Ivy League The Ivy League is an athletic conference composed of sports teams from eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States . The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group . The eight institutions are Brown University , Columbia University , Cornell University , Dartmouth College , Harvard University , Princeton University , the University of Pennsylvania , and Yale University . The term " Ivy League " also has connotations of academic excellence , selectivity in admissions , and social elitism . The term became official after the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference in 1954 . The use of the phrase is no longer limited to athletics , and now represents an educational philosophy inherent to the nation ' s oldest schools . Seven of the eight schools were founded during the United States colonial period ; the exception is Cornell , which was founded in 1865 . Ivy League institutions , therefore , account for seven of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution . Ivy League schools are viewed as some of the most prestigious , and are ranked among the best universities in the United States and worldwide . All eight Ivy League institutions place within the top fifteen of the " U . S . News & World Report " college and university rankings , including the top four schools and six of the top ten . A member of the Ivy League has been the " U . S . News " number - one - ranked university in each of the past 12 years : Princeton University five times , Harvard University twice , and the two schools tied for first five times . The Ivies are all in the Northeast region of the United States . Each school receives millions of dollars in research grants and other subsidies from federal and state government . Undergraduate enrollments among the Ivy League schools range from about 4 , 000 to 14 , 000 , making them larger than those of a typical private liberal arts college and smaller than a typical public state university . Overall enrollments range from approximately 6 , 100 in the case of Dartmouth to over 20 , 000 in the case of Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , and Penn . Ivy League university financial endowment s range from Brown ' s $ 2 . 2 billion to Harvard ' s $ 32 billion , the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world . History . Origin of the name . Students have long revered the ivied walls of older colleges . " Planting the ivy " was a customary class day ceremony at many colleges in the 1800s . In 1893 an alumnus told " The Harvard Crimson " , " In 1850 , class day was placed upon the University Calendar . . . the custom of planting the ivy , while the ivy oration was delivered , arose about this time . " At Penn , graduating seniors started the custom of planting ivy at a university building each spring in 1873 and that practice was formally designated as " Ivy Day " in 1874 . Ivy planting ceremonies are reported for Yale , Simmons , Bryn Mawr and many others . Princeton ' s " Ivy Club " was founded in 1879 . The first usage of " Ivy " in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward ( 1895 – 1965 ) . According to the book " Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins " ( 1988 ) , author William Morris writes that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow " New York Tribune " sportswriter Caswell Adams . Morris writes that during the 1930s , the Fordham University football team was running roughshod over all its opponents . One day in the sports room at the " Tribune " , the merits of Fordham ' s football team were being compared to those of Princeton and Columbia . Adams remarked disparagingly of the latter two , saying they were " only " Ivy League " . " Woodward , the sports editor of the " Tribune " , picked up the term and printed the next day . Note though that in the above quote Woodward used the term " ivy college " , not " ivy league " as Adams is said to have used , so there is a discrepancy in this theory , although it seems certain the term " ivy college " and shortly later " Ivy League " acquired its name from the sports world . The first known instance of the term " Ivy League " being used appeared in " The Christian Science Monitor " on February 7 , 1935 . Several sportswriters and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges , those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States , chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the colonial era , together with the United States Military Academy ( West Point ) , the United States Naval Academy , and a few others . These schools were known for their long - standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics , often being the first schools to participate in such activities . However , at this time , none of these institutions made efforts to form an athletic league . The Ivy League universities are also called the " Ancient Eight " or simply the " Ivies " . A common folk etymology attributes the name to the Roman numerals for four ( IV ) , asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members . The " Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins " helped to perpetuate this belief . The supposed " IV League " was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard , Yale , Princeton , and a 4th school that varies depending on who is telling the story . However , it is clear that Harvard , Princeton , Yale and Columbia met on November 23 , 1876 at the so - called Massasoit Convention to decide on uniform rules for the emerging game of American football , which rapidly spread . Pre - Ivy League . Seven of the Ivy League schools were founded before the American Revolution ; Cornell was founded just after the American Civil War . These seven were the primary colleges in the Northern and Middle Colonies , and their early faculties and founding boards were largely , therefore , drawn from other Ivy League institutions . There were also some British graduates from the University of Cambridge , the University of Oxford , the University of Edinburgh , and elsewhere on their boards . Similarly , the founder of The College of William & Mary , in 1693 , was a British graduate of the University of Edinburgh . Cornell provided Stanford University with its first president . The influence of these institutions on the founding of other colleges and universities is notable . This included the Southern public college movement which blossomed in the first two decades of the 19th century when Georgia , South Carolina , North Carolina and Virginia established what became the flagship universities for each of these states . In 1801 a majority of the first board of trustees for what became the University of South Carolina were Princeton alumni . They appointed Jonathan Maxcy , a Brown graduate , as the university ' s first president . Thomas Cooper , an Oxford alumnus and University of Pennsylvania faculty member became the second president of the South Carolina college . The founders of the University of California came from Yale , hence the school colors of University of California are Yale Blue and California Gold . Some of the Ivy League schools have identifiable Protestant roots , while others were founded as nonsectarian schools . Church of England " King ' s College " broke up during the Revolution and was reformed as public nonsectarian Columbia College . In the early nineteenth century , the specific purpose of training Calvinist ministers was handed off to theological seminaries , but a denominational tone and such relics as compulsory chapel often lasted well into the twentieth century . Penn and Brown were officially founded as nonsectarian schools . Brown ' s charter promised no religious tests and " full liberty of conscience " , but placed control in the hands of a board of twenty - two Baptists , five Quakers , four Congregationalists , and five Episcopalians . Cornell has been strongly nonsectarian from its founding . " Ivy League " is sometimes used as a way of referring to an elite class , even though institutions such as Cornell University were among the first in the United States to reject racial and gender discrimination in their admissions policies . This sense dates back to at least 1935 . Novels and memoirs attest this sense , as a social elite ; to some degree independent of the actual schools . After the Second World War , the present Ivy League institutions slowly widened their selection of students . They had always had distinguished faculties ; some of the first Americans with doctorate s had taught for them ; but they now decided that they could not both be world - class research institutions and be competitive in the highest ranks of American college sport ; in addition , the schools experienced the scandals of any other big - time football programs , although more quietly . History of the athletic league . The Ivies have been competing in sports as long as intercollegiate sports have existed in the United States . Rowing teams from Harvard and Yale met in the first sporting event held between students of two U . S . colleges on Lake Winnipesaukee , New Hampshire , on August 3 , 1852 . Harvard ' s team , " The Oneida " , won the race and was presented with trophy black walnut oars from then presidential nominee General Franklin Pierce . The first formal athletic league involving eventual Ivy League schools ( or any US colleges , for that matter ) was created in 1870 with the formation of the Rowing Association of American Colleges . The RAAC hosted a de facto national championship in rowing during the period 1870 – 1894 . In 1895 , Cornell , Columbia , and Penn founded the Intercollegiate Rowing Association , which remains the oldest collegiate athletic organizing body in the US . To this day , the IRA Championship Regatta determines the national champion in rowing and all of the Ivies are regularly invited to compete . A basketball league was later created in 1902 , when Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , Yale and Princeton formed the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League ; they were later joined by Penn and Dartmouth . In 1906 , the organization that eventually became the National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed , primarily to formalize rules for the emerging sport of football . But of the 39 original member colleges in the NCAA , only two of them ( Dartmouth and Penn ) later became Ivies . Before the formal establishment of the Ivy League , there was an " unwritten and unspoken agreement among certain Eastern colleges on athletic relations " . In 1935 , the Associated Press reported on an example of collaboration between the schools : Despite such collaboration , the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent . Romeyn Berry , Cornell ' s manager of athletics , reported the situation in January 1936 as follows : Within a year of this statement and having held one - month - long discussions about the proposal , on December 3 , 1936 , the idea of " the formation of an Ivy League " gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the " Columbia Daily Spectator " , " The Cornell Daily Sun " , " The Dartmouth " , " The Harvard Crimson " , " The Daily Pennsylvanian " , " The Daily Princetonian " and the " Yale Daily News " would simultaneously run an editorial entitled " Now Is the Time " , encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics . Part of the editorial read as follows : The proposal did not succeed — on January 11 , 1937 , the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the " possibility of a heptagonal league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball , baseball and track . " However , they noted that the league " has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration . " In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first " Ivy Group Agreement " , which set academic , financial , and athletic standards for the football teams . The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard - Yale - Princeton Presidents ' Agreement of 1916 . The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant ' s ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions : In 1954 , the date generally accepted as the birth of the Ivy League , the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports effective with the 1955 - 56 basketball season . As part of the transition , Brown , the only Ivy that hadn ' t joined the EIBL , did so for the 1954 - 55 season . A year later , the Ivy League absorbed the EIBL . The Ivy League claims the EIBL ' s history as its own . Through the EIBL , it is the oldest basketball conference in Division I . As late as the 1960s many of the Ivy League universities ' undergraduate programs remained open only to men , with Cornell the only one to have been coeducational from its founding ( 1865 ) and Columbia being the last ( 1983 ) to become coeducation al . Before they became coeducational , many of the Ivy schools maintained extensive social ties with nearby Seven Sisters women ' s college s , including weekend visits , dances and parties inviting Ivy and Seven Sisters students to mingle . This was the case not only at Barnard College and Radcliffe College , which are adjacent to Columbia and Harvard , but at more distant institutions as well . The movie " Animal House " includes a satiric version of the formerly common visits by Dartmouth men to Massachusetts to meet Smith and Mount Holyoke women , a drive of more than two hours . As noted by Irene Harwarth , Mindi Maline , and Elizabeth DeBra , " The ' Seven Sisters ' was the name given to Barnard , Smith , Mount Holyoke , Vassar , Bryn Mawr , Wellesley , and Radcliffe , because of their parallel to the Ivy League men ’ s colleges . " In 1983 , following the admission of women to Columbia College , Columbia University and Barnard College entered into an athletic consortium agreement by which students from both schools compete together on Columbia University women ' s athletic teams , which replaced the women ' s teams previously sponsored by Barnard . Cohesion of the group . The Ivy League schools are highly selective , with acceptance rates ranging from 6 to 16 percent . These universities compete in many ways , as illustrated by Yale ' s aggressive reaction to an incident in 2002 . A Princeton admissions staffer mentioned at a joint meeting of all eight Ivy admissions departments that he and others from his office had logged onto the Yale admissions website to see how their system to notify applicants worked . At the time , Princeton and many other colleges were considering a transition from using mailed letters to website notification , a process which Yale had already completed . No immediate reaction from the group resulted at the initial meeting , as was the case when the same individual brought up the subject again at a subsequent conference one month later . He told the others present that he and his colleagues had used the names , birth dates and Social Security number s of some Princeton applicants who might have also applied to Yale . In particular , the Princeton representative brought up the topic because he was surprised to find that Yale had used no password besides a Social Security number . Despite the fact that the Princeton staffer had proactively volunteered the information and Yale officials at both meetings had voiced no objection , the Yale administration examined its computer records and called the FBI to complain that its computers had been " hacked , " then issued a press release to that effect . After this apparent attempt to embarrass Princeton publicly , the admissions official at the center of the controversy was moved to a different department and the university ' s dean of admissions Fred Hargadon retired at the end of the academic year , though Princeton president Shirley Tilghman said that the dean ' s decision to retire was unconnected to the incident . In 2007 , Princeton honored the dean by naming a new campus dormitory after him . Collaboration between the member schools is illustrated by the student - led Ivy Council that meets in the fall and spring of each year , with representatives from every Ivy League school . Social elitism . The phrase " Ivy League " historically has been perceived as connected not only with academic excellence , but also with social elitism . In 1936 , sportswriter John Kieran noted that student editors at Harvard , Yale , Princeton , Cornell , Columbia , Dartmouth , and Penn were advocating the formation of an athletic association . In urging them to consider " Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt " as candidates for membership , he exhorted : The Ivy League has sometimes been associated with the WASP community . Phrases such as " Ivy League snobbery " are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the twentieth century . A Louis Auchincloss character dreads " the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges " . A business writer , warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring , presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid ( the bracketed phrase is his ) : Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential election , when George H . W . Bush ( Yale ' 48 ) derided Michael Dukakis ( graduate of Harvard Law School ) for having " foreign - policy views born in Harvard Yard ' s boutique . " " New York Times " columnist Maureen Dowd asked " Wasn ' t this a case of the pot calling the kettle elite ? " Bush explained however that , unlike Harvard , Yale ' s reputation was " so diffuse , there isn ' t a symbol , I don ' t think , in the Yale situation , any symbolism in it . . . Harvard boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism " and said Harvard in his remark was intended to represent " a philosophical enclave " and not a statement about class . Columnist Russell Baker opined that " Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard . All they know is that both are full of rich , fancy , stuck - up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets . " Still , the last four presidents have all attended Ivy League schools for at least part of their education — George H . W . Bush ( Yale undergrad ) , Bill Clinton ( Yale Law School ) , George W . Bush ( Yale undergrad , Harvard Business School ) , and Barack Obama ( Columbia undergrad , Harvard Law School ) . Cooperation . Up until recently , seven of the eight schools ( Harvard excluded ) participated in the Borrow Direct interlibrary loan program , making a total of 88 million items available to participants with a waiting period of four working days . This ILL program is not affiliated with the formal Ivy arrangement . Harvard and MIT joined the Direct Borrow partnership in January 2011 , together contributing over 70 million books to the existing collection . The governing body of the Ivy League is the Council of Ivy Group Presidents . During meetings , the presidents often discuss common procedures and initiatives . Competition and athletics . Ivy champions are recognized in sixteen men ' s and sixteen women ' s sports . In some sports , Ivy teams actually compete as members of another league , the Ivy championship being decided by isolating the members ' records in play against each other ; for example , the six league members who participate in ice hockey do so as members of ECAC Hockey , but an Ivy champion is extrapolated each year . Unlike all other Division I basketball conferences , the Ivy League has no tournament for the league title ; the school with the best conference record represents the conference in the Division I NCAA Men ' s and Women ' s Basketball Tournament ( with a playoff , or playoffs , in the case of a tie ) . Since its inception , an Ivy League school has yet to win either the men ' s or women ' s Division I NCAA Basketball Tournament . On average , each Ivy school has more than 35 varsity teams . All eight are in the top 20 for number of sports offered for both men and women among Division I schools . Unlike most Division I athletic conferences , the Ivy League prohibits the granting of athletic scholarships ; all scholarships awarded are need - based ( financial aid ) . Ivy League teams ' non - league games are often against the members of the Patriot League , which have similar academic standards and athletic scholarship policies . In the time before recruiting for college sports became dominated by those offering athletic scholarships and lowered academic standards for athletes , the Ivy League was successful in many sports relative to other universities in the country . In particular , Princeton won 26 recognized national championships in college football ( last in 1935 ) , and Yale won 18 ( last in 1927 ) . Both of these totals are considerably higher than those of other historically strong programs such as Alabama , which has won 13 , Notre Dame , which has won 12 , and USC , which has won 11 . Yale , whose coach Walter Camp was the " Father of American Football , " held on to its place as the all - time wins leader in college football throughout the entire 20th century , but was finally passed by Michigan on November 10 , 2001 . Currently Dartmouth holds the record for most Ivy League football titles , with 17 . Beginning with the 1982 football season , the Ivy League has competed in Division I - AA ( renamed FCS in 2006 ) . The Ivy League teams are eligible for the FCS tournament held to determine the national champion , and the league champion receives an automatic bid ( and any other team may qualify for an at - large selection ) from the NCAA . Through the 2009 season , all eligible teams have declined the invitation , citing rules governing the league ' s academic concerns posed by the extended December schedule . The Ivy League plays a strict 10 game schedule , compared to other FCS members ' schedules of 11 or 12 regular season games , plus post - season , which was expanded in 2010 to five rounds with 20 teams , with a bye week for the top 12 teams . Football is the only sport in which the Ivy League declines to compete for a national title . Although no longer as successful nationally as they once were in many of the more popular college sports , the Ivy League is still competitive in others . One such example is rowing . All of the Ivies have historically been among the top crews in the nation , and most continue to be so today . Cornell ' s 38 national championships in men ' s rowing makes that program perhaps the most decorated varsity athletic program in the country in any sport . Most recently , on the men ' s side , Harvard won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in 2003 , 2004 , 2005 , and on the women ' s side Brown won the team championship in 2007 , 2008 and 2011 NCAA Rowing Championships and Yale won the NCAA title for the I - eight event ( the most elite event ) in 2007 , 2008 and 2010 . Additionally , Cornell ' s men ' s lightweight team won back to back to back IRA National Championships in 2006 , 2007 and 2008 . The Ivy League schools are also very competitive in men ' s lacrosse and both men ' s and women ' s hockey . The Ivy League is home to some of the oldest college rugby teams . Although these teams are not " varsity " sports , they meet annually to compete in a tournament . Though the women ' s rugby teams at the Ivy League schools are much younger , they too compete in an annual Ivy League Tournament , often hosted by Brown . Historical results . The table above includes team championships won from the beginning of official Ivy League competition in the 1956 - 57 academic year through 2011 - 12 . Princeton and Harvard have on occasion won ten or more Ivy League titles in a year , an achievement accomplished six times by Harvard and 21 times by Princeton , including a conference - record 15 championships in 2010 - 11 . Only once has one of the other six schools earned more than eight titles in a single academic year ( Cornell with nine in 2005 - 06 ) . In the 33 academic years beginning 1979 - 80 , Princeton has averaged 11 championships per year , one - third of the conference total of 33 sponsored sports . In the seven academic years beginning 2005 - 06 , Harvard has won Ivy titles in 22 different sports , two - thirds of the league total , and Princeton has won championships in 31 different sports , all except wrestling and men ' s tennis . Internal rivalries . Rivalries run deep in the Ivy League . For instance , Princeton and Penn are longstanding men ' s basketball rivals ; " Puck Frinceton " , and " Pennetrate the Puss " t - shirts are worn by Quaker fans at games . In only ten instances in the history of Ivy League basketball , and in only six seasons since Yale ' s 1962 title , has neither Penn nor Princeton won at least a share of the Ivy League title in basketball , with Princeton champion or co - champion 26 times and Penn 25 times . Penn has won 21 outright , Princeton 19 outright . Princeton has been a co - champion 7 times , sharing 4 of those titles with Penn ( these 4 seasons represent the only times Penn has been co - champion ) . Harvard won its first title of either variety in 2011 , losing a dramatic play - off game to Princeton for the NCAA tournament bid , then rebounded to win an outright championship in 2012 . Rivalries exist between other Ivy league teams in other sports , including Cornell and Harvard in hockey ( the only two League members to have won the NCAA tournament ) , Harvard and Princeton in swimming , and Harvard and Penn in football ( Penn and Harvard have each had two unbeaten seasons since 2001 ) . In men ' s lacrosse , Cornell and Princeton are perennial rivals , and they are the only two Ivy League teams to have won the NCAA tournament . In 2009 , the Big Red and Tigers met for their 70th game in the NCAA tournament . No team other than Harvard or Princeton has won the men ' s swimming conference title outright since 1972 , although Yale , Columbia , and Cornell have shared the title with Harvard and Princeton during this time . Similarly , no program other than Princeton and Harvard has won the women ' s swimming championship since Brown ' s 1999 title . Princeton or Cornell has won every indoor and outdoor track and field championship , both men ' s and women ' s , every year since 2002 - 03 , with one exception ( Columbia women won indoor championship in 2012 ) . Harvard and Yale are football and crew rivals although the competition has become unbalanced ; Harvard has won all but one of the last 11 football games and all but one of the last 13 crew races . Football rivalries . The Yale - Princeton series is the nation ' s second longest , exceeded only by " The Rivalry " between Lehigh and Lafayette , which began later in 1884 but included two or three games in each of 17 early seasons . For the first three decades of the Yale - Princeton rivalry , the two played their season - ending game at a neutral site , usually New York City , and with one exception ( 1890 : Harvard ) , the winner of the game also won at least a share of the national championship that year , covering the period 1869 through 1903 . This phenomenon of a finale contest at a neutral site for the national title created a social occasion for the society elite of the metropolitan area akin to a Super Bowl in the era prior to the establishment of the NFL in 1920 . These football games were also financially profitable for the two universities , so much that they began to play baseball games in New York City as well , drawing record crowds for that sport also , largely from the same social demographic . In a period when the only professional sports were fledgling baseball leagues , these high profile early contests between Princeton and Yale played a role in popularizing spectator sports , demonstrating their financial potential and raising public awareness of Ivy universities at a time when few people attended college . Other Ivies . Marketing groups , journalists , and some educators sometimes promote other colleges as " Ivies , " as in Little Ivies ( colloquialism referring to a group of small , selective American liberal arts colleges ) , Public Ivies or Southern Ivies . These uses of " Ivy " are intended to promote the other schools by comparing them to the Ivy League . For example , in the 2007 edition of Newsweek ' s " How to Get Into College Now " , the editors designated twenty - five schools as " New Ivies . " The term " Ivy Plus " is sometimes used to refer to the Ancient Eight plus several other schools for purposes of alumni associations , university affiliations , or endowment comparisons . In his book " Untangling the Ivy League " , Zawel writes , " The inclusion of non - Ivy League schools under this term is commonplace for some schools and extremely rare for others . Among these other schools , Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University are almost always included . The University of Chicago and Duke University are often included as well . "