Hemingway once wrote a short story whose protagonist graduated from a "nameless Ivy League school." Reading these words today, they have taken an almost meaningless quality. He might as well have written, "He attended one of those nameless Pac-10 schools." What does that even tell us? He could have gone to Washington State, where he might have majored in forestry. He is just as likely to have attended Stanford, which by overwhelming consensus is generally the better school.
Each version has a slightly different color to it, doesn't it? The Stanford grad might conjure a lanky Asian kid donning a sweater vest and slightly unkempt hair. Even if the Washington State grad is that same sweater vest-wearing Asian, he might not be as academically achieving, or maybe he was too attatched to his home state, or even unable to afford Stanford's tuition.
The Ivy League is a athletic term. In the past, it has been used to describe a set of eight schools whose membership in the sports league also meant a certain standard of academic excellence. These days, it doesn't really mean much more than an athletic league whose member teams are generally, and in aggregate, better than other schools in their respective, aggregate leagues. But again, these are academic distinctions in an athletic categorization.
But think about it. Ask a roomful of 100 people which school they think is better, Brown or Stanford (not a perfect measurement, I do concede), and I'm willing to bet that a majority will choose the latter. What about Northwestern and Dartmouth? Duke and UPenn? MIT and Barnard? My guess is that one side will not be a clear winner over the other.
My point is not that the term 'Ivy League' doesn't conjure up an image. It's that it shouldn't. Effectively, it is a meaningless phrase hopelessly clinging to some vague, antediluvian notion of superiority. And, as a Duke alumnus (full disclosure), I'm sick of it.
