<p>I have noticed for some time and on many boards that there is a negative Southern bias. (Or it may be an exclusive, positive East Coast bias).</p>
<p>I don’t think there is a strong anti-Southern bias at all. My daughter just graduated from Rice (although Texas is not truly “the South”) and we couldn’t have been happier with her experience. WildChild just finished taking two summer courses at Vanderbilt and was very impressed with his instructor and the campus. He seriously considered Davidson and Emory in his search. He is at an Ivy, but has found it to have a number of short-comings. He did point out that he feels many of the southern schools (not Rice) have a strong frat scene, which he did not want.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that there should be an anti-southern bias, but on CC there seems to be many opinions that suggests the NE schools are better. I don’t think that is true at all. I live in Houston and am very happy here. Rice is great. My dtr wanted to leave Tx to explore. She got in at Davidson (great school), Williams, Middlebury. Will be attending WUSTL (best fit for her). I don’t think there should be an anti-southern bias, but I see subtle suggestions of one on many boards.</p>
<p>Hawkette- You are right on with the comment on “regional appeal.” We are from N.J., and my son attends Wake Forest (LOVES IT!!) It was his dream school for as long as we can remember, and he is living and learning to his heart’s content. In our predomenantly Catholic area of N.J., everyone talks about Boston College, Villanova, ect. Well, guess what? We spend all our free time in N.C., and many people have no idea if Villanova is an ice-cream concoction or a school! They don’t really know the differnece between Boston U and Boston College, but they know Emory and Davidson are amazing schools like no others! Yes, people that have recently been looking at colleges for their children know, but your average person does not. DO they know Wake Forest well in the South? OH YEA! Highly educatied people in academic circles have heard of Wake Forest, Davison AND Boston College, and know what a great education you can recieve at all. People need to realize there is a whole big country out there, that the "“North” is just that, north of wherever you are in the south, 
and what is “Villanova” to one is just yummy sounding to another!</p>
<p>Aplogize to those of you on this thread who already know this, but my younger s wants only to go to a school in “warm weather”. He wants a small to mid-sized school that is intellectually stimulating but laid back. In addition to many of the schools mentioned here, he is looking at the Clarement colleges (specifically CMC and Pomona). Only reason Rice isn’t on his radar is because he is tired of following in older bro’s footsteps. I agree, there are regional perceptions and comfort zones. Also, we don’t have the compact cluster of top LACs and Uni’s in the south that exists in the NE, so to try to stay in the “4 hr” guideline isnt too do-able with the schools under consideration.</p>
<p>There would not seem to be a pro-NE bias if people did not use the term Ivy inappropriately. If instead terms such as excellent small LACs are mid-sized research universities were used, then there would not be any reason to try to compare them with HYP, but to discuss institutions on their own terms. I have met enough graduates from Southern schools–Duke, Rice, Wake Forest, UNC and others, to have the greatest respect for the kind of education available there.
But keeping comparing these excellent schools to Ivies does not serve them well since it serves as a reminder that Ivies are the yardstick of excellence and no other institution can really be an Ivy. Reproducing this meme is really self-defeating.</p>
<p>While on the subject of Southern Schools, I was wondering everyone’s thoughts on political views on campus and academic freedom? We know about PC at Duke. My impression is that the Ivy’s are in that same category. Is PC less previlient at Southern Schools?</p>
<p>If Maryland is in the South why hasn’t anyone listed Johns Hopkins? And what is small about Harvard? It has 19,000 students for crying out load.</p>
<p>it has 6,500 undergraduates and 3,000+ Ph.D. students. It is not small. I would describe the College has mid-sized. It has the same number of students as Duke. Duke has fewer professional schools, hence fewer students in total. I’d be surprised, though, if undergraduates bumped into HMS, HDS, HSPH, HLS or HBS, GSD,or HGSE. I know my S has not. Next year, though, he will begin taking grad courses (a plus of being at a mid-sized research university) so he may rub shoulders with students from GSAS.</p>
<p>Northeast doesn’t mean just Ivies for great education. Many of the great LAC’s (even recommended on this thread) are in the northeast. And I do concur. This board does rate northeastern schools as the most prestigous. There is a very strong sense that so many other great schools do not matter. Perhaps it’s just the posters on this board are from these same schools. Or hopes and dreams of their children attending such institutions.</p>
<p>marite and others,
I may be in the minority about the Ivy label, but I don’t realistically see how we can minimize the use of that description. Say what you will about the Ivies, but you have to give them credit for the branding that they have done. I think it is here to stay and is now just part of the language that we all use in discussing elite colleges in America. </p>
<p>Re the Ivy schools themselves, I don’t see them all as one flavor and certainly not of the same quality. HYP stand above the others in so many respects, but the remaining five, while all exceptional academic schools, are not distinctively better in a discussion of top national universities. Take away the Ivy moniker and these schools would all be seen very differently, (perhaps like a Tufts). </p>
<p>Still, like it or not, the Ivy name has become shorthand for academic excellence and thus I think it is useful to use this term for terrific schools that people in other regions might not be as familiar with. For example, I consider Rice as a truly exceptional school (Top 10 nationally) that is not well known and certainly not appreciated by many outside of the South/Southwest. Very strong student body, excellent faculty, unique setting with its residential colleges-all things that place them as a peer to the top schools in the country, Ivy or otherwise. So I think using the Ivy comparison is valid as a way to communicate the academic excellence of this university and then a discussion/investigation can begin into the specifics of this individual college and whether it is the right fit for a prospective student. This is probably true for many colleges in the South. </p>
<p>For students in the Northeast and elsewhere who are doing their college search and have heard Ivy, Ivy, Ivy their whole lives, they may have read about Duke (thanks Coach K) and respect that school in a national context. But now their interests would be served to learn about schools like Rice (and Vanderbilt and Emory and Wake Forest and Davidson and W&L and the great public unis in Virginia and North Carolina). Personally, I would consider them as Ivy PLUS as they also have an excellent sporting scene (with some of the country’s top collegiate athletic programs) and terrific social scenes. Throw in the much better weather during the academic school year (not the summers!) and you’ve got a pretty compelling story. For some of these students, one or several of those colleges would be a much better undergraduate choice for them than many of the Ivies. </p>
<p>So the Ivy label is used to reassure these students that there is great academic quality to these schools. Then, once these students learn and get comfortable with the fact that they can get top academics AND a top social and athletic life and great postgraduate opportunities, then the Southern schools truly will be seen for the gems that they are. </p>
<p>Streak,
For political viewpoints, check out this thread which is now running in College Search & Selection:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=366539[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=366539</a></p>
<p>I respectfully disagree. I think it’s silly to equate Ivy with quality and it misleads many kids and parents. HYP etc are great schools, but they are definitely NOT the best places for everyone, even those who get in. I’m not bashing them at all, but they are not best fit for everyone and continuing to use this term to mean good or the best is unfortunate and unproductive.</p>
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<p>The inappropriate use of the Ivy label homogenizes the schools and actually reinforces their branding strategy. It’s giving them free publicity while downplaying the real strengths of schools such as Duke, Chicago, Rice, WashU, etc… which are forced into a comparison with Ivies-as yardstick of excellence. What’s wrong with using more brand neutral terms such as top schools? Even saying top USNWR schools would be preferable, since, as some have already noted, there are very significant differences between Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard and Brown.
As a New Englander, I am baffled by both the Ivy obsession and the accusations of Ivy bias.</p>
<p>higherlead: “what is small about Harvard? It has 19,000 students for crying out loud”
marite: “it has 6,500 undergraduates and 3,000+ Ph.D. students.”</p>
<p>19000 is correct for the whole university. About 15000 enrolled within walking distance of Harvard Square, 6700 of whom are undergrads. The 3000+ PhD students refers to GSAS.</p>
<p>Yes, but do GSD, HLS, HDS students mingle with undergrads? Do they take the same classes? For all I know they have less contact with undergrads than the wait staff in Harvard Square restaurants. GSAS students, however, share some classes with undergrads and act as TFs, which is why I include them in the tally.
But even if one went by your number, 15,000, it would still make Harvard a mid-sized university, which was my point.</p>
<p>The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is very far from having a monopoly on interaction with undergrads. The house tutors come from all the faculties. Undergrads take classes at Kennedy School, Ed School, Divinity School, the Business and Law Schools (even the med school is not unheard of, though less common). They do thesis work at the medical school, and have teaching assistants from HMS or Public Health.</p>
<p>Anyway, it would have been good to acknowledge that higherlead’s comment was factually correct, as you knew, before launching into the further details.</p>
<p>Thanks for the lesson in manners.Never having claimed that Harvard was small, I did not see the need to acknowledge anything. </p>
<p>While house proctors and masters are often drawn from different schools, I believe that the undergraduates who take classes in the professional schools are a tiny minority. As for students from professional schools who take classes with undergraduates, they are mostly in language classes.</p>
<p>You opposed a claim of 19000 students with alternative figures. That is a contestation of (some of) higherlead’s point and creates a false impression that he was factually inaccurate. </p>
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<p>It is a non-tiny minority of the graduate courses taken, but in any case, your point was about undergrads “bumping into” and “rubbing shoulders with” graduate students. There are many opportunities for this not limited to classes, and GSAS has no monopoly among the graduate faculties on contact with the undergrads. </p>
<p>It is also not true that graduates enroll in undergrad classes overwhelmingly for languages. Many of the people in professional schools take some sort of economics, statistics, or computer class, or some other specialized class that overlaps with their interests. You also are not counting extension students who are about a thousand of the 15-19000; the first-degree students who enroll in daytime courses do so mostly in undergraduate non-language courses.</p>
<p>I don’t take any offense but the fact is the campus has to be scaled to a student body of 15,000. Thta means that student unions, campus police, parking, the registrars office and many other things are scaled up. Harvard doesn’t have anything like the feel of say a truly small school like Rice or your typical LAC. In fact it feels quite a bit larger than a large state flagship like the University of Maryland. A school like Dartmouth on the other hand does feel small.</p>
<p>I am not an especial fan of small so that is hardly a criticism of Harvard just a warning that if you are expecting Colgate on the Charles that is not what you are going to find.</p>
<p>Higherlead:</p>
<p>I agree about the issue of scale. In fact, the Harvard campus is not self-contained and my S’s housing is closer to Harvard Square’s restaurants and banks than he is to the buildings where his classes are held. The various Ivy League schools are so different in feel from one another that I don’t even like to lump them all together. And as symbols of excellence, I would include many other schools in different parts of the country.</p>