Ivy League Stanford University and Northwestern University. Besides selectivity, these Ivy Plus colleges are thought to share similar values around academic and professional excellence, intellectual curiosity, leadership and civil engagement." Ivy League 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
Black Ivy League First Lady Michelle Obama; college basketball coaches Craig Robinson (also Michelle Obama's brother) and John Thompson III; and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas earned his bachelor's degree at a non-Ivy school, but earned his J.D. at Yale Law School. In 2004, the Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University sponsored an academic conference entitled "Growing Black Ivy" which drew 200 scholars to discuss black participation at elite Ivy League institutions. Competition for top students have grown more intense. For example, Cornell announced a change in its financial aid