Little Ivies is a colloquialism referring to a group of small, selective[1] American colleges and universities; however, it does not denote any official organization.
Institutions identified as Little Ivies are usually old, small, exclusive, of WASP (Yankee) origin, and academically competitive liberal arts colleges located in the northeastern United States. The colloquialism is meant to imply that Little Ivies share similarities with the universities of the Ivy League.
- It is sometimes synonymous with the "Little Three," Amherst, Wesleyan, and Williams.[2][3][4] (The term "Little Three" is well-defined as a former athletic league[5][6] and has often been used to identify these schools as a socially and academically elite trio;[7][8][2] the term has also been used to compare the three institutions with the so-called "Big Three" of the Ivy League: Harvard, Yale and Princeton.) Encarta defines "Little Ivies" to refer to these three schools, which it characterizes as "small" and "exclusive" and as having "high academic standards and long traditions."[9]
- It can refer to the schools of the modern-day New England Small College Athletic Conference[10][11] (NESCAC), which includes the "Little Three" together with Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut, Middlebury, Tufts, Hamilton, and Trinity.
- Greene and Greene's guide, Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence uses it to refer to "Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Tufts, and Williams," schools which it says have "scaled the heights of prestige and selectivity and also turn away thousands of our best and brightest young men and women."[12]
Some schools that are often called "Little Ivies" include:
| Institution | Location | Little Three | Greene's Guides[12] | NESCAC | Notes |
| Amherst College | Amherst, Massachusetts |  |
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| Bates College | Lewiston, Maine | |
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| Bowdoin College | Brunswick, Maine | |
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| Colby College | Waterville, Maine | |
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| Connecticut College | New London, Connecticut | |
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| Hamilton College | Clinton, New York | |
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| Haverford College | Haverford, Pennsylvania | |
[1] [2] [3] [4] | ||
| Middlebury College | Middlebury, Vermont | |
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| Swarthmore College | Swarthmore, Pennsylvania | |
[5] [6] [7] [8] | ||
| Trinity College | Hartford, Connecticut | |
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| Tufts University | Medford, Massachusetts | |
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No longer a small liberal arts college; university with over 9,000 students (about 5,000 undergraduates and 4,000 graduates). | |
| Wesleyan University | Middletown, Connecticut | |
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| Williams College | Williamstown, Massachusetts | |
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Contents |
History
Founding of the institutions
| Institution | Founded | Founding religious affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| Amherst College | 1821 | Congregationalist |
| Bates College | 1855 as Maine State Seminary | Free Will Baptist |
| Bowdoin College | 1794 | Congregationalist |
| Colby College | 1813 as Maine Literary and Theological Institution | Northern Baptist |
| Connecticut College | 1911 | Methodist |
| Hamilton College | 1812 | Presbyterian |
| Haverford College | 1833 | Quaker |
| Middlebury College | 1800 | Informally Congregationalist |
| Swarthmore College | 1864 | Quaker |
| Trinity College | 1823 | Episcopalian, although not officially sectarian |
| Tufts University | 1852 | Universalist Church |
| Wesleyan University | 1831 | Methodist |
| Williams College | 1793 | Congregationalist |
- Note Founding dates and religious affiliations are those stated by the institution itself. Many of them had complex histories in their early years and the stories of their origins are subject to interpretation. See footnotes for details where appropriate. "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination. All of the "Little Ivies" are private and not currently associated with any religion.
Related colleges
The schools of the Seven Sisters, historically women's colleges, could be considered a counterpart of the Little Ivies. Schools in this group are occasionally described as "little Ivies" themselves; for example, the Business Times of Singapore mentions "Amherst, Williams, Smith, Wesleyan and Swarthmore" as examples.[1]
Examples of use
- The New York Times, February 10, 1955, p. 33 quotes the President of Swarthmore, describing and decrying social snobbery: "We not only have the Ivy League, and the pretty clearly understood though seldom mentioned gradations within the Ivy League, but we have the Little Ivy League, and the jockeying for position within that."
- Harvard Magazine
- Associate Justice Kennedy
- Episcopal High School of Houston
- Midwest Elite Hockey League
- The Williams Club
- The Atlantic Monthly: "Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams"
- Tamalpais Union High School District: "Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Haverford, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams."
- Boston Globe, September 20, 1985, p. 36 refers to "The New England Small College Athletic Conference (alias NESCAC or the 'Little Ivies')".
- "'Little Ivies' big lure for black scholars", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 29, 2006: mentions Amherst, Middlebury, Holy Cross, Bowdoin, Hampshire as "colleges [that] are sometimes known as 'little Ivies,' because they have the image of exclusivity typical of Ivy League schools."
- The Observer of Case Western Reserve University equates the "Little Ivy League" with the NESCAC ("Mentoring program links faculty and student athletes", Matt Cannan September 22, 2006).
See also
- Colby-Bates-Bowdoin
- Little Three
- NESCAC
- Black Ivy League - A list of Historically Black Colleges or Universities that provide Ivy quality education in a predominantly black environment
- Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence
- Jesuit Ivy — Complementary use of "Ivy" to characterize Boston College
- Public Ivies — Group of public U.S. universities thought to "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price"
- Seven Sisters — Historically, these were women's colleges each of which had a close tie to an Ivy League school.
- Southern Ivies — Complimentary use of "Ivy" to characterize excellent universities in the U. S. South
References
- ^ a b The Business Times of Singapore mentions Little Ivies as "elite liberal arts colleges" that are "small and selective." April 17, 2001.
- ^ a b Tyre, Peg & William Lee Adams (2005), "Prep Chic," Newsweek, May 4, 2005 "23 percent of Taft graduates attended one of the Ivies or little Ivies (Wesleyan, Williams and Amherst)."
- ^ Union-News (Springfield, MA), December 5, 1988, p. 13 (quotes a Bryn Mawr official: "If the Seven Sisters were now Siblings, she asked, did that mean that Wesleyan, Williams and Amherst colleges, referred to as the 'Little Ivies,' were cousins?")
- ^ The New York Times (1970): "Students decline Wesleyan offers," June 15, 1970, p. 28: "Amherst College, a member with Williams and Wesleyan in the Little Ivy League..."
- ^ Potts, David B. (1999) Wesleyan University, 1831-1910: Collegiate Enterprise in New England. Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 0-8195-6360-9. p. 183: "Wesleyan joined Amherst and Williams in early 1899 to form a new 'Triangular League.' Football, baseball and track competition in this league became something of a trial run for later contests in a wide range of sports under the rubric 'Little Three.'"
- ^ Watterson, John Sayle (2002): College Football. Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-7114-X. p. ix: "Wesleyan played big-time football in the 1880s and 1890s... but a hundred years later they played a small-college schedule and belong to the Little Three, which also included Amherst and Williams."
- ^ Kingston, Paul William and Lionel S. Lewis, "Introduction: Studying Elite Schools in America" (1990). In The High Status Track: Studies of Elite Schools and Stratification. SUNY Press, ISBN 0-7914-0010-7. p. xviii: "More widely recognized is the distinctive cachet of an Ivy League education—and possibly that at the 'Little Three' (Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams) and a small number of other private colleges and universities."
- ^ United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance (1951): Revenue Act of 1951. p. 1768. Material by Stuart Hedden, president of Wesleyan University Press, inserted into the record: "Popularly known, together with Williams and Amherst, as one of the Little Three colleges of New England, [Wesleyan] has for nearly a century and a quarter served the public welfare by maintaining with traditional integrity the highest academic standards." Published by the U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951.
- ^ Definition at MSN Encarta supports definition as the Little Three and calls Little Ivies schools "that have high academic standards and long traditions but are smaller than those in the Ivy League.". Archived 2009-11-01.
- ^ As of 2005[update], the NESCAC (website) includes: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams.
- ^ An explanation of "Little Ivy" at athletesadvisor.com
- ^ a b Greene, Howard and Matthew Greene (2000) Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-095362-4, excerpt at HarperCollins.com
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