In the United States, "Ivy Plus" is an informal term that refers to the Ivy League universities and a small group of non-Ivy private universities regarded as their peers in prestige and academic standing.

The Ivy League is a university athletic league comprising eight universities in the Northeastern United States that, according to U.S. News and World Report, "are considered the most sought-after institutions of higher learning in the country".^[1] Its members are: Brown University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.^[1]

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University,^[2][3]Duke University, The University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University are the most commonly cited Ivy Plus universities.^[4] Of them University of Chicago, MIT and Stanford are permanently included in the list of Ivy Plus schools since its inception.^[5][2][6] Other institutions such as Northwestern University,^[7][8][3] and Vanderbilt University,^[2] have occasionally also been identified as non-Ivy League highly acclaimed schools.

The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, an interlibrary loan service maintained by a consortium of university libraries, includes Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, MIT, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago among its non-Ivy League members.^[9]

The Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium, established in 2007 to "advance sustainability in higher education," includes the University of Chicago, Duke University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, MIT, and Stanford University alongside the eight Ivy League institutions.^[10][11]

The Ivy Plus Exchange Scholars Program, an institutionally-recognized graduate exchange program operated by a consortium of universities, includes the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, MIT, and Stanford University among its non-Ivy League members.^[12]

In 2017, following the United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the first Trump administration, the presidents of eight Ivy League universities, Duke, Johns Hopkins, UChicago and MIT, referring to themselves as the "Ivy Plus Group", co-signed a joint statement to affirm their commitment to tackling climate change.^[13][14][15]

A 2023 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, while "less than half of one percent of Americans attend Ivy-Plus colleges", they "account for more than 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, a quarter of U.S. senators, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half-century". The study defined "Ivy Plus" as the Ivy League institutions plus Chicago, Duke, MIT, and Stanford.^[16]

Since 2024, Forbes has published a list of non-Ivy League universities based on exclusivity and surveys of hiring managers.^[17][18][19] The momentary 2026 promising "New Ivies" list includes Carnegie Mellon University, Rice University,University of Notre Dame, and Vanderbilt University among others.

• Colonial colleges
• Public Ivies