HANDS DOWN, NO questions asked, the best piece of Ivy journalism today is in the Dartmouth, which leads with a revealing look at the school's early and regular admissions pools. Numbers in hand, reporter Marina Agapakis finds that Dartmouth's early pool is far less diverse and far more affluent than those who apply to the school through regular admissions. The differences are suprisingly staggering:

The most drastic difference in representation between the two pools is in minority matriculants; 19 percent of matriculants from the early decision pool are racial minorities, whereas 40 percent of those accepted in the regular pool are considered minorities.

Thirty-eight percent of matriculants admitted to the Class of 2010 through early decision are receiving need-based financial aid, compared to 57 percent of regular decision matriculants.

The Dartmouth also gets its hands on similar numbers for the University of Virginia, and finds that only 2 percent of students admitted early applied for financial aid. Two percent! Both Dartmouth and UVA had binding, early decision last year, but UVA just dropped its program. Dartmouth's outgoing gatekeeper, Karl Furstenberg, says they're staying the course for now.

But let's go back to the numbers. Sure, they confirm what everyone involved in the debate is willing to concede, but it's the size of the disparity that's surprising. And since early applicants are more likely to be admitted, it does seem to support Harvard President Derek Bok's claim that early admissions "advantage the advantaged." Of course, there are several legitimate counterpoints to that, primary of which is Stanford Provost John Etchemendy's IRS analogy in his Times op-ed, which concludes:

There is nothing about early admissions, in itself, that gives an advantage to those who apply early. It all depends on whether the university imposes lower, the same, or higher standards to the early pool. Nor can you infer the standards by simply comparing admission rates in the early and late pools.

Fair enough. But from a journalist's standpoint, it's better to have the numbers, and the Ivy papers should be after them. The Dartmouth struck out at Harvard, Princeton and Penn, but perhaps the on-campus dailies will have more luck. The admissions debate now rattling higher education will be better informed with the relevant statistics close at hand.

ON A SIMILAR note, the Yale Daily News delves into the results of a new study that appears to counter that much discussed front-page story in the Times last fall: "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood." Yale's women's center asked students about their career and family aspirations, and how they might intertwine:

According to the study, 87.6 percent of the men surveyed said they are planning to become parents, while 78.4 percent of women said they plan to have children. The study found that men and women are equally likely to continue to work full-time even if their partners can support them financially or if they are able to obtain high-quality day care for their children. Yale women are more likely to take time off work than men after having children, but only 4.1 percent of Yale women said they plan to stop working entirely once they have children, and 71.8 percent plan to take less than one year off from work, according to the study.

Those numbers don't support the Times article, which found a few Yale women who want to be full-time moms and called it a trend. But isn't it even more suprising that more Yale men than women are planning to become parents?

BLOGGING ABOUT HIGHER education is all the rage these days, with US News' Paper Trail, Richard Bradley's Shots in the Dark and the Chronicle of Higher Education's News Blog, to name just a few. This summer saw the addition of two Ivy-focused blogs: IvyGate and IvyLeak. Today they get profiled in the Brown Daily Herald and the New York Sun (question for the latter: why?), and the mud flies. Here's a quick summary of both pieces:

—Bloggers' anonymity: mostly preserved
—Only information uncovered: the IvyGate guys are Columbia alums
—Other media used as comparisons: the New York Post and Gawker
—Executive editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian: "I'm not going to lie, it's fun to read."
—Editor in chief of the Cornell Daily Sun: "disappointed"

The blogs themselves, of course, have responses up this morning: IvyGate and IvyLeak.

CORNELL STUDENTS WILL no longer have easy access to copyrighted reading material online, after the American Association of Publishers threatened suit. But the Sun muddles the issue with this breathless lede:

Most students would be shocked to know that their professor had broken the law, and even more surprised to find out that they had witnessed it. But as unlikely as that situation seems, it happened on a daily basis last year and probably would have continued this year if the University had not been threatened with a lawsuit.

The Sun also catches up with former President Jeff Lehman, and doesn't ask him why he left Cornell.

BROWN MAY CONVERT some single-sex bathrooms to gender-neutral bathrooms after student requests, the Herald reports. The Columbia Spectator has a college-focused take on the Internet poker ban currently making its way through Congress. And the DP asks the new freshman class president why he uses his middle name, not what he plans to do in office.

—Ivy Infusion is a pun. Send comments, insights and more puns to ivyinfusion@gmail.com.