Ivy League
Institution Location Athletic nickname Undergraduates Graduates 2018 endowment Academic staff
Brown University Providence , Rhode Island Bears 6,670 3,061 $ 3.60 billion 736
Columbia University New York City , New York Lions 8,868 20,116 $ 10.87 billion 3,763
Cornell University Ithaca , New York Big Red 15,182 8,418 $ 7.23 billion 2,908
Dartmouth College Hanover , New Hampshire Big Green 4,310 2,099 $ 5.49 billion 571
Harvard University Cambridge , Massachusetts Crimson 6,699 13,120 $ 38.30 billion 4,671
University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia , Pennsylvania Quakers 10,496 11,013 $ 13.78 billion 4,464
Princeton University Princeton , New Jersey Tigers 5,394 2,879 $ 25.92 billion 1,172
Yale University New Haven , Connecticut Bulldogs 5,453 6,859 $ 29.35 billion 4,140
Members
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eight private universities in the Northeastern United States. The term Ivy League is typically used to refer to those eight schools as a group of elite colleges beyond the sports context. The eight members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. Ivy League has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. While the term was in use as early as 1933, it became official only after the formation of the NCAA Division I athletic conference in 1954. Seven of the eight schools were founded during the colonial period (Cornell was founded in 1865), and thus account for seven of the nine Colonial Colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The other two colonial colleges, Rutgers University and the College of William & Mary, became public institutions instead. Ivy League schools are generally viewed as some of the most prestigious in the world, and are ranked among the best universities worldwide by U.S. News & World Report. All eight universities place in the top seventeen of the 2020 U.S. News & World Report national university rankings, including four Ivies in the top three (Columbia and Yale are tied for 3rd). In the 2019 U.S. News & World Report global university rankings, three Ivies rank in the top ten (Harvard 1st, Columbia 7th, and Princeton 8th) and six in the top twenty-three. Undergraduate-focused Ivies such as Brown University and Dartmouth College rank 99th and 197th, respectively. U.S. News has named a member of the Ivy League as the best national university in each of the past 18 years ending with the 2018 rankings: Princeton eleven times, Harvard twice, and the two schools tied for first five times.