How Did the Ivy League Get Its Name?

The term “Ivy League” originated from a combination of historical traditions and a sportswriter’s creative flair. The association with “ivy” likely comes from a 19th-century tradition known as “planting the ivy.” This ceremony involved students, usually graduating seniors, planting ivy—a symbol of enduring growth—on their campuses. The term “Ivy Day” was coined to describe this popular event, which was celebrated at many colleges and universities, not only at those that would eventually be a part of the so-called Ivy League.

The “league” part of the term was introduced by sportswriter Stanley Woodward in an October 16, 1933, piece in the New York Herald Tribune. Woodward used the phrase “ivy colleges” in describing the in-progress football season. He wrote:

It begins to be cruelly apparent that what you expect to happen in this topsy-turvy football season is not going to happen. The fates which govern play among the ivy colleges and the academic boiler-factories alike seem to be going around the circuit these bright autumn days cracking heads whenever they are raised above the crowd.

The idea of an athletic “league” for these “ivy colleges” quickly gained traction. In 1936 Princeton University’s Daily Princetonian reprinted a Cornell Sun editorial (presumably in support) in which the authors called for the creation of an “Ivy League” composed of the “Ivy” colleges (Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, and Harvard were noted in the editorial, Brown was omitted), which would go into effect for the 1936 football season. The league, the authors hoped, would rival the Midwest’s Big Ten Conference.

It was not until 1945, however, that eight universities—Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell—signed the Ivy Group Agreement, initially covering only their football programs. In signing, the group pledged to “maintain the value of the game while keeping it in fitting proportion to the main purposes of academic life.” In 1954 the agreement was extended to all intercollegiate sports, and the expanded league began its official competitions in the 1956–57 academic year.

Today, “Ivy Day,” which typically falls in late March or the first of April, is when Ivy League schools release their admission decisions.