Public Ivy

The Wren Building at the College of William and Mary

Sather Tower seen from Memorial Glade of the Berkeley campus of the University of California

Harrison Hall at Miami University

Michigan Union at the University of Michigan

Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Main Building at the University of Texas at Austin

Old Mill at the University of Vermont.

"Public Ivy" is a term coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities to refer to US universities that are claimed to provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price.^[1] Public Ivies are considered, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, to be capable of "successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor... attracting superstar faculty and in competing for the best and brightest students of all races."^[2]

Origins of the term

Moll, who earned his Master of Divinity degree from Yale University in 1959,^[3] was an admissions officer at Yale, and the director of admissions at Bowdoin College, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Vassar College.^[3][4][5] He traveled the nation examining higher education and in particular, identified eight public institutions (the same as the number of Ivy League members) which he thought had the look and feel of an Ivy League university. In addition to academic excellence, other factors considered by Moll include visual appearance, age, and school traditions as well as certain other Ivy League characteristics.^[6]

Public Ivy list

Original Public Ivies

The original Public Ivies as they were listed by Moll in 1985:^[2]

• College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
• Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
• University of California (9 campuses as of 1985)^[7]
• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Vermont (Burlington)
• University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

Worthy runners-up

Moll also offered in the same book "a list of worthy runners-up" and brief summaries of them:^[8]

• University of Colorado Boulder
• Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• New College of the University of South Florida (Sarasota; now New College of Florida)
• Pennsylvania State University at University Park
• University of Pittsburgh
• State University of New York at Binghamton (now called Binghamton University)
• University of Washington (Seattle)
• University of Wisconsin–Madison

Greenes' Guides

A book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greenes' Guides included 30 colleges and universities.^[9] The table below is organized by region, and colleges are listed in alphabetical order.

The Rotunda at the University of Virginia

Northeastern Pennsylvania State University (University Park) Rutgers University (New Brunswick) State University of New York at Binghamton (also known as Binghamton University) University of Connecticut (Storrs) Mid-Atlantic University of Delaware (Newark) University of Maryland (College Park) College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia) University of Virginia (Charlottesville) Southern University of Florida (Gainesville) University of Georgia (Athens) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of Texas at Austin

Western University of Arizona (Tucson) University of California, Berkeley University of California, Davis University of California, Irvine University of California, Los Angeles University of California, San Diego University of California, Santa Barbara University of Colorado Boulder University of Washington (Seattle) Great Lakes & Midwest Indiana University (Bloomington) Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) Michigan State University (East Lansing) The Ohio State University (Columbus) University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) University of Iowa (Iowa City) University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) University of Minnesota (Minneapolis–Saint Paul) University of Wisconsin (Madison)

Institutional comparisons

Academic comparisons and rankings

Several universities considered as "Public Ivies" are consistently ranked among the top schools in the multitude of surveys on American colleges and universities undertaken by U.S. News & World Report. For instance, half of the top 12 ranked national universities for undergraduate teaching in U.S. News & World Report are of the original Public Ivies listed by Moll.^[10] Public Ivies can be found in the top ten ranked graduate schools in business, education, engineering, law, library & information science, and medicine.^[11]

Athletic comparisons

One sharp distinction between the Ivy League and some "Public Ivies" is their participation in intercollegiate athletics. One of the Ivy League's distinguishing characteristics is its prohibition on the awarding of athletic scholarships (athletes may only receive the same financial aid to which they would be entitled even if they did not play a sport). In contrast, many of the "Public Ivies" participate in major athletic conferences such as the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Pac-12, and award athletic scholarships. These schools sometimes rely on profits, if any, from large-scale football and men's basketball programs to support the athletic department as a whole.

See also

• Black Ivy League
• Colonial colleges
• Flagship university
• Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence
• Little Three
• Little Ivies
• Seven Sisters
• Southern Ivies

References and other resources

Citations

1. Richard Moll in his book Public Ivys: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities (1985)
2. "Comparing Black Enrollments at the Public Ivies". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Autumn 2005. Retrieved 2006-09-03.
3. Branch, Mark Alden (November 2000). "Deciphering the Admissions Map". Yale Alumni Magazine. 109 (11). Retrieved 2008-02-09. ¶16: But Richard Moll '59MDiv, a former Yale admissions officer who later oversaw admissions at Bowdoin and Vassar, thinks Yale still is not as visible as it should be. "Yale has not had the presence at grassroots admissions and counseling conferences that Harvard and Stanford have," says Moll, author of Playing the Selective College Admissions Game.
4. Pierce, Kenneth M. (24 November 1980). "Dr. Fix-It Goes to Santa Cruz". Time. Retrieved 2008-02-09. Trouble in paradise as "the touchy-feely school" sings the blues – Richard Moll, 45, a tweedy graduate of Yale's Divinity School, has become a Dr. Fix-It for colleges that complain of sagging enrollment.
5. Paul Marthers, Dean of Admission. "Admissions Messages vs. Admissions Realities". Office of Admissions. Reed College. Retrieved 2008-02-09.
6. Savage, David G. (1985-10-06). "The Public Ivys: A GUIDE TO AMERICA'S BEST PUBLIC UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-07-26.
7. In Moll's book, he refers to the entire UC system
8. Moll, Richard (1985). The Public Ivys: A Guide to America's Best Undergraduate Colleges and Universities. Viking Penguin Inc., p. xxvi. ISBN 0-670-58205-0
9. Greene, Howard R.; Greene, Matthew W. (2001). The public ivies: America's flagship public universities (1st ed.). New York: Cliff Street Books. ISBN 978-0060934590.
10. U.S. News and World Report. "Best Colleges: Undergraduate Teaching at National Universities". Retrieved 2 August 2010.
11. U.S. News and World Report. "Best Graduate Schools". Retrieved 2 August 2010.

Books

• Greene, Howard; Matthew Greene (2001). The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-093459-X.
• Greene, Howard; Matthew Greene (2000). Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095362-4.
• Moll, Richard (1985). The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities. New York: Penguin (Viking). ISBN 0-14-009384-2.
• Robert Franek ... (2006). The Best 361 Colleges, 2007 Edition. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Review. ISBN 0-375-76558-1.