New England Small College Athletic Conference

New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC)
Established	1971
Association	NCAA
Division	Division III
Members	11
Sports fielded	26 (men's: 13; women's: 13)
Region	New England (except New Hampshire and Rhode Island) and New York State
Headquarters	Hadley, Massachusetts
Commissioner	Andrea Savage (since 1999)
Website	nescac.com
Locations

The New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) is a collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eleven private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States, often associated with the Little Ivies. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eleven schools as a group. The eleven institutions are Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Williams College.

Many of the schools draw parallels to the academic caliber of schools in the Ivy League. The term NESCAC has connotations of academic excellence and selectivity in admissions. All eleven colleges place in the top 15% of the 2016 U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes university rankings.

The conference originated with an agreement among Amherst, Bowdoin, Wesleyan and Williams in 1955. In 1971, Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, and Union College joined on and the NESCAC was officially formed. Union withdrew in 1977 and was replaced by Connecticut College in 1982. The members are grouped within the NCAA Division III athletic conference. Members of the conference have some of the largest financial endowment of any liberal arts colleges in the world, with Williams College's the highest at $2.3 billion. Undergraduate enrollment at the schools ranges from about 1,792 (Bates) to 5,200 (Tufts).

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