If Harvard University alumnus Thurston Howell III ever heard the list of the “New Ivies,” he would have drowned Gilligan in the lagoon.

But admissions officers are a little more restrained. If they cared about The Wall Street Journal’s article, which put Northwestern and 10 other schools in a New Ivy League on par with Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities, they’re not showing it.

“I read it. I thought about it. I don’t think I’ve picked it up since,” said Daniel Saracino, assistant provost for enrollment at the University of Notre Dame, which also made the list. “It doesn’t change what we do,” he said. “Part of me would say, ‘big deal.'”

Not the words of an impressed man.

To accompany an article about increasing college selectivity, the Journal on March 30 compiled the “Dow Jones Safety School Index” after consulting with high school guidance counselors, college admissions officers, students and parents, according to the article’s writer, Elizabeth Bernstein. She said the paper weighed several different numerical factors in compiling the index, such as selectivity and College Board scores but also heavily considered the observations of high school guidance counselors.

Schools such as Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago were not included because the public already connected them with having Ivy status, Bernstein said. Her story set out to address what the public likely didn’t know.

Although Ivy League schools might not directly play up the Ivy angle, Bernstein said her research showed that the label still mattered “to a lot of people.” The name, she said, gave its members a certain mystique that other schools couldn’t have.

But representatives in Ivy League admissions offices are quick to point out that the basis of the league is sports, football specifically.

“Whatever image has been built around that is kind of external,” said Gavin Bradley, an admissions office worker at Columbia University.

The image is one of prestige: high tuition, famed faculty and time-honored traditions. During the presidential election campaign, commentators discussed the privileged upbringings of George W. Bush and Al Gore, including their college degrees – Bush’s from Yale and Gore’s from Harvard – and wondered how well they could relate to the American people.

And there’s only one group of schools that draws enough attention to have, not one, but two companies selling sample essays for the schools’ applications. See www.ivyessays.com and www.ivyleagueadmission.com.

“We don’t market ourselves as an Ivy League (school),” said Bradley. But “we don’t mind being affiliated.”

As a “New Ivy,” does NU fit the traditional role? To Rebecca Dixon, NU’s associate provost for enrollment, it doesn’t really matter.

The Journal and other media outlets who classify and rank schools may think they are aiding families by breaking down the facts, Dixon said, but they instead do a disservice. “(The Journal’s report) probably sold newspapers, but I don’t know if it’s very helpful to the readers,” she said. “It certainly typecasts schools.”

Dixon said NU has benefited from its gradual move toward the top of various rankings, like those of U.S. News & World Report, but she and many other higher education administrators around the country repeatedly have spoken against the system for paying too much attention to numbers.

By splitting schools into the categories of “New Ivies,” “Safe,” “Safer” and “Safest,” the Journal article did more of the same, she said. “It puts schools into neat boxes that are misleading to the prospective students and are probably unfair to the schools.”

When lines are drawn, Dixon said the quality of the student-school fit gets lost in the shuffle. “I’d just like to see this rating business tamped down,” she said.

But the reports haven’t been without a positive by-product.

“The rankings are ridiculous, but the data and some of the analysis they provide are extremely helpful,” said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions at Harvard College, the undergraduate branch of the university.

“More people know what they’re doing,” said McGrath Lewis, who praised the Journal article for explaining to students how to search for schools in an era of increased selectivity. With more knowledge about colleges and the selection process, McGrath Lewis said prospective students and their families feel a wider sense of possibilities.

With more information, college hunts could move beyond brand-name recognition, like “Ivy League.” “It’s not a category that I find very useful,” McGrath Lewis said.

Nor is it even a characteristic that Harvard embodies. The undergraduate buildings there don’t even have ivy on them anymore. When it covered the outside of the old buildings, the plant would grow into the mortar, loosening stone and bricks. McGrath Lewis said the decision was made years ago to remove it.

The ivy on the walls didn’t matter. The classrooms inside did. nyou