Rome started as a small town but ended up conquering and progressively admitting to Roman citizenship, firstly its suburban tribes, then all of Italy, followed by the lands of the Mediterranean littoral, the Germanic barbarians and much of the known world. Could it happen here? Does Princetonization (or its variants, Harvardification and Yalicization) await the unwary school that dares to claim elite status?
Why not just call this group the “Top Twenty”? For most of us the term “ivy” connotes more than an athletic league, but the connotations aren’t entirely positive. I am happy to let the ivies remain in their historical niche and do their thing. UChicago doesn’t need to wrap itself in that mantle. It has its own history and educational philosophy, which has always been a work in progress and remains so. If there are intersections with some or all the ivies I can live with that, but I don’t want the moniker itself or even many of the traits that go with it, and I can’t see what the word would mean in practice other than a pathetic aping of someone else’s brand. @bluebayou is right about that much.
However, I do like Cue’s idea of attaching a single defining adjective or phrase to each of these elite schools, a la the Malcolm Gladwell “Blink” test. All those schools are more varied than any such single descriptor, but they all also have different essential cultures - cultures worth preserving in their distinctness. Attaching a stereotypical moniker to a school flags it to all the kids who resonate to the tune of that moniker, and they in turn reinforce the moniker by the fact of having chosen it.
By the way, @Cue7 , in the sixties UChicago students were also worrying about Princetonization, Havardification, etc. Worrying about such things shows a will to resist them. The barbarians did that, and they prevailed over the mighty Roman Empire. Fight!
@marlowe1 - I certainly agree, the “ivy” term has pejorative connotations, but Chicago seems to have embraced many portions of that. Maybe even more than some schools in the “Top 20” (like Hopkins, Notre Dame, Rice, and Vanderbilt), Chicago has a large chunk of undergrads from traditional ivy feeders (like Andover, Exeter, etc.), the student body is probably wealthier (on the aggregate) than ever before, and the exit outcomes (especially skewing toward finance and consulting) resemble it’s ivy brethren more than most (certainly in the bottom half of that “Top 20”).
Chicago is also a more active participant in the “ivy+” consortium (which generally includes the top dozen schools - and Cornell and Brown are baked in), and seems to have embraced policy changes that wrap it in the ivy clothing. (Chicago just began a women’s lacrosse program, for crying out loud! If lacrosse doesn’t scream east coast privilege, I don’t know what does. When is the squash program starting? A quick look at their lacrosse roster reveals the usual suspects of high schools - Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, Greenwich, Sidwell Friends, etc. etc.) The women’s lacrosse team, btw, is excellent - they went 15-3 last year. Like so many Chicago sports teams, they do very well.
So again, per that blink test, we have the ivy of the west and the little ivies and public ivies, so why not the Academic Ivy? And, let’s be real - I think Chicago lives up to the moniker “Academic Ivy” very nicely.
Stanford doesn’t consider itself the “Ivy” of anything. I say that from extensive and current involvement there. I’m sure Chicago is confident enough that it doesn’t need to attach itself to “Ivy” either.
My experience @Cue7 is that Harvard used to try to act superior by calling Stanford the ”Harvard of the West” years ago and now perhaps those proud of their Ivy League status try to do the same. Stanford and Chicago don’t need to be defined by others. No one at Stanford would consider that label as a positive. The closest description is HYPS. If it helps, I am a neutral with degrees from both Stanford and the Ivy League. I’d be very proud to have a Chicago degree.
@arbitrary99 - I agree - I highly doubt stanford or duke themselves tried to get the moniker ivy of the west or ivy of the south to stick. Nevertheless, these terms, along with other terms (little ivies, public ivies, hidden ivies, etc.) Have clearly gained traction.
Nowadays, in a world where chicago’s shorthand brand has been softer than its peers, concise squibs about colleges are more important than ever to bring as many apps in the door as possible.
While chicago doesn’t expressly say it, it’s now marketing itself as the Academic Ivy. This is the best way to quickly summarize the brand - unless you or others could put forward an equally concise summary of the brand. From what I can see, that’s the best quick summary.
@JBStillFlying - unless there’s a better short descriptor we can use for Chicago? “Highly ranked school where fun used to die but not any more and offers robust student life and rigorous academics - with a firm belief in the liberal arts and a dose of snark in the student body” just doesn’t roll off the tongue…
Sure - no need to compare Chicago to the ivies, but what two words adequately explain what Chicago’s college is now better than “Academic Ivy”?
There’s a lot packed into those two words - and it just about summarizes everything Admissions is trying to convey.
If you know a more descriptive, short moniker that characterizes what chicago is all about these days, please share!
Also I don’t know what the “dumb” uchicago is. I use to call UPenn the anti-Chicago, but that’s much less true these days - the schools are much more similar than they ever have been.
@JBStillFlying I still haven’t heard a better short description! And I think you’d agree, we are definitely in an era of sound bites and tweets - especially for teenagers. And when you want to attract 40,000 of them… the pithier the better!
Come to the University of Chicago… the “Academic Ivy.”
(I could add, “you will be surrounded by Andover and Exeter grads and athletes from Sidwell Friends” but that just sounds too cheeky. It’s truthful, but cheeky.)
I find this entire discussion quite silly. Chicago is not an Ivy. Full stop. Adding “Ivy” to any school that isn’t in the Ivy League just confuses the public and isn’t good marketing/branding. I expect better from educated people familiar with colleges and excuse the use of nicknames like Ivy of the South, Midwest, etc. from those who just don’t know better. CC should be better than this.
@itsgettingreal17 - why is adding “ivy” to the end of a descriptor for a school hurting its brand? Does the term “little ivy” hurt amherst or williams? Or the term public ivy hurt michigan or virginia? Did jfk coining boston college the “jesuit ivy” hurt its brand?
Describing certain schools as “ivy” has been going on for decades, but I don’t see any adverse impact on the brands of these schools.
In the past, you couldn’t rightly call chicago ivy anything. Nowadays, it’s certainly a fair descriptor! Why not use it when pitching the school?
Again, if there’s a more concise two word description of the college, please let me know! I haven’t seen a better descriptor yet.
@JBStillFlying - what did Obama dub either Chicago or Boston College? I can’t find anything on it. But, googling the “Jesuit Ivy” literally pulls up clips and articles on JFK’s speech at BC. His quote has enjoyed staying power for decades.
I’m really not sure why there’s opposition to the term “Academic Ivy.” Lots of people have been describing schools as ____ Ivy for decades. We have little ivies and hidden ivies and public ivies and ivies of certain regions (Ivy of the South, Ivy of the West, etc.). There are literally books published about little ivies, hidden ivies, etc.!
Why all the push back? I still haven’t seen anyone put forward a better short descriptor for Chicago than “Academic Ivy.” That to me best summarizes the place know, from all I can tell.
“Life of the Mind” works just fine and seems to have replaced "where fun comes to die: If “Academic Ivy” is helpful to you, go ahead and use it.
Was referring to Obama and UC, since you keep referring to what JFK said so must think it’s some sort of rule. Obama is the JFK of our times and - unlike JFK and BC - Obama actually has a connection to UC. But not surprised you couldn’t find anything.
It revolves around an assumption that the word “ivy” has some enormous descriptive and marketing power that it just doesn’t have, at least not anymore. And actually never had, at least not in the way Cue7 is using it. When JFK called Boston College the “Jesuit Ivy,” there was certainly some sort of Ivy mystique, but there was no sense that the Ivy League universities held exclusive title to the pinnacle of American academic prestige.
It’s insulting all around to reiterate that Chicago is branding itself as the “Academic Ivy.” Chicago isn’t branding itself as “Ivy” at all, and never has. And when it comes to the critical adjective, I think it might prefer “Intellectual” to “Academic.” Meanwhile, all of the Ivies, and all of the other high-prestige American colleges and universities, derive the core of their prestige from their academic quality. Sure, Duke gets a boost from its basketball team, but it has the academics and also a basketball team. Michigan State and Louisville have had a lot of great basketball teams, too, and no one goes around comparing them to Harvard or Stanford.
And all of this has practically nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Yes, Chicago just adopted an honors system that looks a lot like the honors systems most of its academic peers have. It will probably benefit Chicago’s top students who may be competing for opportunities with the top students at other schools, and maybe disadvantage somewhat the excellent students who populate the fat part of Chicago’s bell curve. The little oomph my kids get from having their resumes say they graduated “with honors” from the University of Chicago is going to be undermined, although anyone sophisticated knows it doesn’t mean much. But at least they will still be able to say it; the students today who are their equivalents won’t . . . except people like my kids will still be able to say that they graduated “with honors in Psychology” or whatever. So there’s still a little something for everyone.
These are all a play of sophisticate codes vs. marketing to the masses. Chicago is adopting a more standard set of sophisticate codes and other goodies. It does show Chicago becoming more like everyone else, but not in any really important way.
I am inclined to do something I seldom do - give @Cue7 the benefit of the doubt. I believe he was merely performing a puckish thought experiment in which he time-travelled back to his days in the nineties and found himself at an ivy league UChicago wherein he could now realize his dreams of attending Division I football games and sitting next to starlets in SOSC class!
Ah ha! @JBStillFlying - your description is incomplete. Certainly, “Life of the Mind” captures the academic/cultural mileu of the school, but does it describe the top notch athletics program? The robust student club offerings? The exemplary placement (and popularity) in more practical pathways (finance, law, medicine, etc)? The many practical opportunities that are capturing student interest (investing clubs, business scholar programs, etc.)?
So, I think the phrase that best completes your description is:
The “Life of the Mind” Ivy
But, that’s still a rather long phrase, so why not just the Academic Ivy?
If “Academic Ivy” is helpful to you, go ahead and use it.