West Coast "Ivy League,"

College Search & Lists
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<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental_College[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental_College&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The school is often considered part of the so-called West Coast “Ivy League,” which includes schools such as the Claremont Colleges (Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Pitzer College) and Pepperdine University. The college has received positive press in recent years, making admission difficult - only 44% of recent applicants were admitted The student body is highly diverse.</p>

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<p>Guys,</p>

<p>The only other “ivy League” if there is one includes Duke, Stanford, MIT, Cal-Tech, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and maybe Chicago.</p>

<p>Calling places like Pitzer, UCSD, (where I know a guy with a 1000 SAT who got in) and Occidental (sorry man, 44% isnt that good) Ivy League is silly.</p>

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<p>The Ivy League is an athletic league and not one based on academic or intellectual merit. If you want to go that route, then you need to think in terms of grades, as follows:</p>

<p>A+
Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale</p>

<p>A
Amherst, Brown, Cal Tech, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, Penn, Pomona, Swarthmore, UVa, Williams</p>

<p>A-
BC, Bowdoin, Cal Berkeley, Carleton, CMU, Chicago, CMC, Colgate, Cornell, Davidson, Emory, Grinnell, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, JMU, Michigan, Middlebury, Northwestern, ND, Rice, Tufts, Vassar, WUSTL, Wash&Lee, Wellesley, Wesleyan</p>

<p>Etc.</p>

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<p>I agree with that list although UVA is a solid A-, absolutely not above Cornell, Chicago, or Northwestern.</p>

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<p>UVa gets the A because it’s the most difficult state university in the U.S. for out-of-staters to get into. Also because it’s undergraduate liberal arts programs are so good as well as having a couple of the top graduate programs in the U.S. Because of the disparity in excellence in its seven schools and in the difficulty to get into them, Cornell is where it is. Northwestern is considered the academic rival to Michigan but because it’s private, it’s more difficult to gain admission. Chicago is extremely rigorous academically, but has a high acceptance rate, moreso than a couple of its contemporaries like Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Cornell (engineering) and JMU.</p>

<p>All of this is, of course, IMHO and FWIW.</p>

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<p>Also, BTW, the above grades are on a “bell curve” and there’s no grade inflation (lol).</p>

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<p>Oh, I don’t agree for Caltech and Berkeley.</p>

<p>Caltech is A+ along with HYPSM. Putting Caltech below Stanford, Yale & Princeton shows bias towards liberal arts.</p>

<p>Berkeley is A along with Duke, Cornell, etc.</p>

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<p>While I find CollegeParent’s graded list to be fascinating reading, all such lists are inherently biased by the values, experiences, and sensibilities of the list-maker? How could they be otherwise?</p>

<p>For every “grade” that sounds right to me, I’d find others that sound totally wrong. And what about the whole premise of appropriate “fit” for a particular student? Of what value (or even validity) is a “grade” for a school in general when every student has unique needs, interests, and expectations. I believe the only “grade” that means anything is a grade for that particular student.</p>

<p>There are so many meaty and debatable issues in CP’s grading system, but the two that interest me the most are:</p>

<p>*Should Harvard (or Stanford for that matter) get an A+ for UNDERGRADUATE education? Beyond the cache value of that name on the diploma, many believe that many undergraduates would receive a better (whatever that term means) undergraduate education at any number of other elite institutions.</p>

<p>*And, of course, the ubiquitous “Chicago is not very selective” argument. I’m a Chicago native and have had many with UofChicago connections in my network of family and friends, including faculty and administrators, grad students, and undergrads. UofChicago is indeed rigorous and takes a backseat to nobody as a place where largely intellectual oriented students congregate for serious schooling. This is UofChicago’s reputation and it’s been their rep for years and years and years. Consequently, the UofChicago’s applicant pool is as self-selective as anybody’s, if not moreso. Literally thousands of smart applicants apply to HYP and similar schools, without giving serious thought to “fit” for them. Very few people do this with the UofChicago. My point? People like to continually “downgrade” the UofChicago because it is supposedly “not so selective.” In Chicago’s case, selectivity and yield are just numbers and really don’t have any bearing on the quality of the institution (which, by the way, is most definitely not an A+, A, or A- for everybody – it’s a very unique atmosphere which is PERFECT for some students and likely Hell on Earth for others).</p>

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<p>Pepperdine?!? Ha!</p>

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<p>No way UVa is above UC-Berkeley, Northwestern and Chicago… It is at best on a par with Michigan, CMU, Cornell, Rice and ND. And where is Johns Hopkins?</p>

<p>Feel like picking bones today… A couple questions for Collegeparent:</p>

<p>"UVa gets the A because it’s the most difficult state university in the U.S. for out-of-staters to get into.: -> I thought that honor belongs to UNC?</p>

<p>“Also because it’s undergraduate liberal arts programs are so good as well as having a couple of the top graduate programs in the U.S.” -> Name one UVa graduate program that is in the top 5? in the top 10?.. So far I can only find one - UVa’s Law dept ranks #9; behind Chicago(#6) and Michigan(#7).</p>

<p>UVa’s graduate programs are anything but stellar… Medical School(#25); Clinical Psychology(#15); Public Health(not ranked); Chemistry(#47); Biological Sciences(#36); Physics(#38); Computer Sciences(#27); Economics(#26); Political Sciences(#34); Sociology(#38); Engineering(#39); Business(#12)… It is way behind UCB and Michigan in this category, both truly have many top graduate programs in the US.</p>

<p>Does it look like the portfolio of a college with a solid “A”?</p>

<p>p.s. I think it’s kinda unfair to rank LAC’s with national universities in the same basket.</p>

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<p>I think that Swarthmore is overrated. I would flip-flop Northwestern with Swarthmore…</p>

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<p>collegeparent, imo you have Caltech, Chicago,and Rice too low. You have B.C. and Georgetown VERY much too high. I really don’t feel that they are on the same page with the schools mentioned and I have to believe the mention of JMU was simply a mistake and you intended to type JHU. Again just my opinion.</p>

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<p>True, JMU should’ve been JHU – As for the grading, it’s to put kids into the ballpark – whether they play or not is up to them and how they feel that they “fit” in – Yes, there are too many variables in this system – it’s like the old axiom: for every example, there’s a counterexample. People are free to make their own compilations based on their own criteria; this one was based on various rankings, guidebooks and college manuals. Obviously someone who wants a small school in a rural area as opposed to a large urban university will choose Williams over Columbia. There is obviously room here for personal discretion and freedom of choice. It is not meant to be all things to all students/applicants.</p>

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<p>SCIAC History</p>

<p>The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was formed in 1915 when five Southern California institutions combined for the purpose of promoting and governing competition in intercollegiate sports with the fundamental principle of the conference being to encourage the highest ideals of amateur sports in an environment of high academic standards. These schools were the California Institute of Technology, Occidental College, Pomona College, University of Redlands, and Whittier College. </p>

<p>The membership has varied over the years, but all five of the original SCIAC schools are still currently members. Occidental and Redlands are, however, the only ones to have uninterrupted membership. The following is a chronology of the membership changes over the years: </p>

<p>1915 Caltech, Occidental, Pomona, Redlands and Whittier found SCIAC
1920 UCLA joins (then known as the Southern Branch of the University of California)
1926 La Verne College and San Diego State Teachers College join
1927 UCLA leaves
1931 UC Santa Barbara joins (then known as Santa Barbara State Teachers College)
1934 Caltech and Pomona leave
1938 UC Santa Barbara and La Verne leave; Caltech and Pomona rejoin
1939 San Diego State leaves
1943 Whittier leaves
1946 Whittier rejoins
1947 Pomona combines with Claremont Men’s College for athletics (Pomona-Claremont)
1950 Chapman College begins competition as an associate in baseball, basketball and tennis
1952 Chapman’s association ends
1958 Claremont combines with Harvey Mudd College for athletics (Claremont-Mudd) [they are ineligible for SCIAC titles this year]
1971 La Verne rejoins; Pomona combines with Pitzer College for athletics (Pomona-Pitzer)
1976 Claremont-Mudd combines with Scripps College for athletics (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)
1991 California Lutheran University joins [ineligible for football title in 1991]</p>

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<p>Collegeparent, you are very wrong. You said your rankings were based on academics, then why take selectivity into account?</p>

<p>Either way, the academics at the top 30 colleges are basically equal, and there is no real way to rank them.</p>

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<p>Great list Collegeparent. I would bump Cal-Berkeley, Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern and Cornell up to a straight A and knock Georgetown to an A-. Otherwise, the list is excellent.</p>

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<p>“The Ivy League is an athletic league and not one based on academic or intellectual merit”</p>

<p>What? That must be the stupidest thing anyone has said on this board. Ivy league schools place intellectual merit WAY higher than anything else, which is why they suck at sports. Many schools like Michigan state, UCLA etc. are sports-centric, and would blow most of the ivies away at sports. The Ivies are some of the most intellectual schools possible…I’m sorry, you’re dead wrong.</p>

<p>By the way, I think some of the schools you mentioned really suck, such as Amherst, Williams whatever. You’re just trying to promote these schools…most people have never heard of them. As far as most students care, they belong in a whole separate pile…far away from any Ivy caliber school</p>

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<p>“Stupidest”? LOL.Well, add me to the stupid pile then because the Ivy League IS an athletic conference, just like the Patriot League, just like the Southern Conference.They have a commisioner, set rules for recruiting, schedule the season just like every other conference. The fact that all are highly rated academic schools is no different than the Patriot League’s list of fine academic institutions. Some like minded schools desire to compete against schools on their same recruiting level. Other schools (Vandy,Tulane, Northwestern,and Baylor to name a few of the most obvious) would rather attempt to compete against the mega-buck state flagships in athletics. Usually with very mixed results.</p>

<p>As to your ignorance about the nation’s top LAC’s , fine. Just keep on, keepin’ on. LOL. Just one less family to compete with at those remarkable , well-known, and highly selective institutions.</p>

<p>Wait. Now I see. As a matter of fact, YOU should only apply to “Ivies”. If you don’t get in -go to junior college, or better yet DeVry. After the “Ivies” who cares? Right? Man, I am sooooo glad I read your post. Everything has become so clear to me. It’s not fit. It’s not Need vs. Merit. It’s not the strength of individual programs or grad school acceptances. It’s Ivy or DVy. I’m glad I researched this. Wow.</p>

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<p>Curmudgeon – thank you for answering golubb_u’s post. You so ably pointed out another old axiom that you cannot argue with an ignorant person. Thanks again.</p>

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<p>Por nada. “Shooting fish in a barrel.” It was really kind of fun.</p>