The Ivy League specifically are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The Ivy League is actually an athletic conference, but the term also refers to those schools as a group in general.

The Ivy League is an athletic conference. The members are historically prestigious universities on the east coast of the US.

MIT and a few others are frequently confused as being members because of proximity and their own prestigious histories.

They are very elite schools, but you know, they really aren't the typical elite schools for tech.

Not a huge fan of the US News rankings, but here is the list for top undergraduate engineering programs (at doctoral granting institutions)

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

There is only one ivy, Cornell, in the top 10 (though Princeton does clock in at 11). Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of these rakings, and using them to the digit (4th place vs 6th place) is genuinely absurd. But overall, you'll see here that large public research universities, none of which crack the top 20 for US News undergraduate college rankings, are much more prominent where it comes to engineering.

There are reasons in the methodology for this as well - I think that the algorithm used to create the general rankings isn't similar to this one, which (like the ranking for grad programs) is more academic and research focused (not considering average SAT, admission rates, funding, and so forth).

But overall, the Ivies actually aren't highly notable where it comes to computer science and engineering. Large public research universities, as well as elite non-ivy privates, tend to predominate here.

This does make a certain amount of sense. If a STEM major is an "equalizer", where smart people who went to less prestigious schools can compete on (more) equal footing, it would make sense that students at highly selective undergraduate programs might eschew engineering or CS in favor of fields where their undergrad school might provide a stronger differentiator. And, conversely, if a super smart undergrad at San Jose state will have trouble overcoming the pedigree disadvantage in international relations, but can get a more equal crack through engineering, it would make more sense to study STEM.

I'm definitely guilty of some "just-so" reasoning here, but it does fit.