<p>How so? I can make the argument that the phrase “ivy-league” has already taken on a new meaning. I will base it on three points. If you can refute any of these points, I stand corrected.</p>
<p>1.) The majority of regular people in America cannot name all 8 official ivies.
2.) The majority of regular people in America believe that Stanford and MIT are ivies.
3.) Words and phrases can take on different meanings as time changes.</p>
<p>C’mon guys. Don’t fight; play nice. You’re right … and … you’re right.</p>
<p>Technical, analytical, and legal meaning of Ivy League: An athletic conference. Membership in the technical “Ivy League” presently includes – HYP, plus Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn. Most universally praised schools for academics in this conference are HYP, but the others are very, very good schools too. The label “Ivy League,” coming from membership in this athletic conference is worth its weight in gold to each member. I can’t imagine ANY of these schools voluntarily leaving the Ivy League, nor can I imagine ANY school allowing for the value of their franchise to be diminished by opening membership to any additional schools.</p>
<p>Now, clean the slate.</p>
<p>Informal, colloquial, person-on-the-street meaning of an “Ivy”: An absolutely elite school. A school with exceptionally difficult admissions standards. A school with name recognition such that a significant percentage of employers and persons-on-the-street say “whoa” and instantly ascribe serious intelligence, connections, or money to the person with said “Ivy League” credentials. “Membership” in this colloquial “Ivy League” will vary depending on the geographic, socio-economic, and plain smarts of the person you ask.
To many people, the question “Which are the best, prestigious (something in addition to “best”) colleges in America?” might be synonymous with the question “Which schools are Ivies?”</p>
<p>My list for the colloquial Ivies: All 8 actual Ivies, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Chicago, AWS, and any school that any of my children go to.</p>
<p>Gutrade: unless you have spoken with the majority of regular people in America, please stop saying what they do or do not know.</p>
<p>“Informal, colloquial, person-on-the-street meaning of an “Ivy”: An absolutely elite school.”</p>
<p>-I could not disagree with this more; the Ivy League is a group of 8 schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Brown. Plain and simple. While schools like MIT and Stanford are indeed on the same level, I refuse to believe that there is some understood colloquialism making them Ivies.</p>
<p>“and any school that any of my children go to.”
<p>I fully and wholeheartedly agree. Well stated.</p>
<p>Edited: I meant to agree with the previous post stating both the formal and colloquial meanings of “Ivy,” rather than the post actually preceding mine.</p>
<p>I definitely think that there is a colloquial–or rather, a non-technical–understanding of “Ivy League.” So many schools refer to themselves as “Ivy of the Midwest,” “Ivy of the West/South/Southeast,” etc. Also, schools such as Stanford, MIT, etc. are NOT part of the technical Ivy league, and while many of us are aware of this, many people are NOT. Plain and simple…if you really choose not to believe this, go interview people in the mall, ask them to name the Ivies. In your belief that “there are 8 Ivies, case closed,” you are entirely correct…but you are using only a current, technical definition. While this may be the technically CORRECT definition, it is NOT the one to which all people choose to ascribe. Whether this be out of ignorance, confusion, or some other reason, many people are unaware of this technical definition. Hence, there DOES exist a colloquial–informal–understanding of “Ivy League,” and in my own experience, many people believe that any school they perceive as the most elite and exclusive falls into this category. You also hear people referring to schools that are of Ivy League status, of Ivy League caliber, regional Ivies, etc.</p>
<p>You are entirely right in what you’re saying, but you’re closing yourself off to the understanding of what the previous poster means by “colloquial definition.” What the Ivy League <em>IS</em> and what the Ivy League is <em>THOUGHT BY MANY TO BE</em> are very different things, but we tend to use the same term interchangably.</p>
<p>UC Irvine engineering > Brown and Dartmouth engineering</p>
<p>UCSD sciences = Cornell sciences</p>
<p>UCLA > Cornell and Brown</p>
<p>Thats all anyone has to know.</p>
<p>Im sorry if I refuse to let the ignorant and confused decide how I think. But ok then, many believe that Canada is part of the United States, thus it must be true .</p>
<p>My opinion:
Overrated Universities:
Duke
Dartmouth
Northwestern
WASHU
Notre Dame
Vanderbilt
Emory</p>
<p>Underrated Universities:
Berkeley
Michigan
CMU
UNC-CH</p>
<p>I really think that USNews methodology is unfair when ranking public universities. Frankly I don’t understand why schools like Vandy, Notre Dame, and Emory are ranked above Berkeley. It should be clear from this that there is something seriously wrong with USNews rankings 
Schools like Berkeley and Michigan have so many undergraduate programs that are consistently in the top ten (USNEWS), it just puzzles me why so many people believe that schools like Vandy and Washu have higher academic prestige.</p>
<p>Interesting reading material:
<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html[/url]”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.gregdooley.com/archive04/0301Privatize.html[/url]”>http://www.gregdooley.com/archive04/0301Privatize.html</a></p>
<p>"Informal, colloquial, person-on-the-street meaning of an “Ivy”: An absolutely elite school. A school with exceptionally difficult admissions standards’</p>
<p>Yes, that’s exactly the synonym of “Ivy-League means” , and is also a valid definition. All 8 Ivies (HYPCCDBP )are absolutely elite schools, with exceptionally standards.</p>
<p>“1.) The majority of regular people in America cannot name all 8 official ivies.”
…well, bush couldn’t name the prime minisister of India either…and I’m sure the PM DOES exist!</p>
<p>“2.) The majority of regular people in America believe that Stanford and MIT are ivies.”
…a lot of people do think of them as Ivies, but when you point out to those people that they’re not Ivies, those people usually flush in embrassment. This happened to me twice, and when I explained the Ivy league to the guy who made the mistake, he got really embrassed and red-faced!! I think he realized that he exposed some ignorace and got caught. Stanford, MIT and other near-Ivies (such as duke) are awesome schools though, on par with the best.</p>
<p>“3.) Words and phrases can take on different meanings as time changes.”
It’s an embrassment to mistakenly identify the Ivy schools! If people start thinking John Kerry is the new president, that’s a mistake and an embarrassing one.</p>
<p>Calloftheblade you said:
“Schools like Berkeley and Michigan have so many undergraduate programs that are consistently in the top ten (USNEWS),”</p>
<p>Where did you get ratings of undergraduate school programs?
My understanding is that only graduate school programs are rated by USNWR and Gourmans.</p>
<p>~My Dear KK, I thought my previous post was as clear as can be, but I’ll try again.</p>
<p>Literally and legally, the term “Ivy League” refers to those eight (8) collegiate institutions who have collectively bound themselves into an athletic conference called “The Ivy League.” Period. HYP plus Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn. That’s it. Nobody else. These are the members of “The Ivy League.” These schools are “the Ivies.”</p>
<p>Having said that, language is a fluid, growing thing. It’s alive. It changes. Once upon a time, a “geek” referred to a circus side-show freak whose act consisted of biting the heads off of live chickens. Technically, that is the meaning of the term “geek.” Do you think many people today use the term “geek” to refer to these bird brain munchers? Besides me, I mean. Or do most people NOW use the term “geek” to be relatively synonymous with “nerd,” for instance when one refers to a “computer geek.” Hmmm?</p>
<p>Yes, the term “Ivy” TECHNICALLY refers to only a specific eight schools. That’s it. No Stanford. No M.I.T. No South-West-North-East-Big-State-U for the Directionally Challenged. Gutrade simply made a point – a point that I’d imagine about 98% of the people would clearly understand if not agree with wholeheartedly – that the LEGAL and TECHNICAL term “Ivy” is OCCASIONALLY used by SOME people as a short-hand way to refer to the MOST elite and MOST prestigious schools in the country.</p>
<p>No one is saying that this is a correct way to speak; no one is saying that it is right; but Gutrade and I are saying that people sometimes use the term “Ivy” in this way.</p>
<p>As for my quip that the colloquial, informal use of Ivy would always include “any school that any of my children go to,” yes, that’s a joke. Offered as a way to point out the entirely subjective way people classify the makeup of the most elite and prestigious schools in the country. You can now feel free to laugh. :)</p>
<p>Oh, I should say, I’m going to Dartmouth next year, so don’t hate!</p>
<p>~Student 615~
What a lucid, cogent, and PATIENT response. You clearly must attend a LAC-IVY of the West!
P.S. My D is very interested in Pomona; she and I have read your Scripps/consortium posts with great interest. Thank you for your efforts.</p>
<p>Breeze’s post #309 should take the prize and end the discussion. But it won’t.</p>
<p>i agree breeze’s post 309 is perfect</p>
<p>kk19131, you’re weird. Do you even understand the messages you are criticizing?</p>
<p>I have never ever seen a valid reason posted on this board for any schools to be deemed “overrated” other than the fact that a poster doesn’t happen to agree with a lot of the published factual research regarding a particular institution! </p>
<p>Can someone please explain the basis for their subjective lists? That would help validate such comments.</p>
<p>(I am afraid that Post #313 is the most accurate.)</p>
<p>How many of the posters who believe that the “Ivy League” is non-specific (sans Dart, Col, Brown, Penn, Cor) and only vaguely refers to the most most commonly known good schools, or believe it is no more than a failed athletic conference, attended an Ivy League school themselves (any of them, even the “lesser Ivies[?]”)?</p>
<p>I’d love to know.
Please.
Don’t be shy.
you don’t have to give your real names (e-names will do).
You will not necessarily seem envious, resentful and spiteful (ok, maybe).</p>
<p>Say it loud: "I didn’t get in to, go to, an Ivy and I’m proud (in addition to being an expert on the Ivy League and what the “common-man,” “headhunter” and grad admissions officers think)!</p>
<p>You’ll feel alot better afterwards–and seem more sincere 
Like taking a load of poop off your hyperventilating chest :(</p>
<p>Sing along:
A spoon-full of honesty helps the resentment go down, the resentment go down, the BS go down, just a spoon-full of…etc</p>
<p>You’ll feel better in the morning ;)</p>
<p>as a brown student, i resent the way people on cc talk about the lesser ivy’s and many times brown as one of the worst. how many of you have even gotten into college yet? i love brown, and wouldn’t have picked any other college in the country over it! i turned down stanford for brown, and I frankly believe that it was the best decision of my life.</p>
<p>jamesah1 , I agree with you that all the “rankings” are meaningless… and glad that you enjoy Brown 
Come on guys, college is all about fit…</p>
<p>I honestly think that there is really only two lists, Ivies and near Ivies. Except for maybe the few elite public schools, every college employer views most colleges exactly the same. Unless it has the Ivy or Near Ivy recognition I think that every student is held to the same standard. And so whether you went to Emory or SUNY-Albany you are viewed the same. Only the stanford, duke, northwestern, johns hopkins (mostly pre-med) and Ivy Schools are given the special look.</p>