Memorial Glade, at the center of the UC Berkeley campus.

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 universities which "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]

[edit] 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 included visual appearance, age, and school traditions as well as certain other Ivy League characteristics.

[edit] The original eight Public Ivies

The original eight Public Ivies list by Moll (1985):^[2]

• College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
• Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
• University of California (campuses as of 1985)^[6]
• 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)

Moll also offered in the same book "a list of worthy runners-up" and brief summaries of them^[7]:

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

[edit] Greenes' Guides

The more recent and expansive Greene's list (including a list of approximately 30 schools) had one focus alone: public schools with academic quality comparable to an Ivy League institution.

[edit] The Public Ivies according to Greene's Guides

A later book titled The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene of Greene's Guides expanded upon the first list (italicized below) to include 30 colleges and universities.^[8]

[edit] Institutional comparisons

[edit] Academic comparisons and rankings

Many of the institutions categorized as "Public Ivies" have a large number of faculty, or alumni, who have been awarded prizes for their achievements in their respective field including the Nobel Prize (See Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation), Fields Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize.^{[citation needed]}

Several schools 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, U.S. News and World Report ranks University of California-Berkeley third and Georgia Institute of Technology fourth overall in undergraduate and graduate engineering, the University of California-Berkeley ranked third overall in undergraduate business, the University of Washington medical school has been consistently ranked as the top program for Primary Care and medicine,^[9] and the law schools of the University of California-Berkeley, University of Michigan and University of Virginia are always ranked in the top ten.

All Ivy League institutions are ranked above the Public Ivies in the U.S. News and World Report undergraduate rankings.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Athletic comparisons

One sharp distinction between the Ivy League and most "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 East, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, or Pac-10; award athletic scholarships; and rely on profits, if any, from large-scale football and men's basketball programs to support the athletic department as a whole.

[edit] See also

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

[edit] References and other resources

[edit] Citations

[edit] Books

• Greene, Howard; Matthew Greene (2001). The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 006093459X. 
• Greene, Howard; Matthew Greene (2000). Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060953624. 
• Moll, Richard (1985). The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities. New York: Penguin (Viking). ISBN 0140093842. 
• Robert Franek ... (2006). The Best 361 Colleges, 2007 Edition. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Review. ISBN 0375765581.