The Ivy League — All Eight Schools, Ranked by Selectivity
The eight members of the Ivy League athletic conference — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale — ranked by admission rate. Membership is fixed by the conference, not editorial.
Fixed conference membership · ranked by admission rate · All 8 · Compiled 2026-09-01
Chase these schools
Top schools on this list that also show up elsewhere — hop lists without leaving the trail.
#1
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
#2
Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY
#3
Yale University
New Haven, CT
- 1Harvard UniversityCambridge, MA · Private3.5%Compare nearby
Also on 14 other lists
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#2
- Most Selective Colleges in America#2
- the Highest ACT Scores#3
- Psychology#3
- the Highest SAT Averages#3
- Biological Sciences#4
- Computer Science#4
- Mathematics & Statistics#6
- English Language & Literature#8
- History#8
- Best Early-Career Earnings, 6 Years After Enrolling#10
- Are Least Likely to Leave#18
- Social Sciences#21
- Best Earnings-to-Debt Ratio#24
- 2Columbia University in the City of New YorkNew York, NY · Private4.2%Compare nearby
Also on 15 other lists
- Most Expensive Colleges by Sticker Price#3
- the Highest ACT Scores#4
- Most Selective Colleges in America#4
- Foreign Languages#5
- the Highest SAT Averages#8
- Philosophy & Religious Studies#9
- History#16
- Mathematics & Statistics#16
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#18
- Area & Ethnic Studies#19
- Best Early-Career Earnings, 6 Years After Enrolling#21
- Graduates Earn the Most 10 Years Out#25
- Computer Science#25
- Social Sciences#25
- Best Student-to-Faculty Ratios#25
- 3Yale UniversityNew Haven, CT · Private4.5%Compare nearby
Also on 14 other lists
- History#1
- English Language & Literature#5
- Most Selective Colleges in America#5
- Most Expensive Colleges by Sticker Price#7
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#7
- Computer Science#9
- Social Sciences#9
- Multidisciplinary Studies#10
- the Highest ACT Scores#11
- Are Least Likely to Leave#15
- the Highest SAT Averages#15
- Best Student-to-Faculty Ratios#16
- Best Earnings-to-Debt Ratio#17
- Psychology#24
- 4Princeton UniversityPrinceton, NJ · Private4.5%Compare nearby
Also on 12 other lists
- Engineering#1
- English Language & Literature#1
- Best Earnings-to-Debt Ratio#3
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#3
- Most Selective Colleges in America#6
- Public Administration#10
- Best Student-to-Faculty Ratios#11
- Graduates Earn the Most 10 Years Out#14
- the Highest SAT Averages#14
- Psychology#15
- the Highest ACT Scores#20
- Best Early-Career Earnings, 6 Years After Enrolling#24
- 5Brown UniversityProvidence, RI · Private5.2%Compare nearby
- 6University of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, PA · Private5.9%Compare nearby
Also on 16 other lists
- Philosophy & Religious Studies#2
- Most Expensive Colleges by Sticker Price#4
- Communications#4
- Mathematics & Statistics#4
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#5
- Multidisciplinary Studies#5
- Business#9
- History#10
- the Highest SAT Averages#11
- Most Selective Colleges in America#11
- Graduates Earn the Most 10 Years Out#12
- Engineering#12
- Best Early-Career Earnings, 6 Years After Enrolling#17
- Computer Science#18
- Are Least Likely to Leave#20
- Social Sciences#22
- 7Dartmouth CollegeHanover, NH · Private6.2%Compare nearby
Also on 12 other lists
- Philosophy & Religious Studies#1
- Physical Sciences#1
- Mathematics & Statistics#3
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#9
- History#11
- Most Selective Colleges in America#12
- Computer Science#14
- English Language & Literature#14
- the Highest SAT Averages#16
- Most Expensive Colleges by Sticker Price#17
- the Highest ACT Scores#19
- Are Least Likely to Leave#25
- 8Cornell UniversityIthaca, NY · Private8.2%Compare nearby
Also on 16 other lists
- Public Administration#1
- Mathematics & Statistics#11
- Psychology#11
- Communications#13
- Highest Four-Year Graduation Rates#17
- Graduates Earn the Most 10 Years Out#19
- Philosophy & Religious Studies#19
- Computer Science#20
- the Highest ACT Scores#21
- Architecture#21
- Best Earnings-to-Debt Ratio#22
- Best Early-Career Earnings, 6 Years After Enrolling#23
- Are Least Likely to Leave#23
- the Highest SAT Averages#23
- Most Selective Colleges in America#23
- Area & Ethnic Studies#25
How this list was built
- Measure
- Fixed conference roster; within that set, ranked by admission rate (lowest to highest).
- Source variable
ADM_RATE- Dataset
- Membership is set by the conference. Displayed figures come from U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, Most-Recent-Cohorts-Institution (05-19-2025 release).
- Four-year, main-campus institutions awarding bachelor's degrees or higher (2,406 schools).
- Membership is the eight-school Ivy League athletic conference, founded in 1954. Unlike the other curated shortlists on this site, the roster is not an editorial judgment — it is the conference's actual membership and has not changed since.
- Within that set, schools are ranked by College Scorecard admission rate (lowest = most selective). Rank order will change when Scorecard updates admit rates.
- Selectivity is not a quality ranking, and the Ivy League is a sports conference rather than an academic tier. Several non-Ivy universities admit a smaller share of applicants than most of these eight.
A conference roster is a narrow way to sample prestige signaling — not a quality verdict. Read this alongside other Scorecard rankings, and see the methodology.
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Twenty undergraduate-focused liberal arts colleges with Ivy-like selectivity and prestige signal — Amherst-to-Swarthmore shelf, Claremont included — without research-university scale. Membership is editorial; rank is by admission rate.
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