<<Ivy League schools have certainly been very, very successful in academic competition, but perhaps not as dominant as one imagine based solely on their popular academic reputation. I say this recognizing fully that Harvard with Jeff Johnson was a dominating powerhouse, and that Princeton and Harvard have won lots of Division II titles, and that lots and lots of great players have done amazing things for these schools and so on. Is this because:>> [Options a-e elided] All reasonable ideas, but I'd also consider options f and g: f) The skills that make a quizbowler do not necessarily correlate with academic performance, especially at the high school level. A disproportionate number of quizbowlers seem to have been bright underachievers in high school (or even college); the Ivies rarely take the brilliant but erratic. g) The quality of Ivy League schools is more pronounced at the middle rather than the top. While the average Ivy League student is academically head and shoulders above the average State U. frat rat, the top students at State U. are much more a match for the top students at an Ivy League school. Of course, there doesn't have to be just one explanation. Personally, without having ever hung out on an Ivy League campus, I favor a mixture of "c" (the Ivies are proportionally over-achieving, but a small group), f, and g. There's something to be said for the resentment factor, too; I always savored wins over Chicago, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, who turned me down for grad school (and, in Chicago's case, undergrad as well). - David V.
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