Ivy Day is an annual ceremony in which an ivy stone is placed on either a residential, academic or administrative building or ground to commemorate academic excellence. The ceremony is most known for being practiced among older

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

s in the Northeastern United States. It is most associated with the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

and a group of small liberal arts college known as the

Little Ivies The Little Ivies are an unofficial group of small, academically competitive private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. The term Little Ivy derives from these schools' small student bodies, standards of academic excellence, ...

. Some institutions announce members of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

and specialized honor designations for students. Some classes donate to the college, in the form of gates, facades, and door outlines, by inscribing or creating their own version of symbolic icons of the college's seal or other prominent insignia. The ivy stones are usually decorated with the graduation date and a symbol that represents the college as a whole or the class as a whole. The most common ivy stone is one-by-two feet and is usually made out of workable stone. On occasion students have featured prominent alumni on their class on ivy stones or have selected to feature an engraving of a member of their graduating class. Since 1873 at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and since 1879 at

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

, students have unveiled class ivy stones at the annual ivy day preceding commencement.Bates College website
(accessed February 27, 2009) Students may also have a selective procession prior to the official commencement walk to honor each stone being placed on the buildings. On some occasions students plant

ivy ''Hedera'', commonly called ivy (plural ivies), is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and ...

in front or on the side of their ivy stones.

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

also places class ivy stones on the walls of its buildings, a few days prior to their commencement. Students are known to give speeches at Ivy Day to commemorate their time and work at the college. Select medical schools also participate in Ivy Day prior to their White Coat Ceremony. As part of the modern college admissions process, the term "Ivy Day" also refers to the day in late March where the

universities release their admissions decisions.

References

External links

Image of University of Southern California students marching on Ivy Day, Los Angeles, 1926.

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library,

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

. Traditions Ceremonies in the United States Bates College {{Tradition-stub