Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 09:15     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:this list is weird and bizarrely east coast centric.

Pomona?

If you're adding places like Haverford and Hamilton, then add Grinnell, Carleton, Mac, and Davidson .. which are all in the same league if not a step higher.

It's WASP for a reason, still. With Bowdoin and Midd nipping at their heels based on QOL on campus and career outcomes. Then the rest of the cast of characters.

Midd? No way; it’s on decline. Carleton, Davidson, CMC, Harvey Mudd over Midd.
Midd = Haverford, Hamilton, Colby.
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 08:36     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:this list is weird and bizarrely east coast centric.

Pomona?

If you're adding places like Haverford and Hamilton, then add Grinnell, Carleton, Mac, and Davidson .. which are all in the same league if not a step higher.

It's WASP for a reason, still. With Bowdoin and Midd nipping at their heels based on QOL on campus and career outcomes. Then the rest of the cast of characters.

As is the Ivy League. People who understand the concept of Little Ivies have not been naming undergraduate-focused colleges simply for their academic excellence.
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 08:32     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:this list is weird and bizarrely east coast centric.

Pomona?

If you're adding places like Haverford and Hamilton, then add Grinnell, Carleton, Mac, and Davidson .. which are all in the same league if not a step higher.

It's WASP for a reason, still. With Bowdoin and Midd nipping at their heels based on QOL on campus and career outcomes. Then the rest of the cast of characters.

Little Ivy+
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 08:30     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is it the following? Am I missing any?

The "Little Three":
Amherst (Massachusetts)
Williams (Massachusetts)
Wesleyan (CT)

Others:
Bowdoin College (Maine)
Colby College (Maine)
Hamilton College (New York)
Haverford College (Pennsylvania)
Middlebury College (Vermont)
Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania)
Vassar (New York)
Wellesley (New York)


People associate Williams and Amherst with Wesleyan? Really? Wesleyan is several tiers lower and doesn’t really excel at…much.


Williams, Amherst, & Wesleyan were clumped together as the “Little 3” for decades.

That’s great and all, but Wesleyan is much worse my ranked and the outcomes don’t line up. It wouldn’t be compared to Williams and Amherst today- maybe for sports?

+1, Wesleyan is really not anyone’s preference these days other than students who can’t get into Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Wellesley.

Is Wellesley so highly regarded?


Yes
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 08:30     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Nice way to make yourself feel better when you don’t get into any Ivy..
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 08:28     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is it the following? Am I missing any?

The "Little Three":
Amherst (Massachusetts)
Williams (Massachusetts)
Wesleyan (CT)

Others:
Bowdoin College (Maine)
Colby College (Maine)
Hamilton College (New York)
Haverford College (Pennsylvania)
Middlebury College (Vermont)
Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania)
Vassar (New York)
Wellesley (New York)


People associate Williams and Amherst with Wesleyan? Really? Wesleyan is several tiers lower and doesn’t really excel at…much.


Williams, Amherst, & Wesleyan were clumped together as the “Little 3” for decades.

That’s great and all, but Wesleyan is much worse my ranked and the outcomes don’t line up. It wouldn’t be compared to Williams and Amherst today- maybe for sports?

+1, Wesleyan is really not anyone’s preference these days other than students who can’t get into Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Wellesley.

Is Wellesley so highly regarded?
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 07:31     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
this list is weird and bizarrely east coast centric.

Pomona?

If you're adding places like Haverford and Hamilton, then add Grinnell, Carleton, Mac, and Davidson .. which are all in the same league if not a step higher.

It's WASP for a reason, still. With Bowdoin and Midd nipping at their heels based on QOL on campus and career outcomes. Then the rest of the cast of characters.
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 01:07     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is it the following? Am I missing any?

The "Little Three":
Amherst (Massachusetts)
Williams (Massachusetts)
Wesleyan (CT)

Others:
Bowdoin College (Maine)
Colby College (Maine)
Hamilton College (New York)
Haverford College (Pennsylvania)
Middlebury College (Vermont)
Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania)
Vassar (New York)
Wellesley (New York)


People associate Williams and Amherst with Wesleyan? Really? Wesleyan is several tiers lower and doesn’t really excel at…much.


Williams, Amherst, & Wesleyan were clumped together as the “Little 3” for decades.

That’s great and all, but Wesleyan is much worse my ranked and the outcomes don’t line up. It wouldn’t be compared to Williams and Amherst today- maybe for sports?

+1, Wesleyan is really not anyone’s preference these days other than students who can’t get into Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Wellesley.
Anonymous
Post 09/22/2025 00:31     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
There is no such thing. There are Ivies and then the rest. These are all great schools but you're just trying to hard calling them Ivies.


It was originally coined in the fifties. It is very real and refers to the undergraduate only analogs to the Ivy League. 5 minutes of reasearch and you wouldn’t all be proving yourselves to be dim fools.

Agree or not littles ivies is long established.


+1
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 23:56     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
There is no such thing. There are Ivies and then the rest. These are all great schools but you're just trying to hard calling them Ivies.


It was originally coined in the fifties. It is very real and refers to the undergraduate only analogs to the Ivy League. 5 minutes of reasearch and you wouldn’t all be proving yourselves to be dim fools.

Agree or not littles ivies is long established.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 23:52     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is it the following? Am I missing any?

The "Little Three":
Amherst (Massachusetts)
Williams (Massachusetts)
Wesleyan (CT)

Others:
Bowdoin College (Maine)
Colby College (Maine)
Hamilton College (New York)
Haverford College (Pennsylvania)
Middlebury College (Vermont)
Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania)
Vassar (New York)
Wellesley (New York)



There is no such thing. Parents need to stop making up excuses about their kid not being able to get into an Ivy by creating ridiculous stupid meaningless names like New ivies….or little ivies….or state ivies….or blablabla ivies…. PLEASE


You do realize that the term little ivies has been around for over 80 years. Long before the rankings nonsense that you so adore. What is ridiculous is your fascination with an athletic conference. If that conference didn’t exist these are the schools which the ivies with the exception of Cornell would be compared with. Cornell would be compared to Syracuse, Rochester, and Lehigh as it was Before the Ivy League.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 23:35     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:

People associate Williams and Amherst with Wesleyan? Really? Wesleyan is several tiers lower and doesn’t really excel at…much.


That's not true. Wesleyan excels in physics, for example. If you had researched the school you would know this. Why are you dissing a school you know nothing about?

No more than any other top liberal arts college- Wesleyan is ranked 24th for Physics PhD admissions (https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs#physics), hasn’t had a student receive an Apker award since 2010, has pretty few faculty in physics for a program with a BA, MA, PHD (https://www.wesleyan.edu/physics/people/index.html), and generally doesn’t seem at the level of Harvey Mudd, Carleton, Haverford, Swarthmore, or Williams for Physics.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 23:15     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:The only one in that entire list is Swarthmore. The others are not. They are fine, but not ivy.


Sure Karen
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 20:23     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
The Little Ivies are an unofficial group of small, academically competitive private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. The term Little Ivy derives from these schools' small student bodies, standards of academic excellence, associated historic social prestige, and highly selective admissions comparable to the Ivy League. According to Bloomberg, the Little Ivies are also known for their large financial endowments, both absolutely and relative to their size.

List of Little Ivies
A 2016 article by Bloomberg Businessweek lists the members of the Little Ivies as:[9]

Amherst College
Bates College
Bowdoin College
Bucknell University
Colby College
Colgate University
Connecticut College
Hamilton College
Haverford College
Lafayette College
Middlebury College
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
Tufts University
Union College
Vassar College
Wesleyan University
Williams College

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies

Anonymous
Post 09/21/2025 20:11     Subject: Which colleges are considered the "Little Ivies"?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to an Ivy Minus


I think you mean Ivy Lite.


Nah, i wanted something to counter the ridiculous Ivy Plus label. Like schools that are clearly not in the Ivy discussion but still want to have an Ivy tag.