What is an Ivy League school? I know Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth etc… are, but what qualifies one as such? Is it an actual League or just a figure of speech?
It refers to a group of 8 private schools – once open only to men – including Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Yale, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell. The association actually began as a sports league but grew to refer to the colleges themselves.
Of Univeristies founded before the American revolution, only Rutgers and the College of William & Mary are not members.
7 women’s colleges – known as the Seven Sisters – partnered socially and at times educationally with the Ivy League. These were Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellsley.
However “Ivy” as a colloquial term has been associated with excellence, as in the term “Public Ivy” which includes such public universities as UC Berkeley and the University of Virginia. In this sense it just means “selective/difficult/prestigious” all qualities associated with the Ivy League.
The original use of the term was merely one made up by a sportswriter, as far as we’ve discovered.
Ummmm . . . Penn is a public school.
Perhaps you are thinking of Penn State? AFAIK Penn is a private institution.
Originally there were only four schools in the group--------and with the ,then, common usage of Roman numerals it became lnown as,guess what,The IV league.
Elemenary m’dear watson!
EZ
Incorrect, grasshopper.
You see anything here about in-state tuition?
Argh. My previous post referred to Saintcad’s post. And I previewed any everything.
Did you read **samclem’s ** link? There were originally 10 schools in the group.
All interesting info-
But where the hell does the “Ivy” part come from?
The “Ivy” part means that the schools are so old that ivy is growing on the walls. Just like Wrigley Field.
Because the buildings were covered with ivy – meant as an indication of their venerable status.
Cornell, my own Alma Mater, is in part a state school, however. The Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Architecture, Engineering, and Hotel Administration are private, while the Colleges of Agriculture, Human Ecology, and Industrial and Labor Relations are state schools. I was proud to be an Ivy-League Aggie! 
(At least we could look down on the benighted Hotelies.)
I could have sworn that Penn was public school, kind of like the reverse od Stanford (the one private school in the Pac-10).
The “Ivy League” is an athletic conference. So are the Big 10 and the Pac 10. The truth of the matter is that, while admission standards might be more restrictive, getting a degree from any of them is about on par. A “student” from a Big 10, a Pac 10, one of the “little Ivy’s” or a whole lot of other colleges, is probably far more qualified than a “legacy” from an Ivy League school. But hey, you have to maintain the myth.
And, of course, Cornell as a whole was New York’s land grant university.
Everybody needs someone they can look down on. 
In my case it’s those plow jockies from Iowa State.
Last I checked, USC claimed to be a private school, too.