8 Ivy League Hotels: Have an IVY League Experience Without the SAT Score

Brown University’s story began in 1764 when the school opened under the name “College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Brown was the first higher education institution in the country to accept students regardless of their religious affiliation.

In total, 54 members of Congress, eight Nobel prize winners, one supreme court justice, 55 Rhodes scholars, and 21 Pulitzer Prize winners have attended the Providence-based university. Other famous Brown alum include JFK Jr., Emma Watson, JD Rockefeller, and Janet Yellen.

A few notable names began at the esteemed school, but never finished, including Ted Turner (he was kicked out after his third year), John Heisman (attended Brown for two years before transferring to U. Penn.), and Sidney Frank (founder of Grey Goose and Jågermeister) who attended for one year, but was forced to leave as he couldn’t afford tuition beyond the first year. After securing his large fortune, Frank started scholarship funds at the university so future students would not be forced to leave the school under similar circumstances.

Classes at Columbia University began in the summer of 1754. During that period, the school was known as “King’s College.” That name, however, soon came under intense scrutiny thanks in part to a student who was in the class of 1777. That student was Alexander Hamilton.

In 1776, classes were suspended at the school as the British seized New York and occupied the campus. In 1783, the campus was reclaimed by American rebels and the British were forced off the campus. After the revolution, the loyalist name was changed to the more patriotic “Columbia College.”

Former Columbia students include several founding fathers (Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris), three U.S. Presidents (Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Barack Obama), 2 Supreme Court justices, Lou Gehrig, Georgia O’Keefe, Warren Buffett, and 39 Academy Award winners.

Nestled in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Cornell University’s landscape is one of the lushest of the Ivys. Nearby Cayuga Lake can be seen from parts of the campus, and two gorges are part of the central campus. Cornell owns a botanic garden that comprises nearly 3,000 acres situated next to the main campus.

Its alums include a whopping 58 Nobel laureates and 30 Rhodes scholars. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Christopher Reeve, Bill Nye, Pop Warner, E.B. White, Toni Morrison, Bill Maher, and Ann Coulter all hail from Cornell.

Perhaps the most rural of the Ivy League 8, Dartmouth tends to attract nature lovers and those who favor outdoor sports. In fact, the school has its own ski mountain with 30 trails located about 20 minutes from the school. On weekends while in season, there are hourly buses from campus to the slopes. Hiking (the Appalachian Trail runs right through the town of Hanover), and kayaking or canoeing on the Connecticut River are all popular activities for Dartmouth students.

Notable Dartmouth alumni include two Supreme Court justices, one U.S. Vice President (Mike Pence), 170 members of Congress, 24 governors, 79 Rhodes scholars, 13 Pulitzer Prize winners, and three Nobel laureates.

Follow the crew boats across the Charles River from Boston and you’ll arrive at the famed “Haa-vad Yaad” (Harvard Yard) in perhaps the most idyllic of college towns anywhere in the States. Cambridge is reminiscent of a city time forgot with its worn brick sidewalks, a newsstand just outside the T (subway) station where you can almost hear a 10-year, knicker-wearing newsboy hawking the daily paper, and late 19th, early 20th-century architecture. Then there’s the campus with its stately trees, many of which dwarf the red brick buildings they conceal.

To discuss the rich and famous that have walked the hallowed halls at the acclaimed university is to recite a virtual “who’s who” of the top dogs in every American industry and vocation. Harvard alum includes an astonishing 8 U.S. Presidents, 20 Supreme Court Justices, 158 Nobel laureates, 359 Rhodes Scholars, and 48 Pulitzer Prize winners. Not to mention the 10 Academy Awards and over 100 Olympic medals earned by its alumni. And who can forget the five Harvard roommates who founded Facebook, or a certain tech giant who attended the college for two years before leaving and starting Microsoft?

Founded by the visionary Ben Franklin, the University of Pennsylvania boasts the first school of medicine on the continent, and the first business school. Notable Penn students include two U.S. Presidents, Elon Musk, Steve Wynn, 30 Nobel laureates, three Supreme Court Justices, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, Tory Burch, John Legend, eight signers of the Declaration of Independence, and nine signers of the Constitution.

Founded as “The College of New Jersey,” the school has changed both its location and its name since its beginnings in 1746. Enjoy exploring Princeton’s quintessential Ivy campus, but don’t get caught exiting the grounds through the FitzRandolph gate near Nassau Hall. Legend is that students who pass through these gates before graduation will not finish their degree (sure, you’re not a student, but no need to anger the Ivy gods).

Princeton alumni include two U.S. Presidents, one infamous Vice President (Aaron Burr), one first lady (Michelle Obama), four Supreme Court Justices, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and actors Jimmy Stewart, David Duchovny, and model Brooke Shields. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was a student at Princeton but did not graduate. JFK also attended Princeton for two years before transferring and subsequently graduating from Harvard.

Beyond asserting bragging rights as the home to one of the nation’s most elite universities, New Haven also lays claim to several other national treasures to boot like the hamburger and erector set. And although it’s a hotly debated topic, Yale students purport to have invented the Frisbee by flinging “Frisbie’s Pie” tins to each other on the town green.

Five former presidents graduated from Yale (Both Bushes, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, and William Taft). The highly-acclaimed Yale School of Drama has produced dozens of recognizable Hollywood celebrities, including Sigourney Weaver, Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Oliver Stone
Robert Klein, Henry Winkler, and David Alan Grier. As if that’s not impressive enough, the Yale Law School has churned out 11 Supreme Court justices as well.