Ivy League Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports, effective with the 1955–56 basketball season. This is generally reckoned as the formal formation of the Ivy League. 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
Ivy League other national championships earned outside the scope of NCAA competition, including football titles and retroactive Helms Foundation titles. The term "Ivy" is often used to connote a positive comparison to or association with the Ivy League, often along academic lines. The term has been used to describe the Little Ivies, a grouping of small liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. Other uses include the Southern Ivies, Hidden Ivies, and the Public Ivies. The 2007 edition of "Newsweek's How to Get Into College Now", the editors designated 25 schools as "New Ivies". The term "Ivy Plus" is sometimes used