<p>Holy Cross plays Dartmouth, Harvard, and Brown next year in football. HC has played most Ivies in football, basketball, and baseball for over 100 years. Only Colgate has a similar relationship although not as strong in basketball and no baseball team at Colgate.</p>
<p>Yeah, Colgate dropped their baseball team ~6-8 years ago. At least, partly claiming the weather in the spring makes it very difficult, but makes you wonder how Cornell, Dartmouth, Williams & Middlebury still manage to have teams.</p>
<p>even though it isnt a large research institution, Washington and Lee. i believe it is the ninth oldest institution in america. it is not COMPLETELY a LAC as USnews categorizes it, for it has a law school and an (undergrad) business school. the admissions there is already as competive as some Ivy’s. the drawback is the size of its student population and the fact that there are no medical, engineering programs there.</p>
<p>While W&L is a great school both academically and socially, it doesn’t really fit. It’s 350 miles from the nearest Ivy and the only school it’s played in football more than once is Princeton (8 times) and the last meeting was in 1934.</p>
<p>even if that is true gellino, i don’t think that this kind of decision (which would never exist anyway) would rest upon the last time the school in question met an ivy team in football. that seems fairly irrelevant in a question that begs to know what schools are ivy- caliber and fit the ivy mold.</p>
<p>This is the foundation of the Ivy League, though. Schools in geographic proximity that consistently played each other in football with the common goal of de-emphasizing big-time sports. The Ivy League has transformed to have the meaning of strong academics. This question to me, which certainly is theoretical, has more to which schools have the greatest overlap and traditional association, not just what are the two best academic schools not currently in the Ivy League. Similar to the ECACHL, which recently added a new member, Quinnipiac, the Ivy League would have to look for comparable schools on a number of parameters that play on the same sports level with relative geographic closeness. I think if you’re going to pick schools that are less than half the size of the smallest Ivy and don’t play on the same sports level that Williams & Amherst would fit the mold before W&L, even if it was founded 44 yrs before Williams and 72 yrs before Amherst.</p>
<p>
Incidentally, all three of these LACs originally started out as “academies” or “free schools” (e.g. high schools); they “upgraded” to college status later. If you consider them as colleges, then they are much closer in age.</p>
<p>Washington and Lee claims a founding date of 1749, but technically that’s as an academy; it didn’t start operating as a college until 1782. Williams became a college in 1793 (only 11 years after W&L) and Amherst became a college in 1821 (only 39 years after W&L).</p>
<p>None of these schools, despite their age and selectivity, have any place in the Ivy League, which is fundamentally an athletic conference. No way could they recruit enough athletes to compete effectively at the Division I level, while maintaining high academic standards. The Ivies currently have hundreds of athletic slots, Division III schools like Williams and Amherst only have room for dozens.</p>
<p>“no way could they recruit enough athletes to compete effectively at the division I level, while maintaining high academic standards.”</p>
<p>are you joking? what ivy league schools “compete effectively” at the D-1 level? each year the winner of the ancient 8 conference in men’s basketball gets an automatic bid in the ncaa tourney and is eliminated in the first round. VERY few ivy league programs (of any sport, men or women) can “compete effectively” with most D-1 schools; there are of course exceptions–harvard’s wrestling program is coming on strong, for example. perhaps what you meant to say is that W&L, amherst, williams couldn’t recruit athletes to compete with the other schools in the ancient 8. that sounds fairly accurate, although something like that is hard to predict without precendent. if a top-notch LAC were admitted into the ivy league, its prestige/ prominence would immediately be boosted and that would certainly help athlete recruiting. but once again, you are correct in saying that the size of these current D-3 schools would be a major drawback for something like this ever even happening. my point was simply that certain top-notch LAC’s like the ones mentioned above already maintain an academic standard that is on par (or better) with some of the “lower ivy’s.”</p>
<p>Georgetown, because unlike Harvard and Yale, the students look like they go to an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>Actually, the Ivy League compete competes pretty well in sports other than Basketball and Football.</p>
<p>I think what Corbett meant that it would be hard even for a Williams to compete with even the D-I athletics of Harvard’s caliber when Harvard has 1,700 a class and Williams has 500 and maintain its academic level.</p>
<p>Besides, Princeton beat UCLA in the first round in 1996 and Penn made it to the Final Four in 1979.</p>
<p>
That’s the point exactly. For example, Williams and Amherst currently are allowed a total of 66 slots in each freshman class for athletic “tips”. For comparison, Harvard, Yale and Princeton each have around 250 athletic slots. Would it be realistic for Amherst – with a class size around 450 – to have 250 slots for athletes?
Yes, top LACs match or beat the Ivies in terms of academic standards and selectivity. But no LAC is a fit for the Ivy League athletically. Since the Ivy League is, fundamentally, an athletic league, that’s a key consideration.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if a college’s theoretical entrance into the Ivy League will necessarily immediately improve its academic prominence. In college hockey, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Colgate, RPI & Union are 9 of the 12 schools in the ECAC- all good to very good schools. With UVM’s departure, Quinnipiac joined the league this past year. Does this new association improve their academic prominence? If it doesn’t, is the reason because the Ivy schools in this one sport play in a league named something different? Should it matter what the name is called? It will be interesting to see to what extent Quinnipiac’s academic reputation improves. When the Ivy League was formed in 1956, Brown was only considered around the academic quality of Brandeis or Trinity from what I have read and it wasn’t until ~ 1970 when it changed its curriculum that it became so popular and improved its academic standing. Can the same thing happen to any degree for Quinnipiac in the next 14 years?</p>
<p>It won’t help Quinnipiac to be in the ECAC, because relatively few people ever even heard of the ECAC. And even if they did, it doesn’t have a catchy, classy-image-producing name like “Ivy League.” Packaging is everything these days. </p>
<p>Also, Quinnipiac’s name probably ■■■■■■■ its growth in prestige. The prominent colleges seem to have easy-to-spell-and-pronounce names that trip easily off the tongue and look good on a sweatshirt. Maybe nobody can pronounce Bowdoin correctly, and few can spell Rensselaer, but other than that it’s all Smith, Williams, Yale, etc. There’s a reason there is no Petrovich Tech or Greenbaum College. Duke would drop like a rock if it changed its name to Krzyzewski University. Too bad nobody told Quinnipiac.</p>
<p>you have an interesting point tourguide, and ive thought about that often. the only elite schools that present any trouble in pronouncing are bowdoin, swarthmore, and perhaps dartmouth.</p>
<p>the concept that a liberal arts college cannot compete on the d1 level is untrue. top 50 lacs bucknell (though a very large lac), richmond, colgate, furman, holy cross, lafayette and davidson (which is smaller than williams) all currently sport d1 athletics programs.</p>
<p>would williams probably have to agree to enlarge in accepting a bid do join the ivy league? yes. but its athletics program is far and away the best in d3 and with the d1 and ‘ivy’ recruiting bumps could compete very easily within the conference. just ask par72 about their basketball team.</p>
<p>honestly, im not sure what other school would even be considered at this point. the ‘ivy’ affilation has become the most valuable thing five of the eight members have, and as such i cant see any of them voting to admit a school that would threaten the conference profile. further, the concept of limiting weekday athletic competition would prevent any non-northeastern school from being considered. but if i had to pick a second school it would be either colgate or middlebury.</p>
<p>Gellino, 2 out of 25 coming from elite public schools at your Buldge Bracket firms is relatively low a number, but it isn’t all bad. From my experience at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, roughly 15% of my colleagues came from the Cals, Michigans, UVas… of the World. As a group, only the Ivy League was better represented. 15% is a pretty solid ratio when you consider the fact that fewer students at elite state schools intend to become IBankers than students at elite private universities. I’d say roughly 25% come from Ivies, another 15% from other elite private research universities (CMU, Chicago, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, Stanford) and another 10% from elite (top 20) LACs. The remaining 35% of IBankers did not attend elite universities. </p>
<p>At any rate, from what I have seen, elite publics are as highly regarded as private elites. The peer assesment score of the USNWR (which you seem to fancy) certainly seems to indicate, without much room for a counter-arguement, that Cal, Michigan, UCLA and UVA are as highly regarded undergraduate institutions as the likes as Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Penn etc… UIUC, UNC, UTA and Wisconsin aren’t far behind. Prominent scholars, like Gerhard Casper and Harold Shapiro, generally regard Cal and Michigan as top 10 national undergraduate universities.</p>
<p>As for the debate of what 2 universities would be added to the Ivy League, as silly as it is, I would have to go with Georgetown and Johns Hopkins. Those are the only two universities that seem to fit the bill. LACs do not fit the academic character of the Ivy League, MIT and Caltech are way too technical, Duke, Emory, Rice and Vanderbilt are too southern, Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Washington U. are too midwestern, Stanford is too Western and Cal, Michigan and UVA are too public.</p>
<p>
Yes, there are LACs that compete athletically at the Division I level – but they still don’t play by Ivy League rules. The Ivies have both (1) the highest academic standards in Division I, and (2) a ban on athletic scholarships. The listed schools would not be able to maintain their current levels of athletic performance if they had to raise the SAT scores of their student-athletes, while simultaneously withdrawing all athletic scholarships.
Williams would have to double in size just to match Dartmouth, the smallest Ivy. The Williams community would not be interested in a “makeover” of this kind; they like the school the way it is. And as for historic athletic groupings, the “Little Three” is older than the Ivy League (REAL college football is played in 19th-century stadiums)</p>
<p>the patriot league (including lacs bucknell, colgate, holy cross and lafayette) was founded on the ivy league vision of the non-scholarship student athlete. however, holy cross began the push for scholarships in basketball about a decade ago and the 2006-2007 season will be the first in which all member schools will have some sort of merit aid for athletes. lafayette (enrollment 2200) competed this season with no scholarship athletes in any sport; there will be a grand total of six (three each in mens and womens basketball) competing for the leopards next season. the scholarship issue is a non-issue.</p>
<p>academically, the ai necessary to compete at the ivy level is lower than most think. it is unlikely any current williams athletes, most of whom could compete at the ivy level, would fall below the cutuff. how much williams could elevate is programs given its size and current academic standards for athletes is a question that would need to be addressed, however. in short, it would be difficult for williams to have a strong all-around ivy athletics program at its size.</p>
<p>this doesnt mean williams would need to double its enrollment. even admitting 100 or 200 additional students per year would allow the school to take significantly more athletic recruits without negatively impacting the universitys overall numbers, which would undoubtedly increase with its new affiliation.</p>
<p>as to whether williams would actually want to join, i think youd be crazy to blindly assume that it would not be a very carefully considered offer. that isnt to say that williams would or should join the ivy league should an offer be extended. this is merely a game of ‘most likelies,’ and williams is the most likely of the unlikelies.</p>
<p>I would think that just about all the Williams atheletes could compete academically at the Ivys as I would guess that, at least, the worst students at Williams who are there for a sport would have more academic ability than the worst students who are there for sports at the Ivys. However, I question if the current Williams teams can compete athletically with the Ivy or Patriot League and attempting to do so would bring down the overall academic abilities of Williams athletes and resultingly, the overall Williams student body. </p>
<p>I know at Colgate for a sport like football that students would typically be able to choose between the Ivys and Colgate and would choose Colgate either because they liked the school better, they liked the team better or they were intimidated by the academics of the Ivy schools despite being able to gain admission. </p>
<p>I agree that Williams wouldn’t need to double in size but maybe get to the size of Colgate (~700 a class) in order to compete; it’s just a matter of how much student body academic quality would drop. Look at Rice, it competes on a higher level of Div-I than the Ivy or Patriot League, has ~700 people a class and maintains a very high acadmic standing. </p>
<p>However, at this point, I wouldn’t think Williams would want to go above D-III and seem to enjoy being right where they are. From the alumni I know, I don’t think they would want to see this jump either and enjoyed the uniqueness and niche of Williams just how it is. That’s why I think considering new schools should be done out of a set that already compete at the same sports levels and wouldn’t have to change the whole size and mentality of the school in order to join.</p>