University Athletic Association


The University Athletic Association is an American athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. Member schools are highly selective universities located in Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York. The eight members are Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Emory University, New York University, The University of Chicago, University of Rochester, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Academics

All UAA member schools are private, and ranked in the top 40 of national research universities by U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges Rankings. Historically, the division was colloquially called the "egghead eight", or "nerdy nine" when Johns Hopkins was a member. This stems both from the academic strength of the member schools, and the fact that the conference prioritizes academic achievement over athletic prowess.
The UAA was the only NCAA conference to have all of its member institutions affiliated with the Association of American Universities, a collection of 65 Ph.D.-granting research institutions, with 63 in the United States and two in Canada, from 2011, when Nebraska joined the previously all-AAU Big Ten, until 2019 when Dartmouth became the last Ivy League institution to join the AAU.

Member schools

Current members

All of the universities listed above are founding members except Brandeis, which joined shortly before official competition began in October 1987. Johns Hopkins University was a founding member, but no longer participates in the UAA.

Former member

;Note
* - Johns Hopkins had dual athletic conference membership with the Centennial Conference from 1992-93 to 2000-01, then the Blue Jays left the UAA in order to fully align with the Centennial Conference.

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1986 till:2016
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<#
Colors =
id:barcolor value:rgb

id:line value:black

id:bg value:white
id:Full value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports
id:FullxF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football
id:AssocF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only
id:AssocOS value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all
id:OtherC1 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference
id:OtherC2 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Carnegie Mellon
bar:2 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Case Western Reserve
bar:3 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Chicago
bar:4 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Emory
bar:5 color:Full from:1986 till:2001 text:Johns Hopkins
bar:6 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:NYU
bar:7 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Rochester
bar:8 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:WashU
bar:9 color:Full from:1987 till:end text:Brandeis
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1986

Conference facilities

Sports

The UAA sanctions competition in the following sports:

Men

YearChampionConference
record
1988Case Western
Rochester		2–0
1989Rochester2–0
1990Carnegie Mellon4–0
1991Carnegie Mellon4–0
1992Rochester4–0
1993Carnegie Mellon4–0
1994Carnegie Mellon
WashU		3–1
1995Carnegie Mellon
WashU		3–1
1996Carnegie Mellon
Case Western
WashU		3–1
1997Carnegie Mellon4–0
1998Chicago4–0
1999WashU4–0
2000Chicago4–0
2001Washington University4–0
2002Washington University4–0
2003Washington University3–0
2004Washington University3–0
2005Chicago3–0
2006Carnegie Mellon3–0
2007Case Western Reserve3–0
2008Case Western Reserve3–0
2009Case Western Reserve3–0
2010Chicago3–0
2011Case Western Reserve3–0
2012Washington University3–0
2013Washington University3–0
2014Chicago3–0
2015Washington University
Carnegie Mellon		2–1
2016Carnegie Mellon
Case Western Reserve
Washington University		2–1
2017Case Western Reserve2–0