Ivy Plus Schools

Eight, plus four

The Ivy members are Brown, Columbia, Cornell University, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale. The four additions are fixed slugs in the roster file: Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago. A different campus with a similar name does not qualify.

Some groups called Ivy Plus add further universities, including a library group that is larger than twelve. This page does not follow that longer list. Adding a thirteenth campus would answer a different question than the one this roster answers.

Famous is not enough

A university can be every bit as selective as these twelve and stay off the list. The rule is membership in the set, not an admission rate. Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and other universities readers sometimes group with these schools are not in this roster.

Cornell College in Iowa is not Cornell University, so it is not in the Ivy eight and not on this page. The same name test that protects the Ivy list protects this one.

A research set, read as data

These twelve differ in size, price, and undergraduate focus. MIT and Chicago are not the same kind of campus as a large Ivy with a full college. Use the enrollment and price figures below to see the spread instead of treating the label as one experience.

Several of these universities admit a small share of applicants. That is visible in the admission section. It is not a score this site assigned. The list was not built by sorting admission rates and keeping the top twelve.

Why the list exists beside the Ivies

Readers search for Ivy Plus because the phrase is used in research and in conversation. Publishing the twelve, with a definition, is more useful than leaving the phrase to mean whatever a headline meant that week.

For the athletic conference alone, use the Ivy League page. For every very-high-research university, use the R1 page. Most of these twelve sit in that research class. The class is much larger than twelve.

Where the schools are

These schools sit in 10 states. The largest groups are Massachusetts (2), New York (2), California (1), Connecticut (1), and Illinois (1). The rest of the roll is spread across the other states in the table.

Who runs them

Every school with a reported control is a private nonprofit college. Control is the Scorecard field. It is not a judgment about quality.

Predominant degree is the credential the campus awards most often. On this list it is a bachelor's degree at 12 schools. A campus can still award other credentials.

How large they are

The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with 15,995 undergraduates, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 10,650 undergraduates, and Columbia University in the City of New York in New York, New York, with 8,973 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.

Admission

12 of 12 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 5%. Schools with no reported rate stay out of the median. A missing rate is not an open door, and it is not a closed one.

The lowest reported admission rates on this list are Stanford University in Stanford, California, at 4%, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 4%, and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, at 4%. A lower rate is harder entry. It is not a score for the school.

The highest reported admission rates on this list are Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, at 9%, Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, at 6%, and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, at 5%.

What they charge

Among 12 private colleges that report a sticker price, the median is $68,477.

Sticker price is not net price. Grants, waivers, and a service commitment can move the bill by a wide margin. Open a school for the net-price figures.

Earnings and graduation

Among 12 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $102,154. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at $143,372, Stanford University in Stanford, California, at $124,080, and University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at $111,371.

Among 12 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 96%. A blank rate is left out. It is not treated as zero.

Athletics in this file

10 report NCAA Division I athletics, 2 play FBS football, and 8 play FCS football. A blank athletics field means this file has no division for that campus. It does not prove the campus has no team.

Also on other lists

Some of these schools also meet the rule for another list on this site. The overlap is a second flag or a second classification. It is not a second ranking.

All of them are also on R1 research universities.

How these figures work

Admission rate, enrollment, sticker price, earnings, and graduation rate all come from the College Scorecard. Earnings are the median 10 years after a student entered the school. Tuition for a public college is the in-state sticker price. Tuition for a private college is the published sticker price. None of these is net price after aid.

A blank field stays blank. This page does not turn a blank admission rate into an open door, a blank fee into a free application, or a blank earnings figure into zero. The table above is membership under the rule in this guide. Sort order is not a quality ranking.