The term “Ivy League” refers to eight colleges and universities in the U.S. and includes Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Columbia University and Dartmouth College.
The term Ivy League also refers to the collegiate athletic league that is compromised of the eight “Ivies.”
All of the Ivy League schools are located in the Northeastern and New England regions of the U.S. and their history dates back as early as the 1600s.
In fact, seven of the Ivy League schools can trace their roots to Colonial times. Cornell is the youngest of the Ivies and was founded in 1865. The oldest Ivy League school is Harvard, founded in 1636.
While some of the Ivies have religious roots, others have been nonsectarian, or secular since their inception.
Historically, it took some time for all of the Ivies to allow women to attend. Cornell is the only member of the Ivies that was coed since it was founded. Columbia was the last Ivy League institution to become completely coed, in 1983.
The first African-American to earn a PhD graduated from Yale University in 1876; the University of Pennsylvania graduated one of the first African-American female PhDs in 1921.
Traditionally, the competition for admission to Ivy League schools has been keen. Admission rates have ranged from 7 percent to 18 percent.
An interesting fact regarding the Ivies is that the last four U.S. presidents — George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — have attended an Ivy League school as graduates or undergraduates.
While the original Ivy League consists of the eight schools mentioned above, other colleges and universities are sometimes given the moniker “Ivy” for marketing purposes. For example, schools such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University and Stanford University are often referred to as so-called “Ivy Plus” schools, due to their selectivity and high academic standards.