<p>Since the Ivy League is only a sports conference which has created significant IVY or bust prestige could the New England Small College Athletic Conference be considered its peer.</p>
<p>It’s peer in what? Academics? Sports?</p>
<p>What the heck is the New England Small College Athletic Conference?</p>
<p>norcalguy:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nescac.com/[/url]”>http://www.nescac.com/</a></p>
<p>Schools that are high quality and where a student can get a great education. Places that can have a positive impact on your life. Places that may be a wonderful fit for certain students.
The Ivy is only an athletic conference, the schools in the NESCAC are every bit as good for certain students.</p>
<p>Should it be NESCAC or bust- the hallowed halls of NESCAC</p>
<p>Because the Ivy League is only a sports conference, I assume if the NESCAC (also only a sports conference) is to be its peer, it would have to be equally good at sports. Do the teams even play in the same division as Ivy League schools?</p>
<p>It’s members would have to get over their ambivalence at being called “the little ivy league”; Amherst students feel it’s patronizing. Wesleyan students went so far as to ban its use in college publications. And, yes, individual Ivies have been known to compete with individual NESCAC colleges in many sports, including crew, horseback riding, baseball, rugby, tennis, track, and field hockey. But, just as I don’t think many people are attracted to the Ivy League for the athletics, the level of play is not what draws people to seek out NESCAC colleges.</p>
<p>Patriot League is closest match.</p>
<p>I think Patriot League is the most similar to the Ivy - especially since the two leagues play each other, have similar sized schools, and have relatively similar academics</p>
<p>NESCAC is mostly Division 3 athletics whereas Ivy is Div 1 athletics, meaning they don’t compete head to head in many sports (or at least none that I know of). Some NESCAC colleges have great sports programs like Williams which wins that Sears/NACDA Cup (<a href=“http://nacda.collegesports.com/directorscup/nacda-directorscup-current-scoring.html[/url]”>http://nacda.collegesports.com/directorscup/nacda-directorscup-current-scoring.html</a>) just about every year (for Div 3) and Middlebury. Hard to say though how they compare to Ivies.</p>
<p>Took a closer look at the web link I included in the above post, specifically at how the rankings are done & what the numbers were for Ivy & NESCAC.</p>
<p>First, not sure I totally understand them, but the rankings by Division are done by awarding points for defined fall, winter & spring sports based on how the varsity team is ranked overall in that division. Those points are totalled up and then all colleges within a division are ranked. There are a few more sports in Div 1 compared to Div 3 (e.g., Div 1 includes Womens Golf & Womens Rowing, all others are the same for D3), so the ranking rewards both depth of sports covered and how well an individual college team places in the season.</p>
<p>Div 1 has 274 ranked and Div 3 has 280.</p>
<p>Here’s how the numbers stack up:
IVY. … 03-'04 RANK… POINTS
Princeton …33 …537
Harvard
…58 …344
Penn
… 70 …250
Brown
… …73 …234
Cornell… 80 …206
Dartmouth 87 …194
Yale …101 …157
Columbia …121 …136
Average …78 …257</p>
<p>NESCAC .03-'04 RANK… POINTS
Williams… 1 …1082
Middlebury. 3 …780
Amherst… 6 …687
Bowdoin… 20 …417
Tufts… 31 …338
Trinity… 44 …279
Bates… 48 …257
Colby… 88 …166
Hamilton… 108 …145
Wesleyan… 158 …91
Conn Coll… 197 …55
Average… 64 …391</p>
<p>If one takes a BIG leap and calls the point system apples&apples for the sake of this comparison, then it looks like NESCAC as a whole looks a bit better, although there is greater variability from top to bottom. NESCAC’s higher standing is largely carried by the strong programs that Williams, Middlebury & Amherst apparently have. Relative to all universities & colleges ranked in D1 & D3, both Ivy & NESCAC look good, i.e., their average rankings are in their respective division’s top end of second quartile. I’d bet if one did this same exercise with other leagues & conferences, both Ivy & NESCAC would show strong overall sports programs (granted ACC and other large university conferences would probably prove to be the powerhouses).</p>
<p>Suffice it to say, the only people who get that jazzed up about Ivy League point spreads are super zealous alum and certain bookies in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>And the Patriot League? The biggest game of the year is between Army-Navy. We’ll talk about similarities when ROTC is allowed back on every Ivy campus.</p>
<p>Also, all (but one) NESCAC school is considered a liberal arts college, and all ivies are considered Universities. Let’s see how they stack up against their like schools.</p>
<p>NESCAC '05 USNews Rank
Williams 1
Amherst 2
Bowdoin 7
Wesleyan 9
Middlebury 11
Colby 19
Hamilton 19
Bates 23
Trinity 24
Tufts 28*
Con College 35
*ranked with universities</p>
<p>Ivy '05 USNews Rank
Harvard 1
Princeton 1
Yale 3
UPenn 4
Columbia 9
Dartmouth 9
Brown 13
Cornell 14</p>
<p>Now, top-to-bottom, the Ivy League looks a bit stronger than NESCAC. However, both conferences are academically both quite strong (probably the strongest) in their respective divisions. I think that the Ivy-NESCAC comparison is fair to make.</p>
<p>nescac…interesting name lol seems hard to say</p>
<p>Yes, the Patriot League. Just look at what schools the Ivys use to make up non-conference games. In most every case, it’s a Patriot League School. Harvard, for example has three non-conference games…against Lehigh, Lafayette, and Holy Cross (all Patriot League). Yale has three non-conference games as well… two against Patriot League oppenents (Lehigh and Holy Cross), and one against San Diego (Pioneer League).</p>
<p>It’s clear that the Ivy-Patriot connection is strong, and if there was a merger, that’s what it would be.</p>
<p>this thread is a waste of bandwidth</p>
<p>what about the NFL or possibly FIFA?</p>
<p>It is a waste of time but I have nothing better to do with exams over so…The Ivy League school are of course much larger than the NESCAC LAC’s - aside from that, I’d say the academics are as rigorous, certainly grade school placement and percentage of profs with Ph.D’s is comparable. Ivy’s have larger alumni networks and endowment funds (which helps keep them high in the USNews ranking) but that’s about it. The rest is simply PR swill…</p>
<p>The Patriot League School are also very good schools – but with an entirely different feel than either the Ivy or NESCAC schools…</p>
<p>And less we forget, Trinity consistantly kills Harvard (and everyone else) in squash every year. Keep in mind that squash (along with golf and tennis) is a very important sport vis a vis future NYC and international Forbes 500 business networking (…!)</p>
<p>Ivy League sports and Patriot League are both a step up from Div III sports, and probably roughly comparable in most sports. Some of the NESCAC schools play the Ivies in some sports, but, for instance, to play Ivy League football or basketball, you will need to be a stronger athlete than you would be to play at NESCAC schools. (And you have to be very good to play at NESCAC).</p>
<p>(It’s pronounced NESS-KACK 
)</p>
<p>Centennial Conference all the way baby! (Group of D3 Mid-Atlantic schools; includes Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Johns Hopkins, Dickinson, and F&M amoung others)</p>
<p>I never heard of the NESCAC before, but clearly it is THE IVY LEAGUE of LACs. What it needs is a simpler, more recognizable name. </p>
<p>The league I thought most closely resembles the Ivy League, although it is also Div 3, is the UAA - all Top 35 universities in their own right - stronger academically than the Patriot League.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/[/url]”>http://www.uaa.rochester.edu/</a></p>
<p>Brandeis University
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve University
Emory University
New York University
University of Chicago
University of Rochester
Washington University in St. Louis</p>