Ivy League

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Reputation

All Ivy League schools are known for their highly selective undergraduate programs, and acceptance rates now range from 8.6% for Yale^[25] to 24.7% for Cornell.^[26]

Although the Ivy League is usually regarded as a cohesive group from the outside, there is a considerable amount of internal academic rivalry and competition among its eight members. Among these elite universities, there is a heated competition for students. In 2002, admissions officers at Princeton logged into the Yale admissions website some fourteen times to view the admissions status of cross-applicants, using the names, birthdates, and social security numbers indicated on their Princeton applications; Princeton later asserted that it had been considering a similar system of early internet notification, and was surprised to find that Yale had used no password besides the Social Security number. Yale's administration notified the FBI about the actions after conducting its own investigation. Princeton moved one admissions official to a different department over the incident and the university's Dean of Admissions retired soon thereafter; Princeton president Shirley Tilghman said he had decided to retire regardless of the incident.^[27]

However, at the same time, there is a great deal of collaboration between the member schools, with a student-led Ivy Council that meets in the fall and spring of each year, with representatives from every Ivy League school except for Harvard. At these multi-day conferences, student representatives from each school meet to discuss issues facing their respective institutions, with a variety of topics ranging from financial aid to gender-neutral housing.^{[citation needed]}

Social elitism

The phrase Ivy League historically has been perceived as connected, not only with academic excellence, but also with social elitism. In 1936, sportwriter John Kieran noted that student editors at Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Penn, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, and Cornell University were advocating the formation of an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted:

It would be well for the proponents of the Ivy League to make it clear (to themselves especially) that the proposed group would be inclusive but not "exclusive" as this term is used with a slight up-tilting of the tip of the nose.^[28]

The Ivy League was specifically associated with the WASP establishment^[29]. Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery"^[30] are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century. A Louis Auchincloss character dreads "the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges"^[31]. A business writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid (the bracketed phrase is his):

"We Ivy Leaguers [read: mostly white and Anglo] know that an Ivy League degree is a mark of the kind of person who is likely to succeed in this organization."^[32]

Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential election, when George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) derided Michael Dukakis (graduate of Harvard Law School) for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique."^[33] New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked "Wasn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle elite?" Bush explained however that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it.... Harvard boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism" and said Harvard in his remark was intended to represent "a philosophical enclave" and not a statement about class.^[34]. Columnist Russell Baker opined that "Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets."^[35]

Co-operation

Seven of the eight schools (Harvard excluded) participate in the Borrow Direct interlibrary loan program, making a total of 88 million items available to participants with a waiting period of four working days.^[36] This ILL program is not affiliated with the formal Ivy arrangement.