The Big Three is a historical term used in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
to refer to
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
,
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, and
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
. The phrase Big Three originated in the 1880s, when these three colleges dominated
college football. In 1906, these schools formed a sports compact that formalized a three-way football competition which began in 1878. This early agreement predated the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
by nearly a century. Today, the term is used to refer to the comparable levels of prestige, tradition, elitism, and academic and intellectual superiority affiliated with the schools. The rivalry remains intense today, though the three schools are no longer national football powerhouses, and schools continue to refer to their intercollegiate competitions as "Big Three" or "Harvard-Yale-Princeton" meets.
Historic status
![Harvard-princeton-eddie-mahan-1915](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Harvard-princeton-eddie-mahan-1915.png)
In 1908, Scotsman Robert Knox Risk wrote the following about the state of American universities during the early 20th century.
Edward Digby Baltzell wrote: "The three major upper-class institutions in America have been Harvard, Yale, and Princeton." These colleges have, in the past, been set apart from others by a special historic connection with the
White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment. Of the three, Princeton University was traditionally the preferred choice of the
Southern upper class. While describing the recruiting process for the
Rough Riders
The Rough Riders was a nickname given to the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, one of three such regiments raised in 1898 for the Spanish–American War and the only one to see combat. The United States Army was small, understaffed, and di ...
,
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
, mentioned the Ivy League schools including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as target schools.
The ''
Saturday Review'' found in 1963 that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton enrolled 45% of boys on the
New York Social Register
The ''Social Register'' is a semi-annual publication in the United States that indexes the members of American high society. First published in the 1880s by newspaper columnist Louis Keller, it was later acquired by Malcolm Forbes. Since 2014, it ...
.
That year Nathaniel Burt described the social prestige of the Big Three:
Burt continued, "Every city sends or has sent its
Socially Registered sons to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, in some preferred order, and to one local institution. This order varies. New York sets the pattern with Yale first, Harvard second, Princeton third, then Columbia. St. Louis and Baltimore are Princeton towns. Most other cities (Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati) are Yale towns. Only Boston, and occasionally Washington, are Harvard towns."
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
resident of Harvardpersonally 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 determined precedence in such matters as table seating, position in academic processionals, even recitations in class." Ronald Story, however, says that it was during “the four decades from 1815 to 1855” that “parents, in Henry Adams′ words, began sending their children to Harvard College for the sake of its social advantages.”
A further intensification of the importance of the Big Three occurred during the 1920s; According to E. Digby Baltzell, “in a … managerial society, the proper college degree became the main criterion for potential elite status… it was during the
920s
The 920s decade ran from January 1, 920, to December 31, 929.
Significant people
* Al-Ash'ari
* Al-Muqtadir Abbasid caliph
* Constantine VII
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Ma ...
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. From the 1930s on, Big Three admissions became progressively more meritocratic, but still included non-academic factors such as “lineage.”
Ivy League schools including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have in the past been regarded as the goals for many children in
WASP
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
circles. Some educators have attempted to discourage this fixation. Jay Mathews, author of ''Harvard Schmarvard'', addresses seniors obsessed with Ivy League schools 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.”
Rankings
''U.S. News & World Report''
The "Big Three" schools: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are often rated among the top three institutions in the National Universities category along with
Stanford and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
.
Over the past eighteen years ending with the 2018 rankings, ''U.S. News'' has named as the best national university Princeton eleven times, Harvard twice and the two schools tied for first five times.
Economic diversity
As Jerome Karabel, a Harvard graduate and the author of ''
The Chosen
Chosen or The Chosen may refer to:
The chosen ones
*Chosen people, people who believe they have been chosen by a higher power to do a certain thing including
**Jews as the chosen people
Books
* ''The Chosen'' (Potok novel), a 1967 novel by Chaim ...
'' detailing the history of the admissions process at HYP, noted:
More recently, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton instituted no-loan financial aid policies which provide students with need-based aid from private funds held by the universities. This enables greater attendance from the poorer classes than Pell Grant statistics would indicate, since many recipients of university grants do not receive Pell Grants.
As an athletic association
The athletic agreements among the three universities were first formalized in 1906, although their
football teams had been engaging in three-way competitions, which newspapers had been referring to as "HPY," since 1878. (Princeton and Yale first played in 1873, Harvard and Yale in 1875, with Harvard and Princeton first meeting in 1877.) The Big Three teams had an outsized hold on popular culture as they dominated college football during its early formative years, when there were few competing spectator sports besides fledgling professional baseball teams. In 25 seasons spanning 1869 through the 1894 title for the University of Pennsylvania, the consensus national champion was either Princeton (16 titles), Yale (13) or Harvard (2).
Football between Harvard and Yale was suspended for two years after the 1894 game in Springfield, Massachusetts was so violent that it was referred to as "The Springfield Massacre." Other sports including baseball and crew were suspended as well. The Big Three made further formal agreements in 1916 and 1923, and although in part they have now been superseded by the Ivy League, formed for football in 1945 and for other sports in 1954, the three universities still sponsor events that involve only themselves.
The first Big Three agreement in 1906 was the result of a conference on football called by President of the United States and Harvard alumnus
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
in October 1905 as a result of deteriorating relations, caused once again by increasing violence of play, more recently between Harvard and Princeton. The agreement of June 1916, the Triple Agreement, was originally proposed by President and Princeton alumnus
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
in December 1909 out of a desire to reduce injuries, and took several years to come to fruition, resulting in common eligibility requirements. The Three Presidents' Agreement addendum of January 1923 covered financial arrangements, scouting and scholarships, among other things. In 1926, tensions arose once more after Princeton had shut out Harvard for three consecutive games by a cumulative score of 82-0. This led to a hiatus in games between Harvard and Princeton which caused Big Three competition to be suspended for eight years, although Yale continued to play both opponents during that period.
See also
*
List of NCAA college football rivalry games
This is a list of rivalry games in college football in the United States. The list also shows any trophy awarded to the winner of the rivalry between the teams.
NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision
...
*
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
*
Little Ivies
The Little Ivies are an unofficial group of small, academically competitive private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. The term Little Ivy derives from these schools' small student bodies, standards of academic excellence, ...
*
Little Three
The ''Little Three'' is a term started by and used in reference to athletic competition between three private liberal arts colleges in the New England region of the United States: Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Wesleyan University i ...
*
Maine Big Three
*
Oxbridge
*
Seven Sisters
*
SKY (universities)
SKY is an acronym used to refer to the three most prestigious universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. The term is widely used in South Korea, both in media and by the universities them ...
*
C9 League (Chinese universities)
*
Golden Triangle (English universities)
*
Group of Eight (Australian Universities)
The Group of Eight (Go8) comprises Australia's most research intensive universities (in alphabetical order) - the University of Adelaide, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, UNSW Sydney, the Unive ...
References
External links
* (HYP)
* (HYP)
* (HYP)
* — a full history of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton agreements and of the Harvard-Princeton break from 1926 to 1934
* (2010). "Best National Universities," ''Best Colleges 2011 Edition: U.S. News & World Report''; pg:84-93
{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Three (Colleges)
Harvard University
Yale University
Princeton University
Ivy League
College football rivalries in the United States