There are eight Ivy League schools. All eight are private universities located in the Northeastern United States: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The number has never changed since the group was formalized, and no school has been added or removed.
Why Exactly Eight Schools
The Ivy League is, at its core, an athletic conference. February 1954 is the accepted founding date, though formal round-robin competition between all eight schools didn’t begin until the 1956-57 season, when the university presidents adopted a shared football schedule. The schools had competed against each other for decades before that, but the 1954 agreement made the grouping official.
Because the Ivy League is a specific athletic conference within NCAA Division I, membership isn’t based on academic rankings, endowment size, or prestige. It’s a fixed group defined by an agreement among these eight institutions. A university can’t apply to join, and there’s no process for expansion. Schools like Stanford, MIT, and Duke are often mentioned alongside the Ivies due to their academic reputations, but they belong to entirely different athletic conferences and are not Ivy League members.
The Eight Schools at a Glance
- Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island)
- Columbia University (New York City, New York)
- Cornell University (Ithaca, New York)
- Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire)
- Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
- University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
- Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey)
- Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut)
All eight are known for highly selective admissions, large endowments, and strong career outcomes for graduates. Dartmouth is the smallest, with an undergraduate enrollment of roughly 4,000, while Cornell is the largest, enrolling over 15,000 undergraduates.
Schools Often Confused With Ivies
Several universities are so academically competitive that people assume they’re part of the Ivy League. Stanford actually ranks ahead of some Ivies in major national rankings. MIT is widely considered a peer institution in research and selectivity. Duke, the University of Chicago, and Georgetown frequently land on the same “most elite” lists. None of them are Ivies. The distinction is purely about conference membership, not quality.
Public Ivies, Little Ivies, and Other Labels
You’ll sometimes see terms like “Public Ivy,” “Little Ivy,” or “Hidden Ivy” used informally. These aren’t official organizations. They’re labels coined by guidebook authors and journalists to group schools with Ivy-caliber academics that fall outside the actual conference.
“Public Ivy” was coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book to describe public universities offering an education comparable to the Ivy League at a lower price. His original list included 15 schools, among them UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and William & Mary. A 2001 guidebook expanded that list to 30 public universities.
“Little Ivies” refers to small, selective liberal arts colleges, many of them in New England. Schools like Amherst College, Vassar College, and Tufts University typically appear on these lists. “Hidden Ivies” is a similar informal grouping that sometimes includes larger research universities like Northwestern and Stanford alongside smaller colleges like Amherst.
None of these labels carry any official standing. They’re useful shorthand for comparing schools, but membership in the actual Ivy League remains limited to the same eight universities it has always included.