Ivy League 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 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
Ivy League of the Northeast, Old Money, or more generally, the American upper middle and upper classes. Although most Ivy League students come from upper middle- and upper-class families, the student body has become increasingly more economically and ethnically diverse. The universities provide significant financial aid to help increase the enrollment of lower income and middle class students. Several reports suggest, however, that the proportion of students from less-affluent families remains low. Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery" are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the early and mid-twentieth century. A Louis Auchincloss character dreads "the aridity of snobbery which he