<p>The Ivy League consists of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Columbia.</p>
<p>There is no rhyme or reason why these are together other than the momentum of tradition and history. Its time to break up the party. Which Ivy should be dropped from the league and replaced with whom?</p>
<p>I nominate Dartmouth to be dropped, as it is far more like a LAC than a university, it’s way too tilted to a frat-boy atmosphere unlike any other of its “peers,” and cold and miserable is already well-represented by Cornell. I would replace Dartmouth with Georgetown.</p>
<p>Duke would never agree to be restricted in its athletic recruiting. While the Ivy League isn’t just a sports league, it is a sports league. So Stanford and Duke would not make sense. Probably not Georgetown, either. Maybe you could switch Tufts into the Ivy League, and Dartmouth into NESCAC. That might make some sense, since Tufts is bigger than Dartmouth.</p>
<p>You don’t get a basketball team to the NCAAs on the basis of the Academic Index allegedly employed by agreement among the Ivies. I think there is some slack there that Harvard isn’t telling us about (and the rest of the Ivies aren’t questioning), so Duke could probably slide in. Stanford, not so much (you don’t play and win against teams like USC and keep to an Academic Index).</p>
<p>Since Stanford is out in the west, I would replace Dartmouth with MIT.
There should be a bigger, national league of top universities - a ruby league?</p>
<p>I think people who discuss this are really thinking along the lines of something like a recognized Top Ten or something like that. That’s a moving target, and there’s really no point to it. For the Ivy League itself, there’s no reason to change its makeup unless it makes sense from a sports point of view. And that wouldn’t make sense for any school that isn’t in the Northeast.</p>
<p>Every once in a while, one of the Ivies has a good year or two, especially in basketball–but Duke has a top team every year. They could never do that with the recruiting policies of the Ivies.</p>
<p>Some schools do get one team exemptions Ivy League has not done this, but hey, things change. In exchange for Ivy designation, I think there would be quite the consideration to get rid of recruiting for all but the basketball and something might be able to be worked out for that. Hopkins another consideration, but they have an exemption for Lacrosse which they may well give up for an Ivy spot. UChicago is another consideration or Rice. Too many schools crammed up in the North East, IMO. I’d get rid of Cornell, Penn and Dartmouth, ideally and replace with Rice, UCh and Hopkins or GTown or Duke or Emory. Just off the top of my head. </p>
<p>But then all the Ivy teams would have to travel a lot. Sports is just not that big a deal for them, really–it wouldn’t be worth it. What’s wrong with the current league as a sports league?</p>
<p>There is, it is called the Big Ten. Most (all?) Big Ten schools are highly ranked academic institutions as well as competent athletic schools. </p>
<p>As for the premise of the question. No point in it at all. The Ivies are very good, but still highly overrated academic institutions, but they do have a long and storied history in American academia. No reason to change anything. Whatever school came ‘in’ would always be treated like a 2nd class college by the others.</p>
<p>The teams play schools other than each other anyways. I don’t get how it works. But UPenn played UCSanDiego, for instance and other far away schools, so it doesn’t seem to be an issue. They play local schools as a matter of course. SOmeone who knows how this works can explain. </p>
<p>Just joshing here. Doubt any change will occur. Dartmouth has wanted to eliminate a number of sports programs for years, and the Ivy designation (it is after all, a sports league) has been an issue for them. Can’t afford to lose it. And I’d love to see that Ivy spread around. All sorts of things changing these days, so why not this, as well? But, just having fun with the OP’s question. Really what do you all thing would be some good swaps to make this league more alike in schools? It’s ridiculous by the way to have little ol’ Dartmouth playing some of those schools like Cornell, for example. Makes no sense at all. And their stats show it. Columbia is another that I’d eye to go, but NYC probably should be represented. Yeah, I’d like to see Chicago and Rice in there and a southern school Let the West do a similar league. Would love to see that too. </p>
<p>Schools like Duke and Hopkins don’t want the sports restrictions for lacrosse. They dominate and have for years. They have their rivalries and want to continue playing year after year. What else would be in it for them? Join the Ivy league, have to cut down the level of sports and play?</p>
<p>MIT is division III, so why would they want to switch every sport to another level?</p>
<p>I think the OP is trying to form a non-sports version of the Ivies. Don’t we already have that with the USNWR top 10 list?</p>
<p>Well, Hopkins does play the Ivies in lacrosse, do they not? In fact, Hopkins is D3 and got an exemption for the one sport. We are talking change, so there might be exceptions made. I’d like to see it. Maybe Rice in the Ivy League? </p>
<p>Each D-3 school can play one sport (each sex) in D-1 and remain D-3 for others, but the Ivy league is a D-1 league, so then all of Hopkins teams would have to move up. The school can’t be in different levels for different sports. Any school in D-1 can play another school outside their league as long as they are meeting the requirements for their league. If a school is D-1 but wants to start a team and play D-3, can’t be done; for that sport, the team would have to play at ‘club’ level.</p>
<p>Hopkins men are only playing Princeton from the Ivy league this year; all other games are with teams from other leagues as Hopkins is Independent. Duke is playing Harvard and Penn, but will always play Hopkins, plus UVa, UMd and other ACC league teams (although with Maryland changing to the Big 10, who knows?) If Hopkins (or Duke) was in the Ivy, they’d have to play all the teams in that league (even lowly Dartmouth), and some of their traditional rivalries would be lost. Teams do change leagues, the Big 8 became the Big 12, and now several of those 12 have been replaced, but I don’t see it happening in the Ivy league because the school’s ‘sports personality’ and ‘academic personalities’ have to match, as well as location. </p>
<p>Tufts, MIT, or one of the LACs could join, but then all the teams that aren’t D-1 level would have to become club teams. There really is a different level of competition at D-1 and while one or two teams might be okay, across the board the teams at the ‘new’ school would have a tough time.</p>