Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HYP (universities)

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was redirected to Big Three (colleges). –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

HYP

A fairly egregious example of boosterism. While many people refer to H/Y/P as an example or archetype of "top colleges" (the same way they might refer to Harvard/MIT/Stanford as the top research institutions), it's not a recognized enough term (< 1000 Google hits) to warrant an encyclopedia entry. -- Barshon 05:58, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This claim of <1000 Google hits is simply false. See my Google analysis below. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 08:54, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. Fenster 06:09, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Opinion Unchanged -- Delete. These three schools just often refer to each other, but there is no "accepted" term. Lowellian, apparently a Harvard alum, refers to it as HYP, but we can see at from Yalie's point of view ([1]) that their preferred shorthand is Y-H-P. The number of Google hits is still non-existent relative to how common this term is supposed to be. Seems like sheer boosterism. - Fenster 22:42, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. utcursch 13:13, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete: Not a widespread, stable term. It's not an acronymn that's overly needed or particularly used. Remember that we're for the established, not the emergent terms. We just try to catch the established stuff early. Geogre 14:26, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• According to the Korea Times article it's an established term in Korea. [2]. Also if HYP are often treated as a unit (are they?), it should have its own article. If so, move the contents to Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and put something like "In Korea, HYP stands for Harvard, Yale and Princeton" at HYP. Kappa 16:03, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • My vote is now Keep or move to Hardvard, Yale and Princeton since Lowellian found more hits. Kappa 14:49, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Comment The term was familiar to me and was used in my high school during the sixties, a very upscale competitive school whose guidance counselors spent a lot of time trying to convince tense parents that going to Reed or Haverford or even (gasp) the University of North Carolina was not going to scar their kiddies for life. The categorization of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as the creme de la creme is also familiar. I do not believe the differentiation is only on the basis of academics; I believe it takes social prestige into account as well. True story: English teacher speaking to advanced placement class: "I don't see what all the fuss is about, trust me, there are other schools besides Princeton." Student snaps back, instantly: "Yeah: two." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 17:26, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. [[User:GRider|GRider\^talk]] 19:43, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete (or redirect to Ivy League). Academic boosterism and snobbery are out of control on Wikipedia. At one of these institutions now, and I've never heard of this term. Rbellin 02:55, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Sticking with Delete despite greater Google evidence. This is not an article-worthy topic, and at most deserves a mention in the Ivy article. Rbellin 20:06, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. The claim that HYP < 1000 Google hits is false. "hyp" gets 853000 Google hits, admittedly many of which refer to other things, so we need some better way to filter. "+hyp +harvard" gets 11500 hits, "+hyp +princeton" gets 7340 hits. "+hyp +yale" gets 6010 hits. "+hyp +harvard +princeton +yale" gets 844 hits. Or why don't you check out the following links, taken from the top ten of Google (the ninth hit is Wikipedia's own article)? [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. Furthermore, the links clearly show that the term is used by not just a single one of those schools, but all three. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 08:54, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

One reason the last Google result I gave (the 844 result) undercounts the actual usage of the term is that it searches for pages that contain both "hyp" and the names of the individual schools. But some pages that use HYP will assume that the reader knows what the acronym means and hence will not give the schools anywhere in the page. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 09:03, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and for those curious, "harvard yale princeton" gets 10500 Google hits. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 09:08, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

This is compared to 1640 hits for "harvard mit stanford", the example Barshon gives above. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have a close historical tradition that binds them with each other that many other colleges do not have. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 09:12, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

It is true that +hyp +harvard +yale +princeton gets only 844 hits whereas +hms +harvard +mit +stanford gets 3160 hits. However, here the results are skewed by "hms" being an abbreviation for "Harvard Medical School." —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 09:12, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I think I am going about the wrong way defending this page. This shouldn't even be about Google hits. It's about whether the term is existent and in use. And it is. It's as simple as that. I didn't make up the term. It's used in college guides and on the web. I wrote an article on it because I heard and saw it used. If you believe the article is POV, then such a page should be improved by NPOVing it, not deleted—you could add a {{POV}} tag to it or edit it so that it is not POV. Improve the page, don't delete it. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 01:07, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

As for charges of "academic boosterism", many people regard the three universities as having some sort of special quality, but I especially very early on added the clause "though the actual quality of the three universities is a matter of some debate (for more information, see the college and university rankings article)" to qualify the article and make it NPOV. If you still believe it is POV, please NPOV it rather than delete it. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 01:07, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I wondered why it seems so many think the article is extremely POV considering that I tried hard to only make statements that were factual and could be backed up with a citation (examples: Worth quotation, university rankings, Rhodes scholarships). I looked at the article again. The last sentence, "Academically, however, all three universities compete for many of the top students and faculty, both in the United States, and increasingly, the rest of the world" is POV, and it doesn't even have a citation. It was also added by an anon, not me. And I have now removed it. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 01:16, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

• Delete Redirect to Ivy League with a note. Wyss 20:52, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Del.Mikkalai 08:33, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, but rename. It is one of many usages of the abbreviation, but the topic deserves an article. Big Three universities? Mikkalai 17:49, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Try googling "hyp regatta"... the wiki article should be reworked to focus on the "athletic meets"

• Acronym Finder does acknowledge HYP as Harvard/Yale/Princeton. It doesn't appear to warrant its own article, but redirects are cheap. Link it to the Ivy League article and merge any pertinent information. —[[User:Radman1|RaD Man (talk)]] 10:20, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree with Radman1 (RaD Man). This doesn't merit its own article. -- Hoary 11:05, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• After looking at the Google hits for "hyp princeton", "hyp yale" and "hyp harvard", I'm changing my vote to a Keep. There is enough usage of the term (at least in the three schools' own media) to merit an article. However, the term seems to be used almost only in the context of sporting events (regatta only?), so the article should be changed to reflect that (i.e. it's not really a general acronym for the schools). — Asbestos | Talk 13:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Delete. The phenomenon is real, but there's no good single name for it, and no good reason for a separate article. The actual current article we're discussing is garbage, because it is not an intelligent NPOV discussion of the phenomenon. In fact it seems to be trying to make some sort of case that the special Harvard, Yale, Princeton aura stems from their academic superiority. (On reading Lowellian's remarks, I don't think this was his intent, apologies [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:59, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)) We know darn well that the HYP aura is partly based on inertia (everyone's been calling them as the best for a couple of centuries and old habits die hard) and partly on social factors. To put it bluntly, HYP's aura has an element of snobbery, and to pretend it doesn't is to push a point of view. Can anybody imagine a tense parent approaching a guidance counselor and saying "I want to get Johnnie into a school like Harvard, Yale, or Stanford?" or "Harvard, Princeton, or Berkeley?" Ask a dozen people to complete the phrase "Harvard and&mdash" and ten of 'em will say "Yale." I don't have time right now to find appropriate sources to buttress these (self-evident) assertions. But IMHO what should be done is to compose some nice, clear, concise, well-buttressed NPOV statement and place it in each of the articles about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Something like the following: [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:09, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Harvard is one of a trio of universities, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, irreverently referred to as HYP, the "Big Three," or the "Holy Trinity." These three are considered to have a special cachet, based on history and social standing as well as academic excellence, that puts them in a subtly different category from the other Ivy League schools.

Dpbsmith writes: Can anybody imagine a tense parent approaching a guidance counselor and saying "I want to get Johnnie into a school like Harvard, Yale, or Stanford?" or "Harvard, Princeton, or Berkeley?". My answer, without even having to think about it: YES, OF COURSE. In fact, thinking that someone wouldn't say "Harvard, Yale, or Stanford?" makes no sense to me, and makes me think that there's some weird, regionalized worship of these schools going on. In Europe, Asia, even Canada, the top US schools are generally considered to be -- with Yale, Princeton, and Berkeley following closely behind.

"there's some weird, regionalized worship..." Yes, of course. That's the point. The special status of "Harvard, Yale, and Princeton" within the United States a) is a fact, b) that is not obvious and is therefore, if true, worth documenting. 4700 Google hits on "Harvard, Yale and Princeton" versus 353 for "Harvard, MIT and Stanford" look rather like a fact of some kind. It is probably related to another fact, mentioned below: "two-thirds of the men listed in the 1963 edition of the New York Social Register went to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:18, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Redirect to [Ivy League] with comment on that page - Trick 23:10, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comments

The problem is that HYP is often referred to as the 'Big Three' or 'Holy Trinity' of Ivy League schools. The number of Google hits for 'HYP' itself will be low. Of course, there are some other schools that are also considered to be on par with HYP, such as Stanford and MIT. I think the problem would be resolved if these schools were mentioned in the article, just to let people know that HYP are not the only top-notch American universities. -- 152.163.100.6

• If HYP is an accepted, real term, like "Ivy League", it should be used enough to generate lots of hits. If it's not, it doesn't warrant an entry. Period. In this case, HYP = < 1000 Google hits, while Ivy League = > 1 MILLION hits. -- Barshon 07:46, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. The actual universities themselves are obviously notable, and mentioning them together is too, but the term itself is not notable (a Google search for 'hyp "harvard yale princeton"' finds just over 600 hits). — Asbestos | Talk 10:29, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This claim of <1000 Google hits is simply false. See my Google analysis above. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 08:54, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

While I got many raw Google hits on the search HYP college, most of the HYPs seemed to be lower case abbreviations for hypnotherapy, often used in the form dip.hyp (referring to a diploma). Worse, a search for HYP college -dip still turns up a first result referring to hypnotherapy. So while I assume it's used routinely in a few scattered schools and counseling offices, it's still limited and usually appears in a distinctly boosterish context. I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage because I'd never heard the term before I encountered this VfD. I'd definitely accept it in an educational jargon glossary, but I think it's below the horizon for an encyclopedia article. Wyss 17:54, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Comment PRINCETON IN YACHT RACES, Special to The New York Times Jun 11, 1931; pg. 36 "Princeton will defend the Hyp Cup and the William McMillan Cup, both of which it won last year in competition against Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Williams and Dartmouth." Hyp is presented as shown, capital H, small y and p. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:38, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Comment INDIFFERENCE IN COLLEGE. LOUIS BROMFIELD. New York Times Aug 29, 1920 pg. E2 "Too many parents believe "it is the thing" to have their sons graduated from Harvard or Yale and Princeton."
• Comment Now a Degree Is Path to Power By FRED M. HECHINGER New York Times Aug 21, 1966; pg. 179 "Gene R. Hawes, a college admissions expert, reported that while nearly, fewer than half of their sons followed in their footsteps."
• Comment Admissions Jitters BY HERBERT F. DALTON JR. New York Times Jan 3, 1988 pg. EDUC53 "High schools contribute to admissions stress.... the quality of a senior class or the strength of a year is often judged by how many students were accepted at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."
• Comment Google hits on exact phrase: [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:52, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • about 4,700 for "Harvard, Yale and Princeton"
  • about 3,940 for "Harvard, Princeton and Yale" (!)
  • about 749 for "Yale, Harvard and Princeton"
  • about 605 for "Harvard, Yale and Stanford"
  • about 344 for "Yale, Princeton and Harvard"
  • about 399 for "Princeton, Yale and Harvard"
  • about 354 for "Princeton, Harvard and Yale"
  • about 303 for "Harvard, Yale and Brown"
  • about 275 for "Harvard, Yale and MIT"
  • about 253 for "Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth"
  • about 145 for "Harvard, Yale and Cornell"
  • about 54 for "Harvard, Yale and Berkeley"
  • about 6 for "Harvard, Yale and Rutgers"

Uhm... these aren't hits on the acronym HYP, which is all we're discussing. Please let me know if I'm missing something? Wyss 09:32, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• • I think we're discussing two different but related things: a) the initialism HYP, and b) the trio of universities to which it refers (Haverford, Yeshiva, and Purdue. Sorry, couldn't resist). My own opinion is that these three universities are frequently bracketed together; that this bracketing of the three is a reasonably encyclopedic and NPOV fact; and that it ought to be documented somewhere in Wikipedia. That granted, the next question is "where," and my answer is "Dunno." But not in a separate article of it's own, and not under the heading HYP because that isn't really in very wide use, nor is there any really well defined single term for the group. (Unlike Ivy League or Colonial colleges). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:25, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The more I look into this, the less notable it seems. Wyss 17:52, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I undeleted the history of this to merge with another article, which appeared to have used it as a major source, to ensure the original authorship was not lost. Angela. 18:11, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)