Little Ivies is a colloquialism to refer to a group of small, selectiveThe Business Times of Singapore mentions Little Ivies as "elite liberal arts colleges" that are "small and selective." April 17, 2001. American colleges and universities; however, it does not denote any official organization. Institutions identified as Little Ivies are usually old, small, exclusive, and academically competitive liberal arts colleges located in the northeastern United States. The colloquialism is meant to imply that Little Ivies share similarities with the universities of the Ivy League.

• It is sometimes synonymous with the "Little Three," Amherst, Wesleyan, and Williams.

"prepchic">Tyre, Peg & William Lee Adams (2005), "Prep Chic," Newsweek, May 4, 2005 "23 percent of Taft graduates attended one of the Ivies or little Ivies (Wesleyan, Williams and Amherst)."Union-News (Springfield, MA), December 5, 1988, p. 13 (quotes a Bryn Mawr official: "If the Seven Sisters were now Siblings, she asked, did that mean that Wesleyan, Williams and Amherst colleges, referred to as the 'Little Ivies,' were cousins?")The New York Times (1970): "Students decline Wesleyan offers," June 15, 1970, p. 28: "Amherst College, a member with Williams and Wesleyan in the Little Ivy League..." (The term "Little Three" is well-defined as a former athletic leaguePotts, David B. (1999) Wesleyan University, 1831-1910: Collegiate Enterprise in New England. Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 0819563609. p. 183: "Wesleyan joined Amherst and Williams in early 1899 to form a new 'Triangular League.' Football, baseball and track competition in this league became something of a trial run for later contests in a wide range of sports under the rubric 'Little Three.'"Watterson, John Sayle (2002): College Football. Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 080187114X. p. ix: "Wesleyan played big-time football in the 1880s and 1890s... but a hundred years later they played a small-college schedule and belong to the Little Three, which also included Amherst and Williams.", and has often been used to identify these schools as a socially and academically elite trioKingston, Paul William and Lionel S. Lewis, "Introduction: Studying Elite Schools in America" (1990). In The High Status Track: Studies of Elite Schools and Stratification. SUNY Press, ISBN 0791400107. p. xviii: "More widely recognized is the distinctive cachet of an Ivy League education—and possibly that at the 'Little Three' (Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams) and a small number of other private colleges and universities."United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance (1951): Revenue Act of 1951. p. 1768. Material by Stuart Hedden, president of Wesleyan University Press, inserted into the record: "Popularly known, together with Williams and Amherst, as one of the Little Three colleges of New England, has for nearly a century and a quarter served the public welfare by maintaining with traditional integrity the highest academic standards." Published by the U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951.. Encarta defines "Little Ivies" to refer to these three schools, which it characterizes as "small" and "exclusive" and as having "high academic standards and long traditions."[http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_701707179/Little_Ivies.html Definition at MSN Encarta supports definition as the Little Three and calls Little Ivies schools "that have high academic standards and long traditions but are smaller than those in the Ivy League."

• It can refer to the schools of the modern-day New England Small College Athletic ConferenceAs of 2005, the NESCAC (website) includes: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams.An explanation of "Little Ivy" at athletesadvisor.com (NESCAC), which includes the "Little Three" together with Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut, Middlebury, Tufts, Hamilton, and Trinity.
• Greene and Greene's guide, The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence uses it to refer to "Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, and Williams," schools which it says have "scaled the heights of prestige and selectivity and also turn away thousands of our best and brightest young men and women."Greene, Howard and Mathew Greene (2000) Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence, HarperCollins, ISBN 0060953624, excerpt at HarperCollins.com

Some schools that are often called "Little Ivies" include:

Institution	Location	Little Three	Greene's Guides	NESCAC	Notes
Amherst College	Amherst, Massachusetts
Bates College	Lewiston, Maine
Bowdoin College	Brunswick, Maine
Colby College	Waterville, Maine
Hamilton College	Clinton, New York
Haverford College	Haverford, Pennsylvania				*" target="_blank" >*
Middlebury College	Middlebury, Vermont
Swarthmore College	Swarthmore, Pennsylvania			*" target="_blank" >[http://www.hclib.org/pub/search/fff/FullDisplay.cfm?ID=232&Term=universities
Trinity College	Hartford, Connecticut
Tufts University	Medford, Massachusetts			Not a small liberal arts college; a university with over 9,000 students.
Wesleyan University	Middletown, Connecticut
Williams College	Williamstown, Massachusetts

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, Wellesley and Swarthmore" as examples.

See also

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• Colby-Bates-Bowdoin
• Big Three
• Ivy League
• Jesuit Ivy
• Little Three
• NESCAC
• Public Ivies
• Seven Sisters
• Southern Ivies

Examples of use

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• 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: "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')".
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 'Little Ivies' big lure for black scholars, May 29, 2006: mentions Amherst, Middlebury, Holy Cross, Bowdoin, Hampshire as "colleges ^* are sometimes known as 'little Ivies,' because they have the image of exclusivity typical of Ivy League schools."

Notes

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