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by kobs 6107 days ago
'Ivies' is used (erroneously)* as a blanket term to descibe a number of elite institutions (think Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, top LACs, etc.)

... connotation.

2 comments

the correct term is "top tier" or "tier 1" schools. The "ivies" are a sports league of schools that all happen to be good at academics: dartmouth, harvard, brown, columbia, yale, princeton, upenn, cornell.
I'm well aware of this. I was simply remarking on how it is sometimes used.
Most people don't realize that the Ivy League is a sports distinction. The assumption is that they are distinguished on academic grounds alone.
Sometimes people include top-ranked private universities like Stanford, but never for public universities, and never to refer to top schools in a particular field where the rest of the Ivies are notably weak.
In this context, I think that the "also has a top CS program" attribute is implied. I think most people understand what the author meant regardless of his slightly incorrect choice of words.
I thought the author meant "Princeton" but wasn't willing to say so.
Oh, then my mistake, I guess.