I bet you have heard about the “The Ivy League” before. Most Americans have too, but not everyone knows hat this term actually means and what it encompasses. “The Ivy League” is a phrase used to refer to some of America’s oldest and most prestigious national universities. It is a term with a lot of history behind and thus it is an important American cultural reference. The Ivy League is officially an athletic conference (or group) that is made up of eight private universities, but the term “The Ivy League” carries with it much more meaning than that. The universities that constitute the Ivy League include: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. I am sure you have heard of at least a few of these schools before, if not all of them. The names of these universities are associated with a high level of dignity and prestige terms of education. In general the term Ivy League brings up thoughts of excellence in education, exclusivity in admission, and elitism. may students try to get into these universities, and most who apply are not accepted. The acceptance rates of students who apply to these schools range from 6% (Harvard University) to 18% (Cornell University). As I am sure you can guess from these statistics, Ivy League schools are generally ranked among the best universities in the United States and often worldwide.
There is a great deal of history associated with these eight schools too, and aside from their academics excellence and sports league. They all also have very beautiful old campuses, with many old stone and brick buildings and beautiful quads*. In fact, seven of these eight universities were founded during the colonial period in the United States (the period of time when America was a colony of Britain, before independence). This, of course, makes these colleges some of the oldest educational institutions in America, which only adds to their prestige. Schools in the Ivy League are sometimes call “the Ivies” or the “Ancient Eight” and all of these school are located in the Northeast region of the United States, which makes sense since this is the area of the United States that was most densely populated during the colonial period. Although these universities existed individually for hundreds of years, they were first formed into a consortium in 1954 for reasons of athletic competition. It was at this time that National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in North America, created what is now called The Ivy League.
By the way, you don’t have to go to the Ivy League to learn English, Transparent Language has a lot of great ways to help!
* quad = a quadrangle that is an open green space on a college campus.
