what are the 12 ivy league schools

There are only 8 official Ivy League schools , not 12.

Quick Scoop

The Ivy League is an athletic conference that became shorthand for a group of highly selective, historic universities in the northeastern United States. Many articles or forum posts that talk about “12 Ivy League schools” are really mixing in other elite universities (like MIT, Stanford, or Duke) that are prestigious but not in the Ivy League conference.

The 8 Ivy League schools

• Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut

• Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey

• Columbia University – New York City, New York

• Brown University – Providence, Rhode Island

• Dartmouth College – Hanover, New Hampshire

• University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Cornell University – Ithaca, New York

So where does “12 Ivy League schools” come from?

Some blogs and college sites use the phrase “12 Ivy League schools” as a catchy way to say “8 real Ivies plus a few other top-tier schools you should also watch.” These extra schools are sometimes called “Ivy Plus,” “Public Ivies,” or simply “top-ranked universities,” but they are not members of the Ivy League athletic conference.

Simple answer to your post title

If someone asks “what are the 12 Ivy League schools” , the accurate correction is:

There are only 8 official Ivy League schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell.

TL;DR: The phrase “12 Ivy League schools” is a misconception; the Ivy League has 8 member schools, all on the U.S. East Coast.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.