Ivy League

The Ivy League is an athletic conference of eight private universities in the Northeast; during the first half of the 1900s they played each other frequently. By the 1930s they were referred informally to as the "Ivy League," but the organization was not formalized until 1954.

By extension, the term also refers to the eight schools considered as a group, and to social characteristics perceived to be common to the group. The schools of the Ivy League are all old—all but Cornell having been founded before the American Revolution. They are all stellar in academics, and all of them have a traditional connection with social prestige. Six of them were founded as Protestant institutions. (Five were firmly connected with specific denominations. Penn and Cornell were founded as nondenominational; Brown was founded as Baptist but with a charter declaring religious liberty—and also with compulsory chapel).

The nickname comes from the old brick buildings on their campuses, which have had time to grow dense coverings of ivy.

Its members include Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Cornell University.

At Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, the undergraduate schools which issue baccalaureate degrees are named Harvard College, Yale College, and Columbia College. Alumni of these schools often identify themselves with the college rather than the university as a whole; thus, Harvard alumni may describe their degree as a "B.A. from Harvard College" rather than as a "B.A. from Harvard University." Dartmouth is unusual in that, for historical reasons, the university as a whole is referred to as Dartmouth College, so an alumnus of the doctoral program has a "Ph.D. from Dartmouth College."