Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,469
edits
Ivy League for Everyone: Difference between revisions
fixed stupid error, spelling, link and italics markup, grammar
m (update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (fixed stupid error, spelling, link and italics markup, grammar) |
||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
Despite being considered among the most selective colleges in the United States, with admission rates from 6% to 16%, [[Ivy League]] schools show up frequently in fiction. In [[Teen Drama|teen dramas]], a main character (or two) will always get accepted into an Ivy League school. Expect this to become a key part of high school [[Rite of Passage|senior year stress]], whether the character is trying to get into a certain Ivy League school, or deciding between an Ivy League college far away from home and a [[California University|local college]] that keeps the show in the same setting.
Line 8:
In the case that we're past the high school setting, this information will commonly show up in a character's [[Backstory|educational background]]. Usually this will be done as a shorthand to show that a character is either [[The Smart Guy|smart]], [[To Be a Master|ambitious]], or filthy rich. The rule about not discussing coursework also holds at this stage.
This has all been popularized by [[Author Appeal]]
Depending on the setting this trope can still be plausible, usually if it focuses on people whose career interests directly relate to their alma mater. A show about high-tier law firms, for example, is justified in having an above-average Ivy quotient because Harvard and Yale have high-quality law schools. However, even in the most extreme cases, any given environment will have plenty of people who graduated from other schools for the simple reason of sheer numbers.
Line 23:
* Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut, founded 1701)
Don't feel bad if you've only heard of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, since those are referenced in fiction [[Small Reference Pools|far more]] than the others. (They also happen to be the perennial "top three" schools in the United States, with only the order varying from year to year.) Columbia gets fewer mentions since NYU is the "go-to" institution to name-drop if you want your characters in The [[Big Applesauce]], while many of the others are surrounded by inner-city and Dartmouth is in the middle of nowhere, the nearest cities offering much off-campus nightlife<ref>
Some non-Ivy League schools can fall under this trope as well, due to their elite status and overuse in fiction. Examples include:
Line 30 ⟶ 29:
* Stanford University, another elite, prestigious school located in Palo Alto, California. Common in works set on the West Coast.
* MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) or Caltech (the California Institute of Technology). Most common with characters whose backgrounds are in math, science, engineering, or programming.
* The Seven Sisters, a group of prestigious women's colleges.<ref>Includes Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley. Currently down to just five "sisters," since Radcliffe (then Harvard's women's college) ceased to exist after Harvard started admitting women, and Vassar became co-ed -- but the old name stuck due to [[
* The Juilliard School, a prestigious arts school in [[Big Applesauce|New York City]] with programs in music, theater and dance. If your [[Teen Drama]] includes an amazing classical musician or the star of the school musical, they will always go here, even though the latter is a case of [[Did Not Do the Research]]; Juilliard does not have a musical theater program.
* The medical school of The Johns Hopkins University, common for elite doctors or medical researchers (for example, [[House (TV series)|Dr. Gregory House]]).<ref>Despite popular misconception, JHU is not ''just'' a medical school, however, its association exclusively with medicine in the media means that the name-dropping of JHU in any other field would be an [[Averted Trope|aversion of this trope.]]</ref>
Line 37 ⟶ 36:
* Georgetown University in [[Washington DC]] for TV lawyers and politicians who don't go to Harvard or Yale.
A note before you add to this list: Being the best-known/most elite in a particular discipline does not mean a school fits this trope. They also need to be ''overused in media''
Why aren't any of these considered "Ivy League" schools, you wonder? The League is actually an athletic conference within the NCAA; the eight schools' sports teams compete primarily against each other in the playing season. The social connotations developed around this.
For the British equivalent, see [[Oxbridge]]. In Japanese works, the "Tôdai" or [[Tokyo University|University Of Tokyo]] can
Contrast [[California University]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* From ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]'', [[Child Prodigy]] Rebecca Miyamoto graduated from MIT at the age of ten, though in the manga she tells people she went to Columbia, simply because it's easier to pronounce than "Massachusetts."
Line 54 ⟶ 52:
* Matt Murdock of ''[[Daredevil]]'' fame holds a Doctorate of Law from Columbia.
* In ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'', Dr. Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan attends Princeton University from 1948?1958, graduating with a [[Not That Kind of Doctor|Ph.D.]] in atomic physics.
* A version of this is in the comic ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'': At one point, a discussion is made on how just about everyone in the area is a doctor, with multiple degrees, ridiculous accomplishments, etc. Ace, the [[Ace Pilot]], is a bit annoyed.
* Flash Gordon is identified in the first issue as a "Yale graduate and world renowned polo player"
== Film ==
* In ''[[21 (2008 film)|21]]'', MIT senior math major Ben Campbell is accepted into Harvard Medical School but cannot afford the $300,000 cost. Even though he has a high 44 MCAT score and a 4.0 GPA, Ben faces heavy competition for the prestigious Robinson Scholarship, which would give him a full ride through medical school. He uses the story of the film to impress Harvard officers and to stand out from the other well-qualified applicants.
** True in [[Real Life]], the [[wikipedia:MIT Blackjack Team|MIT Blackjack Team]] were from MIT and Harvard.
* In ''[[Across the Universe (film)|Across the Universe]]'', Jude befriends Max Carrigan, a rebellious student at Princeton. Max and his friends' upper class and wealthy families pay for their schooling while they spend their time drinking, smoking marijuana, and pulling pranks. Max's attendance at Princeton allows him to avoid [[Conscription|the draft]] of the [[The Vietnam War|Vietnam War]]. When he drops out though...
Line 68 ⟶ 66:
* In ''[[Batman Begins]]'', Alfred casually asks Bruce Wayne if he plans to return to Princeton after the trial of his parents' murderer. Bruce tells him that he won't, adding that "I like it fine. They just don't feel the same way." He drops out and goes to China instead.
* In the Coen Brothers' ''[[Burn After Reading]]'', Osborne Cox, played by John Malkovich, is a CIA analyst and Princeton class of 1973 graduate. In a scene at a fictional Princeton Club, he leads a fast-tempo rendition of Princeton's anthem, Old Nassau.
* In the movie ''[[A Cinderella Story]]'', a major part of the
* In ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', the eponymous character is said to have attended and been thrown out of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell.
* At the end of ''Coming Soon'', Tricia Vessey's character, Nell Kellner, gets accepted to Brown University when she reveals that her father had donated a large sum of money to the school.
* [[Tom Cruise]]'s character Mitch McDeere in ''The Firm'' is a recent Harvard Law graduate hired by Memphis law firm that {{spoiler|represents organized crime.}}
* In ''The Girl Next Door'', Eli Brooks is mentioned as having been accepted to Princeton
* In ''[[The Godfather]]'', main character Michael Corleone, wishing to avoid the [[The Mafia|family]] [[Family Business|business]], attends Dartmouth College. He later re-enrolls at Dartmouth after fighting in the Pacific
* In ''Hamlet 2'', the main character, a drama teacher, assumes a Latino student is a gangster. In actuality, the student had gained early admission to Brown.
* Alan Jensen, played by Adrian Grenier, is the point guard of the Harvard basketball team in ''[[Harvard Man]]''.
* In the [[Stoner Flick|stoner film]] ''[[How High]]'', two underachieving pot smokers, Silas (Method Man) and Jamal (Redman), uses a magic weed to get perfect scores on their THC exams (Testing for Higher Credentials, as opposed to SAT) and to receive admission into Harvard University.
* In the 2008
* In ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'', Tony Stark asks Christine Everhart, s Vanity Fair columnist who questions him about his weapons industry and accuses his company of killing people, if she attended [[Strawman U|Berkeley]]. She tells him she actually attended Brown.
** Tony himself is said to have graduated ''summa cum laude'' from MIT, despite that school not granting Latin honors.
* Meg Ryan's character, Catherine Boyd, is a mathematics doctoral candidate at Princeton University in the [[Romantic Comedy]] ''[[I.Q.]]''
* The eponymous character of the film ''[[Kissing Jessica Stein]]'' graduated from Brown.
* In ''[[The Last of the Mohicans]]'', Hawkeye says he attended Reverend Wheelock's school. This is presumably Dartmouth College, originally founded as a school to train Native Americans as missionaries.
* In ''[[Leatherheads]]'', Carter Rutherford, played by John Krasinski, is a star Princeton quarterback.
* The entire story of ''[[Legally Blonde]]'' is about [[Dumb Blonde|a blonde]]'s quest to get into and be successful at Harvard Law.
* The 1970 film ''[[Love Story]]'', written by Harvard alumnus Erich Segal, is a romantic drama about a rich Harvard pre-law, hockey player, played by Ryan O'Neal, and a brilliant Radcliffe musicology scholarship student, played by Ali MacGraw. Segal also taught Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton University.
* In ''[[Mars Attacks!]]'', President James Dale, played by Jack Nicholson, is an alumnus of Princeton University.
* The main characters of ''[[My Best Friend's Wedding]]'', played by Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney, became friends and made their marriage pact when they were students at Brown.
* Norah tells Nick in ''[[Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist]]'' that she was accepted into Brown University.
* The three main leads of ''[[Ninja Cheerleaders]]'', Courtney, April and Monica,
* Jane Weston, played by Amy Smart, gets accepted to Brown University and attends the school at the end of ''Outside Providence''.
* The [[Movie of the Book|1973 film version]] of ''[[The Paper Chase (film)|The Paper Chase]]'' is an extremely faithful adaptation of the novel, telling the story of Hart's first year at Harvard Law School, and his experiences with Professor Charles Kingsfield, the brilliant, demanding contracts instructor whom he both idolizes and finds incredibly intimidating.
* In ''[[The Princess Diaries|Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement]]'', Princess Mia is referred to as a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
* Brittany Snow's character, Donna Keppel, protagonist of the 2008 film ''[[Prom Night
* Happens at the end of ''[[Risky Business]]''. In this case, though, not because the main character Joel Goodson is smart but because {{spoiler|[[Unfortunate Implications|the Princeton admissions officer finds the ability to throw massive pimp parties to be a trait worthy of Princeton]]}}.
* ''[[Soul Man]]'', a 1986 comedy film, is about a man who undergoes racial transformation with pills so that he can qualify for an African-American-only scholarship at Harvard Law School.
* In ''Spanglish'', Cristina Moreno applies to Princeton University in the beginning of the film, telling the story of her childhood in her college essay.
* During a brief exchange in ''[[Sphere]]'', it's revealed that three of the main characters received their doctorates at M.I.T., and at early ages to boot.
* Peter Parker is a student at Columbia University in ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man 2]]''.
* In ''[[Stay Alive]]'', the lead female character, Abigail, tells her friends that she got into Princeton, but later admits that she lied.
* Main character John resorts to crime in order to pay for his niece's Harvard education in ''[[Stealing Harvard]]''. John made a videotape many years ago, on which he promised to pay for Noreen's college tuition if she worked hard and was accepted into a university.
* Nora Clark in ''[[Step Up]]'' has been accepted to Brown University, but wants to pursue her passion for dancing instead.
* Lucy Whitman, the [[The Smart Guy|brains]] of the operation in teen comedy/[[The Caper|heist]] film ''Sugar & Spice'' aspires of going to Harvard.
* Evan and Fogell of ''[[Superbad]]'' are about to start college at Dartmouth College.
* In ''[[The Talented Mr. Ripley]]'', Dickie Greenleaf, played by Jude Law, is a graduate of Princeton. Title character Tom Ripley pretends he is a Princeton alumnus.
Line 108 ⟶ 106:
* The title character of ''[[The Thomas Crown Affair]]'' attended Dartmouth.
* Sam Witwicky of ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' goes to Princeton. The 2009 film shows him during his freshman year at college. Somewhat justified by the fact that, on Transformers Earth, Princeton is pretty much a party school.
* Bill Wentz, U.S. Navy radioman in the film ''[[U-571]]'' studied German at Brown.
* Jonathan "Mox" Moxon, played by James Van Der Beek, the main character of ''[[Varsity Blues]]'', receives acceptance to Brown. His coach blackmails him to play football by threatening to ruin his transcript.
* Nick Mercer, the male escort hired by Kat Ellis to be her date to her sister's wedding in ''[[The Wedding Date]]'', graduated from Brown with a degree in Comparative Literature.
* In ''[[Where the Boys Are]]'', Merritt's love interest Ryder Smith is a student at Brown University. Melanie is also involved with a boy from Yale.
* The protagonist of ''[[With Honors]]'', Montgomery 'Monty' Kessler, as played by Brendan Fraser, is a smart but cynical young man who got into Harvard without any money ties. He is set to graduate as a government student with honors if he can put the finishing touches on his senior thesis.
* In ''[[Orange County]]'', the main character fights like hell to go to Stanford, but ultimately decides to stay near his home and go to the local state college, which he considers a big step down. This, naturally, ignores the fact that Los Angeles is home to several world-class universities of its own, <s>including</s> ''especially'' the state schools.
* Used in ''Accepted'', where it's a plot point that one of the main characters emphatically did not get into Yale.
Line 126 ⟶ 124:
== Literature ==
* {{spoiler|Subverted hard}} in ''[[Catalyst]]'' by Laurie Halse Anderson, when the main character {{spoiler|thinks she falls under this trope, but doesn't get in.}}
* The main character of ''[[American Psycho]]'', Patrick Bateman, tells the detective Donald Kimball that he attended Harvard University and Harvard Business School.
* In ''An American Wife'', a [[Roman à Clef]] about President George W. Bush and Laura Bush by Curtis Sittenfeld, main character Charlie Blackwell is a Princeton alumnus. One section of the book describes the couple attending a Princeton reunion in great detail.
* ''The Class'', Erich Segal's 6th novel, is about the Harvard Class of 1958, and particularly refers to five fictional members of this class: Andrew Eliot, Jason Gilbert, George Keller, Theodore Lambros, and Daniel Rossi.
* [[Dan Brown]]'s lead character Robert Langdon in ''[[Angels
* The main character in the novel version of ''[[The Devil Wears Prada]]'', Andrea Sachs, is a recent graduate from Brown University.
* Another book by Erich Segal, ''Doctors'', is about Barney Livingston and Laura Castellano of the Harvard medical class of 1962.
Line 145 ⟶ 143:
* Written by John Jay Osborn, Jr., a 1970 graduate of Harvard Law School, ''The Paper Chase'' is about Hart and his first year as a law student at Harvard.
* Former CIA-agent Wyman Ford, a fictional character in many of Douglas Preston's novels, is a Harvard alumnus.
* The author of the 1994 autobiography ''[[Prozac Nation]]'', Elizabeth Wurtzel, graduated from Harvard and Yale Law School.
* Mohsin Hamid's ''[[The Reluctant Fundamentalist]]'' is partly set at Princeton. Changez and Erica are fictional members of the Princeton Class of 2001. Hamid was an actual member of the Princeton Class of 1993.
* The ''[[Rule of Four]]'' is set on the Princeton University and the neighboring Princeton Theological Seminary. The protagonists are Princeton students.
* ''The Second Happiest Day'' by John Phillips depicts Harvard University during World War II.
* ''[[This Side of Paradise]]'', [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s literary debut, is a loosely autobiographical story of his time as a student at Princeton. Protagonist Amory Blaine attends Princeton.
** For an inverse example, most of the rich characters in ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' are described with Ivy League degrees (Tom played football for Yale, for example), but they are not respectable in the least.
* In the third ''[[The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants|Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants]]'' book, when the [[Four-Girl Ensemble]] have their last summer together before college, it's noted that although Bridget is the "sloppiest student" of the four, she got into Brown. The other three end up going to the Rhode Island School of Design, NYU's film school, and Williams College, not actually Ivy League but all comparably prestigious.
* Quentin in [[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[The Sound and
* The character Robert Cohn attended Princeton in [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s ''[[The Sun Also Rises]]''.
* In ''[[The Talented Mr. Ripley]]'', Dickie Greenleaf, played by Jude Law, is a graduate of Princeton. Title character Tom Ripley pretends he is a Princeton alumnus.
* In ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'', Bella Swan and Edward Cullen plan to go to Dartmouth as an excuse for Bella to leave her father. It is heavily implied that the Cullens bribed the school to procure her admission.
Line 162 ⟶ 160:
** Justified in the case of Ray because he works in a government funded project, so probably they would just want to get their money's worth.
* In ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]'', John Hodgman devotes several passages and a whole chapter to Yale's [[Ancient Conspiracy|"true" history]] and plans for [[One World Government]]. (Hodgman and occasional sidekick [[Jonathan Coulton]] are Yale alumni.)
* Unlike the later movie mentioned above, the original novel of ''[[Legally Blonde]]'' has Elle attending Stanford University.
* The three original [[Ghostbusters]] are faculty at Columbia University, until their unorthodox research focus and lack of results leads to them being let go.
* In ''[[The
* ''Zimmerman's Algorithm'' has the rogue scientist, Julia Zimmerman, enter an argument with her parents about which university to go to. The parents want her to go to Harvard, but the [[Child Prodigy]] is more interested in computer science.
Line 170 ⟶ 168:
== Live Action TV ==
* The Princeton episode of ''[[8 Simple Rules]]'' embodied this trope. Bridget was the brainless one on the show ("Ivory League"), but to her family, all that stood between her and a full-ride athletic scholarship to Princeton was her being ineligible to play in the tennis match the scout was attending (the actual D grade itself that made her ineligible didn't concern them). The worst part was that her sister, a good student, was interested in Ivy League schools, yet never noticed that Bridget couldn't "just swing her tennis racket" and get into Princeton, as the '''core tenet''' of the [[wikipedia:Ivy League#History of the athletic league|very first Ivy Group Agreement]] was that "an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions".
* ''[[24
** President Charles Logan graduated from Princeton University.
** Audrey Raines, Jack Bauer's lover and Inter-Agency Liaison in the U.S. Department of Defense, has a degree in public policy from Brown.
* ''[[30 Rock]]''{{'}}s Jack Donaghy attended Princeton University as an undergraduate. This is once used for comedic effect when Jack tells Kenneth he doesn't have bedbugs because he went to Princeton.
** Also, Twofer attended Harvard. (As did many a television comedy writer in [[Real Life]].)
* The title character of ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' attended Harvard Law School.
Line 181 ⟶ 179:
* In ''[[Bones]]'', Dr. Saroyan gets her adopted daughter into Columbia behind her back when said daughter decides to follow her boyfriend to a tiny college in Maine.
* Justified in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' with Willow's acceptance into Harvard, Yale, Oxford, etc, as she is consistently portrayed as [[Hollywood Nerd|intelligent]]. In the end, she remains in town and settles for [[California University|UC Sunnydale]] to help Buffy in her [[For Great Justice|fight against evil]].
** Subverted when Willow is wooed by Wesleyan University. While a great school, it's not an
** Cordelia gets accepted into several of the schools on this list, despite being the [[Alpha Bitch]] and [[The Cheerleader]], because she does well on standardized testing. She tells Wesley in ''[[Angel]]'' that she was in the top 10% of her class.
** Buffy herself got into Northwestern, every bit as prestigious as many of the schools here.
Line 188 ⟶ 186:
* Dartmouth College is the alma mater of the [[Alter Ego Acting|fictional host]] of ''[[The Colbert Report]]''; the real Colbert graduated from Northwestern University.
* In ''Commander In Chief'', former Communications Directors and current Press Secretary Kelly Ludlow, played by Ever Carradine, graduated from Princeton.
* In ''[[Community]]'', Jeff Winger goes to Greendale Community College after the State Bar found out that his bachelor's degree from Col''u''mbia was actually from Col''o''mbia.
* On ''[[The Cosby Show]]'', eldest daughter Sondra Huxtable attended Princeton, and she met her future husband Elvin Tibideaux there.
* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'': Special Agent Emily Prentiss went to Brown, as is revealed in her first episode. Justified in-universe as she's not only extremely intelligent (speaking several languages) but the daughter of a US Ambassador.
** Reid went to either MIT or [[Cal Tech]], depending on the episode you're watching. Garcia went to Caltech, and fans happily debate whether they would have attended at the same time.
* Sam Arsenault, guest villain on ''[[Damages]]'', sings Danny Boy at a cocktail party and tells the guests he sang it with the Jabberwocks when he was an undergraduate student at Brown. The actor, James Naughton, was a member of the Jabberwocks and graduated from Brown in 1967 in [[Real Life]].
* In the season 4 finale of ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'', Susan's daughter Julie Mayer is accepted to Princeton and prepares to leave home.
Line 204 ⟶ 202:
** And Niles went to Yale.
* In the ''[[Fresh Prince of Bel Air]]'', Carlton Banks' dream school is Princeton University and he eventually attends the university at the end of the series. His father, Phillip, attended Princeton on scholarship, and went to Harvard Law School afterwards.
** There's at least one
* ''[[Friday Night Lights]]'' subverts this. Getting a scholarship for any college is what most of the players aspire for in order to get ahead in life. Schools from all over the country will offer players a spot on their team and Ivy League schools don't offer sports scholarships. Julie and Landry, both portrayed as hard working students and smart, don't go to Ivy League schools.
* Thurston Howell, III of ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'' is a stereotypical WASP and a graduate of Harvard University.
* ''[[Gilmore Girls]]''. Through the first half of the series, Rory's ultimate goal is to get into Harvard. When she gets into all of her schools, including Harvard and Yale, she chooses [[California University|Yale]] in order to stay closer to home.
** [[The Rival|Paris Geller]] also gets into Yale, but gets rejected from her life-long goal of Harvard.
* Kurt and Rachel on ''[[Glee]]'' focus all of their energies in the third season on getting accepted at the fictional New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts ("NYADA"). They originally wanted to go to
** ''Glee'' had a variant on this with the
** A more direct example is Quinn. After realizing she might have a life after high school after all, she reveals that she plans on applying to Yale {{spoiler|and was later accepted}}, without even considering any colleges in Ohio (such as Case Western Reserve if she wants something prestigious), where she could theoretically maintain a relationship with her daughter.
* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' is a case where the trope is [[Justified Trope|justified]], as the characters go to the sorts of elite New York private schools which are known to be Ivy feeders:
** Blair Waldorf considers the holy trinity among Ivy Leagues
** Nate, Serena and Blair all get into Yale University. Despite not wanting to attend Yale and also being a lackluster student, Nate gets accepted due to his grandfather's influence. Serena gets accepted for her socialite status. {{spoiler|Yale later gets revokes Blair's acceptance for her manipulation of a teacher.}}
** Nate Archibald goes to Columbia. His father, Howie Archibald, is an alumnus of Dartmouth.
** Serena gets accepted to Brown University, but defers her enrollment.
** Serena's mother attended Brown University. Her father went to Columbia University.
* Meredith Grey is frequently seen in t-shirts of her alma mater, Dartmouth College, in ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]''. Shonda Rhimes, creator of the show, is an alumna of Dartmouth College, and often references the college in her scripts.
* Carol Seaver of ''[[Growing Pains]]'' attends Columbia.
* Notably averted on ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' - although the hospital the show is set in is the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and exterior shots are actually of the Frist Campus Center, there is no attempt to connect the setting to Princeton University, which doesn't have a med school.
Line 224 ⟶ 222:
** Ted also becomes a professor of architecture at the end of season four. An especially [[Egregious]] example, as the show depicts becoming a Columbia professor as a fallback for someone who can't manage to hold a job as an architect or get a building built, whereas in [[Real Life]], you can't get a professorship at an Ivy League until you're already prominent in your field.
*** It's pretty clear that Ted didn't earn this job; Tony, who is from a wealthy family, used his influenced to buy Ted the job because {{spoiler|he felt bad for Stella leaving Ted at the alter for Tony}}. It isn't implied that being a professor is a fallback for ''everyone'', just that Ted considers it a sign that his career has peaked and he has failed as an architect.
** Though this trope may be subverted partially, as it's implied (if we can deduce from the name of the residence hall Marshall and Ted lived in) that Ted and Marshall went to Wesleyan University for undergrad, which is the alma mater of the show's creators.
*** At this point, it has been made explicit. I know they did a little animation to start a college-flashback or something where a yearbook was opened that said "Wesleyan University" on it. The characters might have actually used the school's name at some point, but maybe not.
* Dennis and Dee of ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' both attended University of Pennsylvania. Dennis graduated. Dee did not.
* On ''[[The Killing]]'', Councilman Richmond mentions that he met his late wife his sophomore year at Dartmouth.
* Sean Alvarez, a honest stock broker and murder victim on an episode of ''[[Law &
* Dr. Jack Shephard of ''[[Lost]]'' is an alumnus of Columbia.
* Hit Korean romantic drama ''Love Story in Harvard'' is about two South Korean first-year Harvard Law School students and their romantic pursuit of a Korean student in her third year at Harvard Medical School.
* Bette Porter of ''[[The L Word]]'' got her degree in Art History at Yale. She also was a graduate student there. Her Ivy League education is supposed to showcase her intelligence, drive, and affluent background.
* Upperclass WASP-y Pete Campbell of ''[[Mad Men]]'' went to Dartmouth College.
** The episode "My Old Kentucky Home," reveals that Paul Kinsey graduated from Princeton in 1955 and sang in the
** Ken Cosgrove attended Columbia University.
* Major Charles Emerson Winchester III of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|
** In one episode, a visitor to the Swamp asks Charles [[Berserk Button|if he went to Yale]]. He immediately snaps, "HARVARD!" before regaining his composure and reiterating, "...Harvard."
** Trapper John McIntyre is a Dartmouth alum, at least in the original novel and film.
* Ben Matlock, lead character of ''[[Matlock]]'', worked for nine years before attending Harvard Law School, and therefore was significantly older than his law school classmates. He graduated from Harvard Law in 1967.
* In ''[[Nip Tuck]]'', Julia McNamara's mother, Dr. Erica Noughton, graduated from Columbia with a [[Not That Kind of Doctor|Ph.D.]] in clinical psychology.
** Sean also got accepted into Harvard Medical School, but the admission was rescinded when it was revealed that he failed a class because of cheating caused by Christian.
* On ''[[Numb3rs]]'', mathematical genius Charlie Eppes attended Princeton at age 13 for his undergraduate studies. He graduated when he was 16.
** Larry Fleinhardt also went to Princeton and graduated when he was 19.
* Summer Roberts from ''[[The OC]]'' gets into Brown, despite not being characterized as a nerd.
** Seth Cohen, [[The Smart Guy]], however, doesn't get in, even though Brown was his dream school. He does get into RISD though (which itself carries Ivy League-level prestige for arts students), so the couple gets to stay close to each other.
* In ''[[The Office]]'' Andy Bernard constantly mentions his education at Cornell University and his participation in the
** Which doesn't actually exist, although we Cornellians do have an all-girls ''a cappella'' group called Nothing But Treble.
** In the episode "Job Fair," Jim brings Andy along golfing with a potential client because the client is an alumnus of Dartmouth.
** In a deleted scene Andy claims to have "sang" his way into the school after he was wait-listed, and in another deleted scene it is mentioned that his father donated a building which is presumably how Andy even got onto the wait-list in the first place.
** Dwight considers attending Cornell because of its agricultural program (and probably to take away Andy's main advantage over him) and gains an interview. It is notable that because of lower competition and state funding, Cornell's College of Agricultural and Life Science which Dwight presumably applied to, while selective, is significantly easier to get into then the other colleges at Cornell and has the reputation as a "backdoor" into the school, particularly if you grew up on a farm.
**
* In ''[[Oz]]'', Tobias Beecher attended Harvard Law.
* Besides the original novel and subsequent film, ''The Paper Chase'' was also made into a television series. The show is about first year Harvard laws student Hart and his experiences with the intimidating yet brilliant contracts Professor Charles Kingsfield.
Line 262 ⟶ 260:
* Tony Soprano's daughter, Meadow, is an undergraduate student at Columbia in ''[[The Sopranos]]''.
** Interestingly, she wanted to go to Stanford until Tony intervened.
* Mayor McDaniels of ''[[South Park]]'' graduated from Princeton University.▼
* Dan Rydell in ''[[Sports Night]]'' is a Dartmouth alumnus, a subject that is mentioned several times.
* On ''Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'', another show written by Aaron Sorkin, Jordan (the new, unusually young head of the network) is a graduate of Yale Law School. In order to make it plausible that her character had time to go to law school and become a network head by her early-to-mid 30s, it was revealed that she was hired as the head of a major record label immediately upon graduating Yale
* On ''[[Supernatural]]'', Sam Winchester was attending Stanford University on a full scholarship before the demon Azazel interfered.
* In ''[[Weeds]]'', Silas Botwin, the son of the main character, dates Megan, who is accepted to Princeton.
* In ''[[The West Wing]]'', Abbey Bartlet, wife of President Josiah Barlet and First Lady of the United States, received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. (Bartlet himself chose Notre Dame over any Ivy League school, because until he met Abbey, he'd been thinking about becoming a priest, and his loyalty to the school [[Running Gag|comes up repeatedly]]. He also went to the London School of Economics, which plays into his background as a Nobel-prize winning economist.)
** Sam (see below for his educational bonafides) reacts angrily when Ainsley (who is largely playing devil's advocate for an anti-Ivy League position advocated by many Republicans) refers to Bartlet's Ivy League education. First, Notre Dame ''isn't in'' the Ivy League and second, why shouldn't we encourage kids to strive for an education at America's best universities? Ainsley agrees, as Sam knows she would.
** Amy Gardner, women's rights activist and later the First Lady Abbey Bartlet's Chief of Staff, tells Abbey that she got her smart mouth at "Brown, and then Yale Law School."
** Cliff Calley, Senate Majority Counsel, is an alumnus of Brown and Harvard.
** Deputy White House Communications Director Sam Seaborn graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University. He makes repeated references to his alma mater, especially in the earlier seasons, indicating a certain pride in his attendance there. "Princeton" is his Secret Service code name, and he mentions being the recording secretary of the Princeton Gilbert and Sullivan Society. His law degree is from Duke, and in one episode he recruits a Duke Law classmate to run in a Congressional election.
** [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten|Ainsley Hayes]] went to Harvard. And Smith College, a bastion of liberal feminism, which comes up when she goes back to debate there regarding women's rights.
** Josh Lyman went to Harvard ''and'' Yale, and he wants you to know that.
** Characters who ''didn't'' go to Ivy League schools went to similarly prestigious ones like Berkeley, Georgetown and Stanford. The exceptions are Toby, who went to City College in New York, and Donna, who dropped out of the University of Wisconsin.
Line 281 ⟶ 278:
* Special Agent Pete Lattimer from ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' regularly wears his Dartmouth football shirt indicating he may be an alumnus.
* FBI Special Agent Monica Reyes in ''[[The X-Files]]'' studied folklore and mythology at Brown University.
* On ''[[Friends]]'', Ross becomes a college professor at (where else?) NYU, a school that in reality would
** Plus, most of the school's students are depicted as slackers. Being that NYU has very strict admission requirements, this is pretty unrealistic.
== [[Music]] ==
* The singer character of the [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] song "Skipper Dan" graduated valedictorian at
Line 292 ⟶ 289:
* Played with in David Ives's ''Sure Thing,'' a one-act premised on two people being able to change aspects of each other by ringing a bell. Upon hearing that the male lead went to a less than prestigious college, she rings the bell until he says he went to Harvard.
* In ''[[Rent]]'', the ambitious, straitlaced girlfriend of Maureen, Joanne, is a public interest lawyer who received her degree from Harvard Law School.
** The stage show elaborates a little more on where Joanne falls in this trope as her parents have a lot of
*** It's also mentioned in "Tango: Maureen" that she went to Miss Porter's, a very selective all-girl boarding school in New England.
* In the musical ''[[South Pacific]]'', Lieutenant Joe Cable attended Princeton.
* ''[[In the Heights]]'' Nina attends Stanford.
* In ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]'', as in real life, John Adams went to Harvard. Slightly played with as Adams stating this during a congressional debate only evokes
* In ''Hamilton,'' the driven-to-succeed Alexander Hamilton mentions his aim of graduating King's College (now Columbia) in two years -- and that Aaron Burr had pulled off a similar feat at Princeton.
== Video Games ==
* Gordon Freeman from ''[[Half-Life]]'' earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT, and Eli Vance has a doctorate from Harvard. Issac Kleiner worked as a professor for MIT, so he presumably received his doctorate there.
** Freeman earned his Ph.D before he turned 27! Pretty impressive, I must say.
==
* Emily in ''[[Misfile]]'' has two years of her life wiped out by the eponymous filing error, including an acceptance to Harvard. She struggles to do it all over again, taking tests she's already passed, touring campuses she's already seen, and having her education-obsessed Mother hound her for two more years.
== Western Animation ==
* Brian Griffin of ''[[Family Guy]]'' dropped out of Brown one class short of graduating. He re-enrolls and fails in the episode "Brian Goes Back to College".
* ''[[Mission Hill]]''
* Quite a few characters in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' have gone to Ivy League:
** Mr. Burns is a Yale alum, as part of his general "old money" characterization.
** Sideshow Bob is also an alumnus of Yale, and is dismissive of his brother Cecil's history at Princeton ("clown college" as far as he's concerned).
** Snake Jailbird also attended Princeton, but took a year off, presumably never to return.
** Lisa fervently hopes to go to an Ivy League School when she reaches college age, and not just any Ivy League school, either. She has a mini-freakout at the thought that she might have to settle for Brown. Of course, there's nothing wrong with
** In an episode where the whole family is arrested, Lisa worries that she'll never get into an Ivy League college now. Cue Bart mockingly singing "You're going to Staaanford! You're going to Staaanford!"
{{quote|"I've had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH of your Vassar-bashing, young lady!"}}
** Sideshow Mel is an alumnus of Cornell.
** Lionel Hutz claims to have graduated from Princeton, although Princeton has never had a law school.
*** [[Fridge Brilliance|Given Hutz's abilities as a lawyer]], [[Viewers Are Geniuses|that's probably the joke]].
** Barney Gumble was Harvard bound until Homer introduced him to beer the night before he took his [[SATs]].
* Brown University is referenced on ''[[Futurama]]'' by the same-named institution in the ruins of Old New York, where sewer mutants learn how to maintain the pipes for surface dwellers.
* ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' one ups the Ivies by introducing the ultra-prestigious Double Dome University, where having degrees from Harvard, Columbia ''and'' Caltech is just good enough to make [[Almighty Janitor|janitor]].
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] on ''[[Daria]]''
** Also [[Played With]] regarding
▲* Mayor McDaniels of ''[[South Park]]'' graduated from Princeton University.
Line 332 ⟶ 331:
* 31% of American Presidents attended Ivy League schools, and as you go further down the Federal hierarchy the numbers actually increase slightly. Although this is justified in that people who tend to become Presidents also tend to have Important Connections.
** This probably peaked in 2004, when opposing candidates John Kerry and [[George W. Bush]] were not only both Yale alums, they were both members of the same exclusive secret society while there: The Skull and Bones. In response to comments that the campaign looked like a class war, one reporter quipped: "Yeah, Yale Class of '66 vs. Class of '68."
* Until the 1960s they were only for rich people who went to the right feeder schools and now almost anyone has the opportunity (as long as they are smart enough and special enough to stand out from all the other smart people applying for the same spot). Fortunately, you no longer have to be rich, thanks to financial
** Princeton eliminated student loans in 2001 and now does all its financial aid through repayment-free grants.
** Harvard (not sure about the other Ivies) gives out large amounts of need-based aid; if you are poor enough it covers tuition completely. Combined with grants and scholarships many can go there without paying a dime.
** Brown has also eliminated loans for students living below a surprisingly high annual income, and
** However, no Ivy League school offers scholarships based on anything other than need, and none ever has. It is, in fact, a requirement of membership and one of the founding premises of the organization that no scholarships are offered. So every single time you see a character "win a scholarship from Harvard" the writer [[Did Not Do the Research]], as scholarships based on merit only come from alumni foundations, not the school itself.
* If we're counting law schools, the US Supreme Court
** And both of Obama's
** Obama himself went to Harvard Law School and was the first black <s>chief editor</s> President of the Harvard Law Review.
** And Michelle Obama (nee Robinson) is Princeton class of 1984.
* Some East Coast prep schools ship their graduates to Ivies en masse.
* Ivy Leaguers are not represented very frequently in professional sports<ref>
** Jason Garrett, the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, is a former Princeton Tigers QB who also played at Columbia.
** This is why it was such a big deal in the media when Cornell's basketball team actually advanced into the NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness) Sweet Sixteen in 2010.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:School Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Indexed States of America]]
| |||