JHU is joining the Big 10 in men’s and women’s lacrosse only. No worry about the Jay’s going to the Rose Bowl.
Agree a very confusing question.
Ok, there are some major differences between the Big 10 and the IVY’s.
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Scholarship in Big 10, no money in the Ivies.
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Academic assistance is given in the Big 10, none at the IVYs.
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No special treatment for a student at the Ivies.
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Traveling in season is the same for both conferences
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Unofficial training is the same time, except for football and basketball
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Northwestern, Michigan are in a different academic class from Nebraska,
as HYP is in a different class from the other ivies.
Best advice is take a step back, and let your son/daughter negotiate where they feel most comfortable with the coaches/team/school.
Charles
That’s interesting about Johns Hopkins competing in the Big 10 in lacrosse only.
Roughly similar to that, there are conferences that are for certain less common sports only, e.g. several Pac 12 schools, plus schools from a variety of other western conferences, play sports like women’s lacrosse, men’s volleyball, and water polo in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Although both ACC and SEC are technically athletic conferences, and in terms of athletics, SEC is a far bigger name than ACC. In terms of academics, however, I heard people qualifying SEC schools as being in a tier immediately below that of ACC.
In my mind only some SEC schools truly are on an academic level just below that of ACC: Vanderbilt, Florida, Texas A&M, Alabama and possibly Auburn and a couple of others… I wouldn’t put Mississippi State (and possibly Tennessee, LSU) on the same academic level as Vanderbilt, Florida, Texas A&M, Alabama.
“1. Maryland won 6 NCAA titles in 6 years. Impressive. Not as impressive as 7 titles in 8.”
Since the first NCAA championship in 1982, Maryland has won 12 and come in second 7 times. I know lacrosse, I watched some of those NW championships when you had to have a special cable package because, darn, that’s just how popular women’s lacrosse is. You can argue NW is the best ever, and certainly was an impressive run, but I’m going to stick with my choice of Maryland as the strongest year in and year out.
NW is DIFFERENT in size, type of student, and sport focus of the other Big 10 (old) and new B1G 10 schools. Size wise it is not that different than Nebraska, but I think you’d agree that they aren’t the same type of school. All the other schools in the Big 10 are big state schools, most flagships. (Hopkins only plays lacrosse as a D1 sport) NW women won the NCAA titles in a sport most of the rest of the conference doesn’t/didn’t even play. When people think “B1G 10”, they aren’t thinking women’s lax. Did they even play in a ‘Big 10’ conference when NW was winning the championships? Sometimes if there are not enough schools in a conference (minimum 5), that sport is played outside the conference (women’s hockey is WCHA, not Big 10). Notre Dame, similar in size to NW and right in the Big 10 geographically, chooses to remain independent, although joins different conferences for different sports when it wants to.
This thread started about ranking the Ivy league schools against Big 10, which is just stupid unless you are comparing the sports teams because that’s what the Ivy league, the Big 10, the SEC are - schools that shared sports in common so decide to compete against each other and formed a conference. My daughter’s small D2 school’s rowing V-8 beat Michigan in a big race this year. Extremely exciting with the underdogs coming from behind at a wicked pace of 48 (how they didn’t explode I don’t know). Does that make the school better than Michigan, should we join the B1G 10? No, it is one sport. Overall, my daughter’s school is nothing like Michigan in sports or academic offerings. Her conference is made up of schools of like size and within a 3 hour radius, although not all academically the same type.
“That’s interesting about Johns Hopkins competing in the Big 10 in lacrosse only.”
Hopkins is a D3 school. NCAA rules allow schools to ‘play up’ in one sport for men, one for women. Hopkins asked the Big 10 if it could join, and the Big10 agreed.
There originally was an old rule that grandfathered in 4 schools for hockey to allow them to stay in their conferences and continue to offer D1 scholarships without violating Title IX (Colorado College, Union, and two others ?RPI?). Rules changed and all lower division schools can play one team ‘up’, hockey if they want or any other sport. The school does get to grant scholarships for the sport/s with the same limits as other D1 schools have.
There was some talk that JHU would also join the Big 10’s Committee on Institutional Cooperation, but that was some time ago. UChicago is the only a CIC member not part of the athletic conference.
@TiggyB62 I’m still getting my head around Penn State. Big 10 people! Can tell who grew up a Big 10 kid.
@Zinhead Any idea why UChicago is a CIC member? Is that a vestige of its long ago Big 10 membership?
@bluewater2015 - Yes, from their website:
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation was established by the presidents of the Big Ten Conference members in 1958 as the athletic league’s academic counterpart. An invitation extended to the University of Chicago, one of the founding members of the Big Ten who withdrew from the conference in 1946, was accepted.
Following its admittance to the Big Ten in 1990, the CIC invited the Pennsylvania State University to join the consortium. University of Nebraska-Lincoln joined the Big Ten in 2011, and the CIC extended an invitation that culminated in UN-L’s admittance to the consortium on July 1, 2011. The CIC welcomed the University of Maryland and Rutgers University to membership July 1, 2013, in advent of the schools’ admittance to the Big Ten in 2014.
During UChicago campus tours, they make a big deal that UC used to be part of the Big 10 but left over academic issues. It would be more impressive if they mentioned that UC was part of the CIC and how it helps to attract research dollars.
Well, maybe there’s no overt special treatment. There is some special treatment, though.
The truth is that, no matter how many people repeat the contrary over and over here on CC, the Ivy League is something more than, or at least different from, an athletic league. In this respect, I think it is different from other athletic leagues (except, maybe, for NESCAC).
I think that at the grad/PhD level, yes, you could say that the top half (or so) of the Big Ten is competitive with the Ivies:
Michigan
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Illinois
Minnesota
Purdue
IU
Ohio State
Penn State
(especially the top 5) …all have at least several highly ranked grad and PhD programs. Michigan, NU, Wisc, UIUC and Minnesota have quite many highly ranked programs. At these levels, yes, the B1G is competitive with the Ivies.
At the undergrad level, you could argue that the top half (or so) of the Big Ten has the same quality of education as the non-HYP Ivies… but you cannot say that the endowments, per-student spending, opportunities to go abroad, or job placement resources (etc.) are in the same ballpark. That is what (IMO) separates the Ivies and other top private universities from the big state schools. Northwestern, obviously, offers those private-school attributes.
Because Northwestern is the same type of school as the Ivies, I feel far more comfortable comparing it to them at the undergrad level. I feel like NU is a direct peer of Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell – same quality.
The University of Chicago was one of 7 founding members of the athletic conference that later became the Big Ten, along with Michigan, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Purdue. The conference was founded in 1896. Chicago remained a member until 1946 when it withdrew, stating that it was no longer able to “provide reasonable equality of competition.” (Ohio State didn’t join until 1912).
The CIC wasn’t founded until 1958 but membership was offered to the University of Chicago on the basis of that school’s longstanding ties to the Big Ten universities whose presidents met twice annually to make athletic conference decisions but also to share information on common problems on the scholarly and educational fronts, budgeting, HR, issues, etc. The CIC was created to formalize those institutional exchanges and to promote inter-institutional cooperation on non-athletic matters. The University of Chicago was a natural fit to be part of that consortium,
Chicago’s history in the Big Ten is an illustrious one. Its football team, the Maroons, were the original “Monsters of the Midway,” the Midway being, of course, Midway Plaisance, the wide boulevard that runs along the south side of the University of Chicago campus, originally built to host amusements during the 1893 Chicago World Fair (officially the World’s Columbian Exposition), which is why the amusement area in every state fair and county fair is now know as the “midway.” “Monsters of the Midway” was later applied to the Chicago Bears, but only after the University of Chicago had terminated its football program; at the time, the Bears played in Wrigley Field on the North Side many miles away from the Midway, so in a way calling the Bears “Monsters of the Midway” was an indirect homage to University of Chicago football, a way of equating the Bears to the great Maroons football teams. The Maroons, coached for 41 years by the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, won 7 Big Ten football championships and 2 national championships. Maroons halfback Jay Berwanger was the first recipient of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy, later known as the Heisman Trophy, in 1935. Legendary Michigan football coach and athletic director Fritz Crisler, the inventor of now-standard tactic of two-platoon football (substituting entirely different squads for offense and defense), learned his football at the University of Chicago as an All-American end for Coach Stagg and the Maroons.
Though it would set their average test scores back a bit, I’d love to see U Chicago get back into D1 athletics and resume their spot in the B1G. Obviously it would help the academic rep of the league and for a few years would give us a doormat to slaughter on the field, the court, the ice. hehe
There is no better or worse in general terms. One might start at college and realize that the place just does not work for her. her specific goals or does not fit her personality or whatever else. Then what? The place may work perfectly for others. Academics will suffer if person feel miserable most of the time. This is not any theoretical assumptions, everybody knows that this is happening over and over. What works for some will not work for everybody and how you can compare academics anyway? if name and ranking is at the top of the priority list, than attend at Ivy’s. If not, then research seriously, visit several times and make sure that the place fits YOUR personal criteria and not somebody else (like your GC) who worry more about the name and the ranking.
I know many people who still have a hard time fully accepting Penn State as a Big Ten member, even though they’ve been part of the conference for 25 years now. The thing is, though, that while the “traditional” Big Ten membership of your childhood seems like it must have been around forever, it really wasn’t. The seven original members (Michigan, Purdue, Chicago, Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) added Indiana and Iowa in 1899, but didn’t add Ohio State until 1912. Michigan dropped out between 1908 and 1917, when it rejoined. Chicago remained a member until 1946 when it withdrew (though it had dropped football in 1939). Michigan State didn’t join until 1949 and didn’t begin competing in football until 1952. So the Big Ten as you knew it in your childhood really only existed for 38 years, from the time Michigan State began competing in football until 1990 when Penn State joined the conference.
Some people also think the Big Ten now spans an absurdly large geographic footprint, from Minneapolis and Lincoln, NE to New Jersey and Maryland. It’s a goodly distance, alright—1,288 miles from the University of Nebraska to Rutgers being the longest distance between any two Big Ten schools. But this isn’t so unusual. The ACC extends from Boston to Miami, a distance of 1,497 miles—yet people assume that because it’s all on the Eastern Seaboard, the distances must be less. The Pac 12 extends from Tucson to Seattle, a distance of 1,537 miles. The Big 12 extends from Morgantown, WV to Lubbock, TX—a distance of 1,465 miles. And the SEC is only slightly more compact—Columbia, MO to Gainesville, FL is 1,005 miles. So the Big Ten actually has one of the smaller geographic footprints among the five major “power conferences.”
But as the B1G 10 becomes the ‘Overlarge 15ish’, it does lose its flavor and traditions? Will there be a ‘Paul Bunyon’s Ax’ type trophy between Maryland and Nebraska? Will anyone care?
I went to a Big 8 school when there were 8 schools. We ‘knew’ the other schools and traveled to them for games, had rivalries with our sorority chapters at those schools. Once the other 4 teams joined and it became the big 12, no one cared about Iowa State, Oklahoma and OSU went to the ‘Texas’ part of the conference, it wasn’t as fun anymore.
Is change good? It can be but it ain’t easy. I will say traveling to away games in Seattle and SF is a lot more fun than Lincoln or Oklahoma City, at least as an adult. As a college kid, going to Ames was pretty fun.
Thanks Zinhead and bclintonk, that’s some interesting history. If I recall correctly Chicago was not too competitive in Big 10 football toward the end of its membership though it certainly was earlier. Probably the days of big time sports were numbered as soon as Robert Maynard Hutchins took over as president, although it took a number of years.
Hunt, I agree that the Ivy League is different in that the schools are a lot closer academically than in other athletic conferences. Of course there is a range of size, prestige, endowments etc. within the Ivies but still they are all very strong academic schools. I agree that NESCAC and also UAA are roughly along the same lines, though of course those are D3.
In the Big 10, Pac 12, ACC etc. there’s a much wider range on the academic side including some schools that are not that close academically to schools like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern.
I’m currently working on my xth degree from my 2nd big 10 school. I’ve almost accepted Nebraska but I refuse to accept Maryland and Rutgers. No just no.
I don’t sere much loss of “flavor and traditions” from where I sit. I’m a Michigan alum, living in Minnesota. Minnesota’s two biggest football rivalry games each year are Wisconsin and Iowa. Under the Big Ten’s new division format, those games will continue to be played every year, home-and-away in alternating years. No change, no diminution of rivalries. Michigan’s biggest rivalry games are Ohio State and Michigan State; again, no change. What has changed is that Michigan used to win those games more often than it has in recent years, but that has nothing to do with conference expansion. The Michigan-Minnesota “battle for the Little Brown Jug” won’t happen every year anymore, but they’ll still haul out the jug when it is played; and frankly, I don’t think that was a “rivalry” that ever meant that much to Michigan anyway, the jug was just a cute trophy with a cute story. It may have meant more to Minnesota, but no one’s losing any sleep over it. And Michigan folks are far more upset over being x-ed out of Notre Dame’s non-conference schedule because that’s a rivalry that dates back to 1887, when Michigan’s football team literally got off the train on their way to Chicago and took a few hours to teach the Notre Dame boys how to play the game of football, and the two schools went on to become the all-team leaders nationally in most wins (Michigan #1, Notre Dame #2) and highest winning percentage (Notre Dame #1, Michigan #2).
Meanwhile, new rivalries are beginning to emerge, e.g., Nebraska-Iowa, Nebraska-Minnesota, Nebraska-Wisconsin. Ohio State-Penn State has become a big deal over the years, and I could see Penn State-Rutgers and Penn State-Maryland becoming big regional rivalries. Meanwhile, Michigan is delighted to have the opportunity to play in alternating years in the New York/New Jersey and DC markets because there are tens of thousands of Michigan alums in both those markets and the school draws a very substantial fraction of its undergraduate student body from those markets.
Maryland-Nebraska? Doesn’t sound like promising rivalry material, but then it’s never been the case that every conference game was a rivalry game or came with a trophy. With the division format Maryland and Nebraska will likely face each other only once every 3 years or so anyway.