<Dd> Note: Six of the eight Ivy League universities consider their founding dates to be simply the date that they received their charters and thus became legal corporations with the authority to grant academic degrees . Harvard University uses the date that the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally allocated funds for the creation of a college . Harvard was chartered in 1650, although classes had been conducted for approximately a decade by then . The University of Pennsylvania initially considered its founding date to be 1750; this is the year which appears on the first iteration of the university seal . Later in Penn's early history, the university changed its officially recognized founding date to 1749, which was used for all of the nineteenth century, including a centennial celebration in 1849 . In 1899, Penn's board of trustees formally adopted a third founding date of 1740, in response to a petition from Penn's General Alumni Society . Penn was chartered in 1755, the same year collegiate classes began . "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination . All of the schools in the Ivy League are private and not currently associated with any religion . </Dd> <P> Students have long revered the ivied walls of older colleges . "Planting the ivy" was a customary class day ceremony at many colleges in the 1800s . In 1893, an alumnus told The Harvard Crimson, "In 1850, class day was placed upon the University Calendar...the custom of planting the ivy, while the ivy oration was delivered, arose about this time ." At Penn, graduating seniors started the custom of planting ivy at a university building each spring in 1873 and that practice was formally designated as "Ivy Day" in 1874 . Ivy planting ceremonies are reported for Yale, Simmons, Bryn Mawr and many others . Princeton's "Ivy Club" was founded in 1879 . </P> <P> The first usage of Ivy in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895--1965). </P> <P> A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil . </P>

Why are all the ivy league schools in the northeast