So he turned down the Ivies and took an all-expenses scholarship at the University of Virginia.

FORBES: Paying for College: Merit Aid

Rather, the goal is gaining admission to a selective college, preferably one of the Ivies.

WSJ: Not for Dolts Anymore

For the Ivies to share certain kinds of financial-aid information, for example, would be unfair to all non-Ivies that are competing for the same students.

NEWYORKER: Money Pol

Cornell can lord its two hockey titles over Yale, in 1967 and 1970, and Harvard won the most recent hockey championship for the Ivies, in 1989.

WSJ: Yale Seeks to End Long Title Drought

Thiel thought about creating his own university, but he concluded that it would be too difficult to persuade parents to resist the prestige of the Ivies and Stanford.

NEWYORKER: No Death, No Taxes

To put things in perspective, the Ivies sport strong 10-year returns, despite their 2009 losses: Harvard and Yale, for instance, boast annualized returns of 8.9% and 11.8% over the decade through last June.

FORBES

Stunning, perhaps the most beautiful of all Ivies.

FORBES: When To Say No To Harvard

There are plenty of Ivies out there.

FORBES: Magazine Article

These percentages are some of the highest of all universities in the U.S. The other two Ivies: Princeton has an amazingly loyal 61% and Dartmouth, the smallest in size of all Ivies, 49%, the second highest of all Ivies.

FORBES: When To Say No To Harvard

Six of the eight Ivies do.

WSJ: Brown to Pay Providence $31.5 Million Instead of Taxes