Little Ivies

New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC)
Established	1971
Association	NCAA
Division	Division III
Members	11
Sports fielded	26 (men's: 13; women's: 13)
Region	New England
Headquarters	Hadley, Massachusetts
Commissioner	Andrea Savage (since 1999)
Website	nescac.com
Locations

Little Ivies (or singular: Little Ivy) is an unofficial term that has been used in the United States to compare small liberal arts colleges (LACs) to the universities of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality and social prestige. The term is most often associated with the member colleges of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), but may also be used to describe other colleges outside of NESCAC that are academically prominent and socially prestigious. The term is generally restricted to colleges located in the northeastern United States, more specifically New England.

Usage of the term

The most common schools included are:

• Members of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), founded in 1971. The founding NESCAC Colleges were: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Union, Wesleyan, and Williams. Union was a founding member of NESCAC, but left in 1977. Connecticut College joined in 1982.

• The so-called "Little Three": Amherst, Wesleyan, and Williams. This former athletic league was founded as the "Triangular League" in 1899. These colleges are selective liberal arts colleges located in New England.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} 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.^[11]
• The colleges of the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium (CBB), three academically selective colleges in Maine: Bates College, Bowdoin College, and Colby College.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17]} These schools are colloquially known as the "Maine Big Three", alluding to the Big Three of the Ivy League.

Associated colleges

Institution	Location	CBB (1965)	Little Three (1899)	NESCAC (1971)	Hidden Ivies (2009)	Acceptance Rate (2015)[18][19]	US News LAC Rank (2016)[20]	Forbes National Rank (2015)[21]	Washington Monthly LAC Rank (2015)[22]	Notes
Amherst College	Amherst, Massachusetts					13.7%	2nd	9th	18th	Founding league member (1955) that became NESCAC (1971).
Bates College	Lewiston, Maine					21.4%	25th	70th	8th	NESCAC Charter Member (1971).
Bowdoin College	Brunswick, Maine					14.9%	4th (tie)	21st	35th	Founding league member (1955) that became NESCAC (1971).
Bucknell University	Lewisburg, Pennsylvania					29.5%	32nd	43rd	101st	Competes athletically in the Patriot League.
Colby College	Waterville, Maine					22.5%	19th (tie)	44th	52nd	NESCAC Charter Member (1971).
Colgate University	Hamilton, New York					23.7%	19th (tie)	40th	48th	Competes athletically in the Patriot League.
Connecticut College	New London, Connecticut					36.2%	48th	92nd	100th	Joined NESCAC in 1982.
Hamilton College	Clinton, New York					23.9%	14th (tie)	51st	60th	Founding league member (1955) that became NESCAC (1971).
Haverford College	Haverford, Pennsylvania					23.3%	12th (tie)	19th	9th	Competes athletically in the Centennial Conference.[23][24][25][26][27]
Lafayette College	Easton, Pennsylvania					29.8%	37th	53rd	140th	Competes in the Patriot League.
Middlebury College	Middlebury, Vermont					17.0%	4th (tie)	34th	78th	NESCAC Charter Member (1971).
Swarthmore College	Swarthmore, Pennsylvania					14.1%	3rd	7th	4th	Competes athletically in the Centennial Conference.[24][25][27][28]
Trinity College	Hartford, Connecticut					31.1%	43rd	81st	183rd	NESCAC Charter Member (1971).
Tufts University	Medford, Massachusetts					15.8%	27th (national rank)	24th	39th (national rank)	Tufts is now a large research university with approximately 10,000 students and is no longer a small liberal arts college (LAC). The rankings here are for national universities. However, Tufts is a NESCAC Charter Member (1971) and current member.
Union College	Schenectady, New York					37%	38th	66th	149th	NESCAC Charter Member (1971), but left NESCAC in 1977. Currently competes in the Liberty League.
Vassar College	Poughkeepsie, New York					23.7%	12th (tie)	28th	28th	Although co-ed since 1969, it remains one of the Seven Sister Colleges. Competes athletically in the Liberty League.
Wesleyan University	Middletown, Connecticut					21.9%	14th (tie)	17th	14th	Founding league member (1955) that became NESCAC (1971).
Williams College	Williamstown, Massachusetts					16.8%	1st	2nd	13th	Founding league member (1955) that became NESCAC (1971).

History

Founding and endowment

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, except Lafayette which remains nominally Presbyterian.

Related institutions

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,^[29] and Greenes' Guides, illustrated in the chart above, ranks Vassar among the "little Ivies".

The Greenes' Guide, Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence (2000) mentioned Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, and Williams in their first assessment.^[30][31] The second edition (2009) included the notation of Bates College, Colby College, Haverford College, Tufts University, and Trinity College. This list excluded Connecticut College and Union College, which are included in Appendix II as "other colleges of excellence."^[32]

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
• Quaker Consortium
• Black Ivy League — informal list of colleges that attracted top African American students prior to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s
• Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence
• Jesuit Ivy — 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 (then, men-only) school.
• Southern Ivies — Use of "Ivy" to characterize excellent universities in the U. S. South

References

.