Some very interesting news:

Quote:Ivy League Commissions Expansion Candidate Report: Will the Ancient Eight add 1, 2… or More?

By Ryan Simmons, Globe Staff, May 14, 2019, 7:12 am

PRINCETON, N.J. – Over the past decade, the Big Ten expanded out of its Midwestern roots into the East Coast with its additions of Maryland and Rutgers. Now, the Ivy League may be returning the favor by heading to the Midwest. The Boston Globe has obtained a report commissioned by the Council of Ivy League Presidents from the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC that analyzes potential expansion candidates for the athletic conference whose name has become synonymous with the academic elite in America.

As the demographic growth of the United States has largely been taking place far from the Northeastern core of the Ivy League, some of the conference’s presidents have expressed an increasing concern that their current position at the top of the academic food chain could be threatened in a generation without more directly reaching a larger segment of the country. One official from an Ivy League institution that had read the report, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, “We built up a mythical status over many generations and that has served us very well, but we are looking years down the road to ensure that we have strength top-to-bottom. There’s no doubt that the Harvards and Yales of the world are virtually assured to always have a prime position in the academic world with their endowments, but we need to make sure that the other members like Dartmouth and Brown continue to receive a maximum benefit from our elite association.”

The Goldman Sachs report indicates the difficulty in finding viable expansion candidates that meet the stringent criteria of the Ivy League. Any target for the Ivy League would need to be on a short list of academically elite powerhouses with either Division I athletics or a concrete plan to move up from lower divisions. Forty years ago, top tier academic private institutions schools with Division I sports programs such as Northwestern, Duke and Vanderbilt might have jumped at the chance at obtaining the Ivy label. However, the Goldman Sachs report concludes that the financial reality today is that not even the Ivy League could realistically lure a full member from one of the Power Five conferences (the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12) with their lucrative television contract earnings and other sources of athletic revenue.

At the same time, the Goldman Sachs report notes that the Ivy League demands “an unwavering commitment to academic freedom” from any candidate. This is interpreted within the Council of Ivy League Presidents to effectively eliminate any institution with a religious affiliation, such as Georgetown, from consideration, although one athletic director from the conference half-jokingly quipped, “If Notre Dame wants to join us for football, our door is wide open!”

As a result, the Goldman Sachs report recommends that the Ivy League examine “development cases” of Division III athletic schools that are in the top tier of academia while also having the financial wherewithal to move up to Division I. The Goldman Sachs report said, “While moving from Division III to Division I is challenging, it pales in comparison to the difficulty in moving up the academic rankings. Therefore, there is a greater likelihood of the Ivy League adding a well-resourced institution that already meets the requisite academic criteria to build a proper athletic program than the other way around.”

The University of Chicago, which was once a member of the Big Ten and home to the first Heisman Trophy winner (Jay Berwanger in 1939), was identified as a prime potential development case. The famously academically intense school that churns out Nobel Prize winners on a regular basis on the South Side of Chicago has vaulted to #3 in the U.S. News & World Report National University Rankings over recent years and would instantly bring the Ivy League into its largest market outside of New York City. As of June 30, 2018, the University of Chicago had an endowment of $8.2 billion, which would place it in the middle of the Ivy League ahead of Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which has led all U.S. universities in research spending for 39 consecutive years, is another potential development case that simultaneously has the advantage of a perennially-ranked Division I lacrosse program despite currently having its other athletic teams at the Division III level. A source within the Johns Hopkins athletic department stated if the school ever received an invitation to the Ivy League, it would support such efforts and move its lacrosse program from its current home as an associate member of the Big Ten. The Goldman Sachs report also noted that the location of John Hopkins would allow for the Ivy League to effectively span the entire Washington-New York-Boston corridor, which could strengthen the ties between the conference and the nation’s capital even further.

Other Division III schools mentioned as possible development cases include Washington University in St. Louis and Carnegie Mellon University.

Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris could not be reached for comment. Sources within the Council of Ivy League Presidents have stated that the group has not set a timetable for a decision regarding any potential expansion.

In the real world it’s pretty crazy the Ivy League doesn’t expand with army and navy to get to 10

The Ivy should adopt the "Southern Strategy" and add Johns Hopkins and Emory.

Rice University in Houston is a IDEAL Candidate ..!!!


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(05-14-2019 09:35 AM)bluesox Wrote:  In the real world it’s pretty crazy the Ivy League doesn’t expand with army and navy to get to 10

It's an interesting scenario that I've thought about, although there has been quite a bit of friction over the years between the military and the Ivy League (particularly Harvard, which banned its ROTC program from 1969 to 2011). The service academies are inherently going to be tied to the current political policies of the administration in power at any given time, which I could see being problematic for the Ivy League presidents (e.g. they would likely see the current retrograde approach toward transgender troops as a dealbreaker).

(05-14-2019 09:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Ivy should adopt the "Southern Strategy" and add Johns Hopkins and Emory.

Emory seems to be a great academic fit on paper, although its ties to the Methodist United Methodist Church might cause a conflict for the university presidents.

(05-14-2019 09:46 AM)michael.stevens.3110 Wrote:  Rice University in Houston is a IDEAL Candidate ..!!!


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Rice has a great profile with top academics and Division I sports (although they would need to drop down from FBS to FCS for football). It also puts the Ivy League into the high growth state of Texas. The main concern might be geographic - it looks a bit more palatable if UChicago and Wash U are added, but Rice would still be an outlier in that scenario.

Yes, I know this is satire, nonetheless...

The Ivy League values exclusivity at least a billion times more than it values geographic reach or anything to do with sports.

The Ivy League exclusivity is critical, and will never be eroded by expansion, because the only thing that Brown and Dartmouth have over about 20 other really good private colleges is, "We're in the Ivy League and you're not."

Wonder if MIT would be a great candidate?

Upper Iowa fits the profile

Good one, dude.

So, what happened to the schools the Ivy actually DID consider some decades ago, Army and Navy (as in, how did they not get into that “article”)? For fun, though, Chicago, Amherst, MIT, Cal Tech, Emory, Hopkins, Brandeis, WashU, and CM come to mind, but, who knows...maybe Stanford or Duke apply. Heh.

On a real related note, with the admissions scandal and hearing that Bucknell is going test-optional admissions (but not including the jocks), how long is the academic index a thing? One exposed it as bulls*** and the other kinda discriminates against student athletes.

I do wonder if Georgetown would accept an Ivy League bid. Pair them with Johns Hopkins to get to 10, thus you bring in DC to the Ivy League

(05-14-2019 12:50 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yes, I know this is satire, nonetheless...

The Ivy League values exclusivity at least a billion times more than it values geographic reach or anything to do with sports.

The Ivy League exclusivity is critical, and will never be eroded by expansion, because the only thing that Brown and Dartmouth have over about 20 other really good private colleges is, "We're in the Ivy League and you're not."

Johns Hopkins and MIT would still keep it exclusive.

So would Chicago, Washington U., Rice, Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western.

(05-14-2019 02:54 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(05-14-2019 12:50 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yes, I know this is satire, nonetheless...

The Ivy League values exclusivity at least a billion times more than it values geographic reach or anything to do with sports.

The Ivy League exclusivity is critical, and will never be eroded by expansion, because the only thing that Brown and Dartmouth have over about 20 other really good private colleges is, "We're in the Ivy League and you're not."

Johns Hopkins and MIT would still keep it exclusive.

So would Chicago, Washington U., Rice, Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western.

... but at the expense of whatever edge in reputation that Brown and Dartmouth currently hold over any those schools.

(05-14-2019 03:37 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-14-2019 02:54 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(05-14-2019 12:50 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yes, I know this is satire, nonetheless...

The Ivy League values exclusivity at least a billion times more than it values geographic reach or anything to do with sports.

The Ivy League exclusivity is critical, and will never be eroded by expansion, because the only thing that Brown and Dartmouth have over about 20 other really good private colleges is, "We're in the Ivy League and you're not."

Johns Hopkins and MIT would still keep it exclusive.

So would Chicago, Washington U., Rice, Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western.

... but at the expense of whatever edge in reputation that Brown and Dartmouth currently hold over any those schools.

Considering some of these schools are already ranked above Brown and Dartmouth, and aren't hurting for applications or an enhanced enrollment profile, why couldn't adding MIT, Chicago, or Hopkins make either better?

You also have Mcgill in Canada, NYU, U. of Rochester in NY, and U. of Toronto could fit in as well with the Ivy, except 2 are in Canada which they should go D2 with Simon Fraser. Toronto did said something about playing D1 men's hockey which means they have to apply for NCAA D2 status. I do think the NCAA and the Canadian base athletics join forces to do cross over games. Could see a Toronto vs an Ivy school in football or with Toronto vs other D1 programs.

In this hypothetical, would any potential expansion school have to start playing FCS football?

(05-14-2019 12:40 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-14-2019 09:42 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The Ivy should adopt the "Southern Strategy" and add Johns Hopkins and Emory.

Emory seems to be a great academic fit on paper, although its ties to the Methodist United Methodist Church might cause a conflict for the university presidents.

I don't think so. Many of Emory's seminary professors have Ivy ties. Princeton & Yale that I can think of off the top of my head. The Seminary at Emory has no impact on the rest of the campus. It shares a theology/law class and ethics with other campus disciplines, but the academic freedom issue for the main campus is not impacted. And the seminary itself is about as wide open on current social issues as you can get. I would say this is also true of Duke University.

Edit: I think Vanderbilt might also be a legitimate option if they wanted to pursue it. It doesn't seem that way now, but Vandy will one day have to come to grips with a small stadium they refuse to renovate, and likely with investment in student athletes compensation packages, and with not expanding their women's athletics to include Softball.

This is an interesting hypothetical. I struggle because I can't ever ever ever ever ever imagine the Presidents being interested in expansion. What's the upside for a conference that was explicitly created to avoid the influence of big time sports on academia? This is also made difficult by the raging elitism of the institutions. That said IF it did, the only mildly realistic options would be U. Chicago or maybe Johns Hopkins? I can't imagine them reaching into the South (sorry Rice/Emory), non liberal arts colleges are a no (sorry Caltech), I would think MIT would decline, Stanford doesn't need it, and beyond that nothing is even plausible (sorry service academies).

You'd need an academic peer institution that was willing to either rip down its athletics programs by removing athletic scholarships or a school with the wherewithal to ramp up the athletics department (i think there are something like 37 sanctioned league sports?) with 0 chance of a financial return on those investments.

Regarding Brown/Dartmouth and the "lesser" Ivy's, I'd take a look at their financial aid policies and compare them to any school mentioned so far. At this point every Ivy (except maybe Cornell?) has removed student loans from student aid packages regardless of income. That kind of commitment requires the financial aid departments to have more than a half billion in endowed resources to be sustained. Even Stanford hasn't gone as far as tiny Brown and Dartmouth.

(05-15-2019 01:15 AM)bgwisc Wrote:  You'd need an academic peer institution that was willing to either rip down its athletics programs by removing athletic scholarships or a school with the wherewithal to ramp up the athletics department (i think there are something like 37 sanctioned league sports?) with 0 chance of a financial return on those investments.

I'd like to see a financial analysis for Rice. Membership in C-USA also feels like a zero investment return these days. But the travel is likely too large a barrier without other nearby expansion programs, like Tulane and Vanderbilt.