Origin of the term Ivy League
How exactly the eight universities came to be called the Ivy League and why they became to be seen as a loose cluster, remains unclear even though multiple theories have been forwarded. The term may have derived from the European-style ivy-covered exterior of the school buildings. Growing ivy on buildings was recommended as an ornamental plant in the first place but with a cooling effect on the interiors in summer and providing insulation in winter. Another theory posits that Ivy League was actually IV League, roman cipher IV, representing four schools (Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth). However, people disregarded the Roman numeral reference for whatever reason and referred to the schools as ‘Ivy League’ rather than ‘Four League’, or something similar. The most likely origin behind the term, according to Dartmouth College professor Jere Daniell, is that the term was thought up by Caswell Adams, a reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune, in 1937. He was not exactly happy about covering a football game between Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, rather than one at his alma mater. After complaining to his boss about those old ‘Ivy-covered’ universities, Adams came up with the term ‘Ivy League’ in his article. Ivy League does not only exist as a term of recognition, but is also an entity – specifically, the Ivy League is an athletic league of sports teams from the eight schools – the original Ivies, which came together as they shared the same philosophies of mind and body. Established in 1954, the Ivy League is compared to groupings of elite universities in other countries, most notably the UK’s Oxbridge, a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge. Beyond doubt, the institutions and their genii are imitated in art.
Ivy League myths
The image associated with Ivy League universities is that of exclusivity, prestige and excellence both in academia and sports. Being accepted into an Ivy League institution, is being special. The allure of the Ivies – a handful of universities that grant you a status non-Ivies cannot – is undeniable and perhaps even unchallenged. There are the Ivies and then there are those on par with them but still not a part of the group. The original eight are private universities in the northeastern United States, known for their highly selective admissions process, academic rigor and social elitism. They are in geographically descending order: Dartmouth, Harvard, Brown, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, and University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). America’s top colleges that aren’t in the Ivy League include Stanford University; California Institute of Technology (Caltech); University of California, Berkley; University of Chicago; University of Michigan; Northwestern University; John Hopkins University; Duke University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Williams College and Babson College. Of these, Stanford, MIT and University of Chicago, and the Ivy League are known as Ivy Plus colleges. The Ivies consistently occupy top positions in US News & World Report’s ranking of universities nationally and globally. As of 2017, Harvard was the alma mater of 188 billionaires or nearly 7% of the billionaire population worldwide. The Ivies’ alumni have also produced copious amounts of Nobel Prize-winning work, with Princeton topping the list. Forty of the university’s alumni are Nobel laureates, and some of the school’s most famous graduates include Woodrow Wilson, James Madison, Jeff Bezos and Michelle Obama.
Awareness and exclusivity
While there are no surveys on whether or not Americans in general have their facts clear on which colleges constitute the Ivy League, or even if people who grew up in parts of United States far away from the Ivy Leagues, plus schools, or even other top-tier colleges, fully grasp the impact of graduating from this elite group of eight. It is also possible that some of those who live close to one of these esteemed schools chose it by default, regardless of whether or not they secured admission to it. Still, Ivy League universities have a historical reputation for academic excellence. ‘Harvard’ is sure to ring a bell even in less affluent or educated American neighborhoods. Again, there is no data on Americans’ understanding of the original Ivies, but in the internet age, a simple Google search easily clear matters. Ivy League status can also be misused or misunderstood. It can be as simple a misunderstanding as deeming Stanford – a world-leading research institution and the top dream college for American families – an Ivy League school or assuming that a reputed college that has made it to a ‘best at something’ list is comparable to an Ivy league institution. That is not to suggest that non-Ivy colleges are inferior or that Ivy League graduates have to somehow check their privilege more than other people. At the same time, you cannot undermine the rich histories of the Ivies and their consistently high academic caliber. Harvard has been around since 1636 and maintained its world-class legacy. The advantages of long-standing reputation are numerous, for the university and alumni. In 2018, Harvard’s endowment stood at $39.2 billion. In comparison, UChicago’s endowment was $8.2 billion and Rice University’s touched $6.3 billion for the same fiscal year. These are all competitive amounts, but Harvard in particular can comfortably pump significant moolah into research and stay on the forefront of innovation. There is a reason why you will find many articles with such titles as ‘what it takes to get accepted into the Ivy League’, ‘can I get into the Ivy League schools?’ and ‘why your brilliant child didn’t get into the Ivies’, as well as a plethora of non-fiction books on how to get admission to the Ivies. There is no denying that legacy and prestige matter, with even international students vying for a seat in an Ivy League classroom, doesn’t matter if the international acceptance rate is merely 4%!
Getting in after all…
At the beginning of every year, on exactly January 1st, the eight American universities of the Ivy League close their online portals from further applications to the incoming undergraduate cohort. Until the day admission results are released at the end of March (affectionally called “Ivy Day” by some people), students have to wait patiently for whether they have been accepted, rejected, or wait-listed. These students come from all over the world, and although only about 5% will receive an acceptance letter through their email inbox, 100% of them will have poured countless hours into preparing for the interviews, essays, personal statements, standardized tests, and coursework needed to apply to the Ivy League. But what exactly goes into these applications, and why does it seem to involve so much work? To the non-American student, it may seem strange that so much more goes into the application process than a student’s high school grade transcripts and the results of their standardized tests. But throughout the United States, both within and outside the Ivy League, a holistic approach is commonly taken to assess applicants. Stanford University provides a good example on the “Apply” section of their website, where they explicitly state:
“At Stanford, we practice holistic admission. Each piece in an application is part of an integrated and comprehensive whole. One piece tells us about your background and life experiences, another about your school and your academic achievement. In a holistic review, we seek to understand how you, as a whole person, would grow, contribute, and thrive at Stanford, and how Stanford would, in turn, be changed by you.”
To borrow an example from the Ivy League itself, Columbia University offers a similar note to prospective applicants:
“The admissions process at Columbia is a holistic one, which means that every part of the application matters to help inform our judgment. We read personal statements to try to understand each candidate and what motivates them. We read teacher recommendations carefully to understand a candidate's contributions in the classroom and what that candidate might offer their Columbia classmates.”
The primary method that students have to express these more holistic parts of their application are the Personal Statements that are mandatory for consideration to almost all US universities. The prompts for these Personal Statements can vary, but most universities will receive responses from a common set of prompts due to ubiquity of The Common Application (or “Common App” for short), an online application platform that offers a centralized location for essays, transcripts, SAT scores, and other materials to be sent by students to Admissions Officers. Although other platforms exist such as the Universal College Application, the Common App has long been a staple of American student life. Each year, the Common App releases a set of prompts for students’ Personal Statements, of which a few from the 2019-2020 school year are shown below:
· The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
· Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
In addition to the Common App’s prompts, each school can require students to respond to their own unique questions, or “Supplement”. Parts of the Yale Supplement are shown below as an example. It features both short answer questions and additional essay prompts:
· What inspires you?
· Yale’s residential colleges regularly host conversations with guests representing a wide range of experiences and accomplishments. What person, past or present, would you invite to speak? What question would you ask?
· You are teaching a Yale course. What is it called?
· Most first-year Yale students live in suites of four to six students. What do you hope to add to your suitemates’ experience? What do you hope they will add to yours?
· Essay: Think about an idea or topic that has been intellectually exciting for you. Why are you drawn to it?
Academic, or even better than that?
In short, acceptance into an Ivy League is not just about a student’s academic record. It is about how well a student can express their character, motivations, and personal experiences in a way that convinces Admissions Officers that they can contribute to the life and intellectual community of their school. Especially at the Ivy League, where most applicants tend to look the same (high grades, community involvement, athletic ability, musical proficiency, etc.) these Personal Statements may offer the best chance for students to stand out from the crowd.
But of course, grades still matter. Above all else, the university is a place of learning. A proven record of academic strength is therefore every school’s primary consideration in reviewing an application, which is mostly represented in a student’s high school transcript and SAT scores. For all students, the transcript is simply a fact of life. Most universities ask for the final marks of every course in a student’s entire high school career, but emphasis tends to be placed on the final two years. Because students apply before the completion of their last few months of high school, many US schools tend to make offers conditional on final confirmation of excellent grades, while other schools make offers based on predicted grades when appropriate (e.g., the predicted grades for the International Baccalaureate, or IB program).
The SAT however is unique to the United States (although it is administered globally!), and it is required by all Ivy League universities. Developed and administered by an American non-profit organization called the College Board, the SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test, is a 3 hour 50 minute exam including an optional essay which takes 50 minutes. It consists of five sections: Reading, Writing, Math (with calculator), Math (no calculator), and the optional essay. None of these sections are to be taken lightly. According to the College Board, most students take 2-3 months studying for the SAT, which can take the form of practice with self-guided books from companies like The Princeton Review, or from multi-thousand dollar seminars which are offered by countless private tutoring companies across the world. Often taking place on a weekend morning, in crowded classrooms with hundreds of other nervous students, with no break for lunch, the SAT is meant to be a challenging rite of passage on the path to a university education.
In addition to a holistic assessment of personal essays and numerical grades, the Ivy League also considers an applicant’s race and whether they are descended from alumni, a status known colloquially as “legacy status.” Race is considered in the name of student diversity, and out of a commitment to follow the mission of the 1960’s American Civil Rights movement to correct the disadvantaged socioeconomic position experienced by people of colour. Every Ivy League school contains a section on their website dedicated to diversity statistics, such as Princeton University which contains figures such as “44% of students are Americans of colour” and the acknowledgement that “differences in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, geography, gender, sexual orientation, academic and social interests,and political predilections all add to Princeton’s robust and varied student community.” As for the controversial practice of legacy admissions, it is almost universally acknowledged that it is upheld because they help bring in donations from alumni. Most Ivy League schools don’t share information on their legacy policy, but some like Columbia University make it clear that “being the daughter or son of a Columbia University graduate (from any Columbia school or college) may be a slight advantage in the admission process.” Everything considered, the process of applying (and being accepted) into the Ivy League is an arduous one. But with every year, tens of thousands of students still apply for their shot to get in. It certainly is not easy, but it can be done with the right amount of hard work and study – even if you aren’t the son of Harvard alumni.
Ivy League in pop culture
If you are movie fan, you wouldn’t have missed the Ivy League setting of Legally Blonde and Good Will Hunting. Although Harvard does not permit filming on its property, it made a concession for the Matt Damon after the intervention from alumnus John Lithgow. Damon actually wrote the movie script as an assignment for his playwriting class at Harvard. Legally Blonde’s dumb blonde trope worked wonders at the box office; the story about a blonde sorority girl’s determination to get into Harvard Law School to win over her boyfriend, also received critical acclaim. The 1978 comedy hit National Lampoon’s Animal House starring John Belushi was partly inspired by writer Chris Miller’s sorority experiences at Dartmouth College. The university is also featured prominently in the 1992 Oscar-winning coming-of-age drama A River Runs Through It, an adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novella by the same name written by Norman Maclean. The enduring 90’s classic Oh, the Places You’ll Go! also has a Dartmouth connection. As a freshman at the university, Dr. Seuss and his peers used the phrase as a verbal greeting. The M. Night Shyamalan-directed thriller Unbreakable features UPenn’s Franklin Field as one of the primary locations. In the movie, the protagonist, a security guard with superhuman abilities (played by Bruce Willis), works as a security guard at the stadium. Franklin Field also served as the backdrop of the 2006 sports drama Invincible starring Mark Wahlberg as Vince Papale, the oldest rookie in the NFL’s history, who went from being a substitute teacher to earning a spot on the Philadelphia Eagles’ roster at age 30. The Ivies have also been mentioned in passing in uncountable movies and television serials. Fans of psychological horror film American Psycho (2000) may recall references to the Harvard Club, Cornell Club and Yale Club (whose membership is restricted to alumni, faculty, and alumni family and business associates), as a part of Patrick Bateman’s charmed life in the Big Apple. In the teen drama series Gossip Girl, Upper East Side It Girls Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf enroll at Columbia University. You will also notice references to Ivy league schools in famous books, descriptively (in the Bell Jar, the protagonist’s boyfriend is pronounced a Yale man), metaphorically (“A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard”, Moby Dick), or as a location and the setting for many scenes (in National Book Critics Circle Fiction winner Americanah, the protagonist’s partner is a Yale professor). Ivies haven’t gone unnoticed by the fashion industry. They inspired Kensuke Ishizu, the godfather of Japanese Prep, to create Van Jacket, a clothing line modeled after the dressing styles of Princeton’s graduates. Ishizu, during his maiden trip to the United States, was impressed by Ivy League students’ button-down shirts, flannel pants, undone neckties and blazers/coats, what he described as the antithesis to the well-known flamboyant American style. In fact, the term ‘preppy’ is associated with Ivy League, and preppy fashion has been around since 1912, gaining ground in the 1950s, and – according to GQ – made a comeback of sorts in 2018.
