, however, especially in the sciences, I feel the tables are reversed.
Purdue alum here. Northwestern is far better in football. The Boilers, sadly, are in the bottom of the Big Ten in football. The only bowl they can win is the toilet bowl and really, the only two football games that matter to us are IU and Notre Dame. Now basketball is a different story!
Maybe I’m just being nostalgic and a Big Ten purist, but I didn’t like it when Nebraska joined years ago! Now Maryland and Rutgers and JHU? No offense, but gone are the good old days! Notre Dame was smart to stay independent for football ($$$$$) :))
In OP’s confusing question in her second post, she may be implying whether someone says “I’m applying to some Big 10 schools”, the same way someone says “I’m applying to ivies” and whether that means anything in terms of academics. And as has already been discussed, it doesn’t really b/c there is a much wider variation of schools in the Big 10 than the Ivies, so it would make more sense to discuss applying to Big 10 schools by the individual schools, as opposed to the conference.
All of that said, not sure of the point, if this even was the point. Time to get more coffee…