Ivy League

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Ivy League

Data
Established	1954
Members	8
Continent	North America
Country	United States
University Type	Private
Other Names	Ancient Eight

The Ivy League is an association of eight American universities, named for the ivy plants traditionally covering their older buildings. The term "Ivy League" has connotations of academic excellence as well as a certain amount of elitism. These schools are also sometimes affectionately referred to as the Ancient Eight.

All of the Ivy League universities share some general characteristics: They are among the most prestigious and selective universities in the U.S., consistently placing near the top of college and university rankings; they rank within the top one percent of the world's universities in terms of financial endowment; they attract top-tier students and faculty; and they have relatively small undergraduate populations. The Ivies are also all located in the Northeast region of the United States and are among the oldest universities in the country—all but Cornell University were founded during America's colonial era.

The Ivy League universities are all privately owned and controlled, although many of them receive funding from the federal or state governments to pursue research. One of the eight, Cornell, has four state-supported academic units, termed statutory colleges, that are an integral part of the university.

Contents

Members

The members of the Ivy League are, in alphabetical order:

Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, founded 1764 as Rhode Island College
Columbia University, in New York City, New York, founded 1754 as King's College
Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, founded 1865
Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, founded 1769
Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded 1636 as the New College
University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded 1751 as the Academy of Philadelphia
Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey
Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut, founded 1701 as the Collegiate School

Coats of arms of the schools of the Ivy League.

Terminology

The term Ivy League was first coined informally to refer to these schools, who compete in both scholastics and sports, but it also refers to the formal association of these schools in NCAA Division I athletic competition. In some sports, notably baseball and tennis, the Ivy League teams also compete against Army (the United States Military Academy) and Navy (the United States Naval Academy).

The term Ivy League refers strictly to the original eight schools. However, the term Ivy Plus is sometimes used to refer to the eight plus Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University for purposes of alumni associations and university gatherings; however, these two schools are not part of the Ivy League.

History

As an informal football league, the Ivy League dates from 1900 when Yale took the conference championship with a 5-0 record. For many years Army and Navy were considered members, but dropped out shortly before formal organization.

On October 14, 1937, when Caswell Adams, a sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune, was assigned a Columbia-Pennsylvania football game, he remarked, "Do I have to watch the ivy grow every Saturday afternoon? How about letting me see some football away from the ivy-covered halls of learning for a change?" Stanley Woodward, a fellow writer, overheard this and coined the phrase "Ivy League" in a column, informally describing the eight competitive universities in advance of any formal sports conference, and his phrase quickly caught on.

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.

In 1954, the date generally accepted as the birth of the Ivy League, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports. Competition began with the 1956 season.

An apocryphal etymology attributes the name to the Roman numerals for four (IV), incorrectly asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members. The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins helped to perpetuate this myth, claiming that over a century ago, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton formed an athletic league called the "Four League". [1]

Reputation

All Ivy League schools are known for their highly selective undergraduate programs. Indeed, acceptance rates to all of the schools have dropped consistently over the past decade. In addition, many of the universities are well known for their top-rate graduate and professional programs. Some notable programs include:

Brown's Medical School
Columbia's Business School, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Law School, Columbia School of the Arts, School of Journalism, and Teacher's College
Cornell's College of Engineering, Law School, Weill Medical College, NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, NYS College of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Hotel Administration
Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering
Harvard's Business School, Kennedy School of Government, Law School, Medical School, and School of Education
Penn's Law School, School of Education, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Wharton School of Business
Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Yale's Law School, School of Art, School of Drama, School of Medicine, and School of Music

Endowments

The Ivy League schools are among the wealthiest private universities in the U.S., a status commensurate with their ages and long-standing relationships with the highest echelons of American society. All of the Ivy League schools have endowments over $1 billion of assets.[2] Harvard, with a $22.6 billion endowment (as of 2004), is the wealthiest university in the world, and is the second non-profit organization in the world (after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to report an endowment over $20 billion.[3] Yale, with an endowment size of $11 billion, is the second-wealthiest. Next come Princeton with $8.7 billion, Columbia with $4.3 billion, Penn with $4 billion, Cornell with $3 billion, Dartmouth with $2.4 billion, and Brown with $1.5 billion. Princeton has the highest per-student endowment at $1.32 million, followed by Harvard with $1.15 million, Yale with $0.97 million, Dartmouth with $0.42 million, Brown and Columbia with $0.20 million, Penn with $0.19 million, and Cornell with $0.15 million.

Harvard owns nearly 430 acres (1.8 km²) of property in the Boston area.[4] Columbia is notably among the largest private landowners in New York City, which has some of the highest property values in the world. Dartmouth owns 26,800 acres (108 km²) in the northern part of New Hampshire as part of the Second College Grant, making it the largest land owner in the state. [5]

Cooperation

Seven of the eight schools (excluding Harvard) participate in the BorrowDirect interlibrary-loan program, making a total of 40 million items available to participants, although the ILL program is not affiliated with the formal Ivy arrangement. (Harvard holds another 15 million items in its collection.)

Competition

Ivy champions are crowned in 33 men's and 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 the ECAC; but an Ivy champion is extrapolated each year.)

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.

Harvard and Yale have both an academic and an athletic rivalry; they first met in a rowing race in 1852. Princeton and Penn are mainly basketball rivals. Cornell and Harvard are hockey rivals. Unlike most Division I athletic conferences, the Ivy League prohibits the granting of athletic scholarships [6]. As a result, the schools are typically less competitive in football and basketball, even when compared to universities with comparably rigorous academic standards such as Stanford or Duke.

External links

Ivy League Sports Official Website

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