<p>It’s the name of a sports league that includes eight colleges and universities in the Northeastern United States. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>Some of the schools in this league have much in common with one another. Others defy the stereotype. </p>
<p>As a Cornell alumna and Cornell parent, I find it irritating when I see posts on this board that say things like, “Cornell doesn’t belong in the Ivy League. How can you have an Ivy League school where you can major in agriculture or hotel administration?”</p>
<p>The way you can have an Ivy League school that offers those majors is simply because that university belongs to the same sports league as the others. The fact that Cornell was founded much later than the other colleges in the Ivy League and with a different educational philosophy is irrelevant. </p>
<p>Ivy League is not a synonym for “most selective colleges in the country.” There are colleges that are more difficult to get into than some of the Ivy League schools. MIT and Stanford are the obvious examples. Nor is it a synonym for “best colleges in the country.” I don’t think anyone would claim that all of best colleges in the country are in the Northeast, and I would not argue that even within the Northeast, all of the best colleges are in the Ivy League (it would be hard to create a “best colleges in the Northeast” list that did not include MIT, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams).</p>
<p>The Ivy League is simply a sports league. That’s all.</p>