Issue date: 10/10/07 Section: News

One male student was written about for allegedly taping a video of himself having sex.

In another university, a female keeps a public diary of her sexual escapades.

And then there are the groups of students who find themselves in all sorts of trouble after plagiarizing or burning flags.

The subjects have two things in common: First, they all go to an Ivy League university, and second, online reports about them and their peers are having a growing influence.

As more and more blogs about or within the Elite Eight sprout up on the Internet, higher education experts say these stories can have an effect on a school's reputation.

Robin Raskin, who works for Princeton Review, said sites that feature gossip-type stories about the Ivy League shape how outsiders view a school.

Such sites are "really good because they give you an idea of campus life at those schools to the fullest," Raskin said. "By taking away the mystique of the Ivies, [people] will realize there are great students everywhere."

"Ivy League students are just college students, and although they go to these prestigious schools, they still do stupid things," said Ivygateblog.com contributing editor Jim Newell, who is also a former 34th Street editor-in-chief.

"I don't think there's been a whole lot of media exposure of just showing Ivy League kids as regular college kids," he said.

Another Ivy League blog, SexAndTheIvy.com, is written by Harvard junior Lena Chen. She uses it to chronicle her sexual encounters, mental-health issues and drug use.

"For students who want to go to an Ivy League school, it's extremely important for them to know that it's not going to be all peachy because you got into Harvard," Chen said.

"I felt surprised, like there was a false marketing campaign going on," she added.

Initial views students have of an Ivy League school can also be shaped by where they go to high school, said Wendy Chen, a college guidance counselor at the Collegiate School, a prestigious high school in New York.

Students at Collegiate "tend to be very in tune with the nuances" of different Ivy League schools and therefore would be less inclined to care about Ivy-centered blogs, Wendy Chen said.

But students at other high schools less obsessed with the Ivy League may be more easily influenced.

At Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument, Colo., only one or two students enter the Ivy League a year and so most don't know much beyond each school's brochure, said Lewis-Palmer college counselor George Cruz.

And when it comes to school officials trying to control their images, as far as blogs are concerned, they can't do much.

"We try our best to make sure the blogs have accurate information about Penn but frankly, there is not very much we can do to influence their stories," University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said.

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