Big Three (colleges)

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The Big Three universities in the United States are Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The phrase originated in the 1880s, when these three colleges dominated college football[1]. High-school college admissions counselors and college admissions guides sometimes use the initialism HYP to refer to these universities. These universities are set apart from all others by a combination of academic factors and a special historic connection with the WASP establishment; as E. Digby Baltzell writes, "the three major upper-class institutions in America have been Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."[2] The phrase "Big Three" (like Ivy League) also has a connection with an athletic league; see Harvard-Yale-Princeton.

Perceptions of comparative prestige

Rankings such as those of U. S. News and World Report often do rate these three as being the most selective and having the highest academic standards. For example, the 2006 rankings[3] ranked Harvard, Princeton, and Yale #1, #1, and #3 respectively. But U. S. News rankings fluctuate from year to year, with other universities frequently making appearances in the top three[4]. Academic factors alone do not explain the separation of these three universities from close academic rivals, nor do they explain why they are almost invariably named in the order "Harvard, Yale and Princeton." Quotations such "The quadrangles and lawns of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton almost recall Oxford and Cambridge"[5] abound.

Theodore Roosevelt names the Big Three in their canonical order and puts them into social context:

We drew recruits from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and many another college; from clubs like the Somerset, of Boston, and Knickerbocker, of New York; and from among the men who belonged neither to club nor to college, but in whose veins the blood stirred with the same impulse which once sent the Vikings over sea. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1899) [6]

Burt (1999) describes the social prestige of the Big Three:

It is, above all, the national social prestige of the Big Three which is competition with the purely local social prestige of the University [of Pennsylvania]. Upper-class boys from all over the country, including Philadelphia, go to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Only from Philadelphia do upper-class boys go in any significant numbers to Penn. This is of course a universal national phenomenon. The pattern of upper-class male college preference, as deduced from a counting of noses in the various Social Registers, can be summed up as "The Big Three and a Local Favorite."[7]

The connection between certain colleges and social ranking is old; Jerome Karabel, in a note citing Kenneth Davis, says that "in the mid-eighteenth century, the [president of Harvard] personally listed students when they enrolled, according to ... 'to the Dignity of the Familie whereto the student severally belong'—a list that was printed in the college catalogue and that dertermined precedence in such matters as table seating, position in acadmeic processionals, even recitations in class."[8]. Ronald Story, however, says that it was during "the four decades from 1815 to 1855" that "parents, in Henry Adams's words, began 'sending their children to Harvard College for the sake of its social advantages.'"[9]. A further intensification of the importance of the Big Three occurred during the 1920s; According to E. Digby Baltzell[10], "in a ... managerial society, the proper college degree became the main criterion for potential elite status... it was during the [1920s] that certain institutions of high prestige, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton (and Stanford on the West Coast) became all-important as upper-class-ascribing institutions." Not coincidentally, this was also the era when the Big Three became concerned by "the Jewish problem" and began instituting interviews, essays, and judgements of "character" into the admissions process[11]. From the 1930s on, Big Three admissions became progressively more meritocratic, but still include non-academic factors such as "lineage." The universities of the Big Three are widely, and some say damagingly (see Levine, quoted by [Coeyman]), regarded as being the goal for children to fix upon. Some educators have attempted to discourage this fixation. Jay Mathews, author of Harvard Schmarvard, addresses seniors obsessed with HYP with the analysis, "It does not matter where you go to school, it matters what you do when you get there and what you do after you graduate."

Shorthands

Although any number of impromptu variations are seen in online forums (e.g. HYPSM for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford University, and MIT the only common shorthand is:

  • HYP — Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

Order of the names

The three universities, when named together, are almost invariably named in the order Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. This could reflect their relative age—their founding dates being 1601, 1701, and 1741, respectively—which in turn is an important point of institutional pride, since it governs the order in which the institutions march in academic processions.

There are, however, a striking number of measures by which the three institutions rank in the order Harvard, Yale, Princeton: undergraduate enrollment (6655, 5300, 4635); endowment ($26, $15, $12 billion USD); size of library (15.2, 11.1, 6.2 million volumes)[12]; number of alumni who became U. S. Presidents (7, 5, 2)[13]; and space devoted to each institution in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (5.0, 4.3, 3.0 columns of print)[14]

Ranking debates

Main article: college and university rankings

The actual quality of the three HYP universities is a matter of some debate and disputed by some. In 2004, Yale had the lowest acceptance rate (9.9%) among major world universities, with Harvard (10.3%) and Princeton (11.8%) coming in second and third. The 2005 U.S. News & World Report "National University" rankings placed the HYP universities in the top three spots, with Harvard and Princeton in joint first place and Yale coming in third [2]. The 2004 Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings placed Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in first, eighth, and ninth place, respectively, out of all the universities around the globe. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton hold the top three spots (in that order) in terms of largest numbers of Rhodes Scholarships won.

The September 2002 issue of Worth magazine ranked high schools on the basis of the number of students from those high schools matriculating at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Worth magazine argued that the three schools were "three of the most selective Ivy colleges; the term HYP has come to signify the elite college standard."


References

  1. ^ Synnott, Marsha G. [http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1976/JSH0302/jsh0302i.pdf The “Big Three” and the Harvard-Princeton Football Break, 1926-1934]; see also Harvard-Yale-Princeton.
  2. ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (1996). Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia. Transaction Publishers. 156000830X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) (p. 249, "the three major upper-class institutions...")
  3. ^ America's Best Colleges 2006, U. S. News and World Report
  4. ^ For example the year 2000, the three top-ranked universities were Caltech, Harvard, and MIT, in that order[1]
  5. ^ Archer, William, America Today,
  6. ^ Roosevelt, Theodore (1899) The Rough Riders,
  7. ^ Burt, Nathaniel (1999). The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy. University of Pennsylvania Press. 0812216938. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) (p. 86, "...the Big Three and a Local Favorite...")
  8. ^ Karabel, Jerome (2005). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin. 0818574581. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) (p. 562, note 19, citing Kenneth Davis, FDR, p. 135, re the Harvard president's list
  9. ^ Story, Ronald (1980), The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800-1870, Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 0819550442 (p. 97, (1815-1855 as the era when Harvard began to be perceived as socially advantageous)
  10. ^ Baltzell, E. Digby (1964). The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America. Yale University Press. 0300038186. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) (p. 209, "...proper college degree became the main criterion...")
  11. ^ Karabel, op. cit, Part I, The Origins of Selective Admissions, 1900-1933
  12. ^ The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held, ALA Library Fact Sheet Number 22
  13. ^ [http://www.presidentsusa.net/collegelisting.html Colleges and Universities Attended by the Presidents)
  14. ^ Measured from the print edition. Unfortunately the online version of the Yale article at 1911encyclopedia.org is truncated and contains only a fragment of the article

See also

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