Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode is on the eight Ivy League Colleges/Universities in America. Viewed for their prestige, academic excellence and status, these colleges feed off the high competition for admission, as illustrated by the college admissions scandal and its subsequent exposure by police with “Operation Varsity Blues”.

The Ivy League is big business, that is shrouded in tradition, strange rituals, secret societies and of course a hefty bill.

With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ivy_League_map.svg

Wikipedia Summary

The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The conference's headquarters are located in Princeton, New Jersey. The term Ivy League is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.[2][3][4][5][6] Its members are Princeton University, Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.

While the term was in use as early as 1933, it became official only after the formation of the athletic conference in 1954.[7] All of the "Ivies" except Cornell were founded during the colonial period; they thus account for seven of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The other two colonial colleges, Rutgers University and the College of William & Mary, became public institutions.

Ivy League schools are viewed as some of the most prestigious universities in the world.[8] All eight universities place in the top 18 of the 2023 U.S. News & World Report National Universities ranking, including three Ivies in the top five (Yale, Harvard, and Princeton).[9] U.S. News has named a member of the Ivy League as the best national university[a] every year since 2001: as of 2020, Princeton eleven times, Harvard twice, and the two schools tied for first five times.[10] In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking, two Ivies rank in the top 10 internationally (Harvard first and Columbia sixth).[11] All eight Ivy League schools are members of the Association of American Universities, the most prestigious alliance of American research universities.[12]

Undergraduate enrollments range from about 4,500 to about 15,000,[13] larger than most liberal arts colleges and smaller than most state universities. Total enrollment, which includes graduate students, ranges from approximately 6,600 at Dartmouth to over 20,000 at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and Penn. Ivy League financial endowments range from Brown's $6.9 billion[14] to Harvard's $53.2 billion,[15] the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world.[16]

The Ivy League is similar to other groups of universities in other countries, such as the Grandes écoles in France,[17] Russell Group [18] in the United Kingdom, the C9 League [19] in China, the Imperial Universities [20] in Japan, and the Group of Eight [21] in Australia.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Front_Green_at_Brown_University,_one_of_America%27s_prestigious_%22Ivy_League%22_colleges,_in_Providence,_the_capital_of,_and_largest_city_in,_Rhode_Island.jpg

Mnemonic

Ivy League Universities – University PaY for CaB for CHaD

(Picture a university student named Chad getting really, really drunk at a frat party and the university paying for a cab to take him to the hospital)

1. University of Pennsylvania

2. Princeton University

3. Yale University

4. Columbia University

5. Brown University

6. Cornell University

7. Harvard University

8. Dartmouth College

Five Fun Facts

1. Seven of the Ivy League schools date back to colonial times hence the sobriquet the “Ancient Eight”. Harvard is the oldest of the Ivy League schools and also the oldest in the country.

Speaking of Harvard, a friend of mine wanted to study history at Harvard. Anyway, after a long debate I advised him not to, explaining to him there was no future in it!

So, I encouraged him to do a degree in communism. But apparently, he had to drop out after the first year due to poor Marx!

2. Brown University gets the award for the spookiest Ivy League college, having a traditional Halloween concert of spooky music at midnight with every one attending in costume.

3. Yale University gets the award for the most perplexing manuscript. It is called Voynich Manuscript and it dates back to the fifteenth century. To this date the 240 pages are yet to be deciphered, though a myriad of experts in a range of fields have tried.

4. Princeton has its own art museum. Formally established in 1882 it holds well over 100,000 different artifacts and works of art. The museum is the second oldest in the country and is open to the public and generally hosts around 200,000 visitors a year.

5. The University of Pennsylvania has a big name behind it and that name is founding father Benjamin Franklin. He founded the Ivy League school and a life-size bronze sculpture can be found of him on campus.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IVY_LEAGUE_(14512267537).jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. Which Ivy League was founded last? Options are Dartmouth or Cornell

Q.2. All colleges and universities have a nickname, which primarily refers to the

school's athletic programs and teams. What is Harvard's nickname? Options are Crimson, Bulldogs or Tigers

Q.3. Which two Ivy League schools contest the oldest college football rivalry each year, known simply as "The Game"? Options are Harvard and Yale or Harvard and Princeton

Bonus Q. Skull and Bones (1832), Scroll and Key (1841), and Wolf's Head (1883) are secret societies at what university? Options are Harvard or Yale.

Mnemonic Recap

Ivy League Universities – University PaY for CaB for CHaD

(Picture a university student named Chad getting really, really drunk at a frat party and the university paying for a cab to take him to the hospital)

1. University of Pennsylvania

2. Princeton University

3. Yale University

4. Columbia University

5. Brown University

6. Cornell University

7. Harvard University

8. Dartmouth College

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. Which Ivy League was founded last? Options are Dartmouth or Cornell

A. Cornell was founded on April 27, 1865, in Ithaca, New York

Q.2. All colleges and universities have a nickname, which primarily refers to the

school's athletic programs and teams. What is Harvard's nickname? Options are Crimson, Bulldogs or Tigers

A. Crimson. The Bulldogs are Yale and the Tigers are Princeton

Q.3. Which two Ivy League schools contest the oldest college football rivalry each year, known simply as "The Game"? Options are Harvard and Yale or Harvard and Princeton

A. Harvard and Yale and this tradition began in 1875

Bonus Q. Skull and Bones (1832), Scroll and Key (1841), and Wolf's Head (1883) are secret societies at what university? Options are Harvard or Yale

A. Yale University

Word of the Week

selenography

[ sel-uh-nog-ruh-fee ]

noun

the branch of astronomy that deals with the charting of the moon's surface.

Example

Yale University boasts a 12-inch Meade telescope and a Grubb telescope refractor for selenography.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/