When thinking about Ivy League schools, a few including Harvard, Princeton and Yale might come to mind. But a new report from Forbes highlights a new lineup of elite universities — and two are in Texas.

What You Need To Know

  • Forbes' list of "new Ivies" includes Rice, UT Austin
  • Forbes reports that complaints over admissions policies and top officials’ responses to campus protests of the war in Gaza have clouded the success of traditional Ivy League schools
  • Rice has long been considered an Ivy League school of the south. With an acceptance rate of only 8.7%, the private research university located in Houston is extremely selective
  • The University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest universities in the nation with an acceptance rate of 31% and average ACT score between 29 and 34

Rice and the University of Texas at Austin are considered some of the “new Ivies” on Forbes’ list of 20 due to their selectivity and prestige, among other factors.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Duke and the University of Chicago are all considered to be traditional Ivy League institutions, and have been the alma maters of past U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices and the nation’s richest Americans.

But complaints over admissions policies and top officials’ responses to campus protests of the war in Gaza have clouded the success of traditional Ivy League schools, according to Forbes.

Considering 2022 admissions data, SAT/ACT scores, school selectivity and hiring manager surveys, Forbes came up with a list of “new Ivies” that includes public and private institutions outside of the traditional Ivy League realm.

Rice has long been considered an Ivy League school of the south. With an acceptance rate of only 8.7%, the private research university located in Houston is extremely selective. According to U.S. News & World Report, half the applicants admitted to Rice who submitted test scores reported SAT scores between 1490 and 1570, or ACT scores between 34 and 36.

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest universities in the nation with an acceptance rate of 31% and average ACT score between 29 and 34. UT Austin is ranked #32 on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best National Universities.

UT Austin has been in the spotlight lately during on-campus protests that resulted in dozens of arrests over the war in Gaza as students ask the school to divest in companies that support Israel as well as a statewide ban on diversity, equity and inclusion resources that resulted in the school laying off about 50 employees and shutting down DEI offices.

Below is the full list of Forbes’ new Ivy League schools.

Public schools:

  • Binghamton University

  • Georgia Institute of Technology

  • University of Florida

  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  • University of Maryland-College Park

  • University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

  • University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

  • University of Texas-Austin

  • University of Virginia

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison

Private schools:

  • Boston College

  • Carnegie Mellon University

  • Emory University

  • Georgetown University

  • Johns Hopkins University

  • Northwestern University

  • Rice University

  • University of Notre Dame

  • University of Southern California

  • Vanderbilt University