CLOSER LOOK - IVY League

A group of universities in the northeastern United States make up the Ivy League. These institutions have long histories and a lot of academic prestige — nearly a third of all US presidents attended one of the eight Ivy League colleges: Harvard (founded in 1636), Yale (1701), Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton (1746), Columbia (1754), Brown (1764), Dartmouth (1769) and Cornell (1865).

Despite its strong association with academic excellence, the expression "Ivy League" has its origins in sport — particularly, the rivalry of these colleges in American football, which dates back to the 1870s.