1. Harvard University

Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. A faculty of about 2,300 professors serves about 6,650 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students.

Today, Harvard's undergraduate and graduate schools are among the most selective in the United States. Harvard's overall undergraduate acceptance rate for 2006 was 9.3%.
Harvard at a Glance

2. Stanford University

Located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University is recognized as one of the world's leading research and teaching institutions.

Stanford's current community of scholars includes 16 Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners and 24 MacArthur Fellows. Stanford is particularly noted for its openness to interdisciplinary research, not only within its schools and departments, but also in its laboratories, institutes and research centers.
Student Life at Stanford

3. Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and a member of the Ivy League.

Yale uses a residential college housing system modeled after those at Oxford and Cambridge. Each of 12 residential colleges houses a representative cross-section of the undergraduate student body, and features numerous facilities, seminars, resident faculty, and support personnel.
Employment Opportunities at Yale

4. California Institute of Technology

The mission of the California Institute of Technology is to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. We investigate the most challenging, fundamental problems in science and technology in a singularly collegial, interdisciplinary atmosphere, while educating outstanding students to become creative members of society.
Studying at Caltech

5. University of California at Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. Founded in 1868, the campus is located in Berkeley, California, occupying about 200 acres on a wooded slope, plus an additional 1000 acres (4 km²) of largely undeveloped land in the Oakland hills overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Berkeley has graduated more students who go on to earn doctorates than any other university in the United States, and its enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. Berkeley's acceptance rate to medical school of 63.4% is among highest of all public universities.
Teaching resources at Berkeley

6. University of Cambridge

Cambridge is best known for the University of Cambridge, which includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, King's College Chapel, and the Cambridge University Library. The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital in the far south of the city and St John's College Chapel tower in the north.
The University & its Departments at Cambridge

7. Massachusetts Institute Technology

The Institute admitted its first students in 1865, four years after the approval of its founding charter. The opening marked the culmination of an extended effort by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural scientist, to establish a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America.
Faculty and Staff at MIT

8. Oxford University

The thirty-nine Colleges, though independent and self-governing, form a core element of the University, to which they are related in a federal system, not unlike the United States. In time, each college is granted a charter approved by the Privy Council, under which it is governed by a Head of House and a Governing Body comprising of a number of Fellows, most of whom also hold University posts.
Oxford University Colleges and Halls

9. University of California at San Francisco

University of California, San Francisco is a leading university that consistently defines health care worldwide by conducting advanced biomedical research, educating graduate students in life sciences and providing complex patient care.

Researchers at UCSF developed gene-splicing techniques that have revolutionized biology, spawned the biotechnology industry and led to life-saving treatments.
UCSF Alumini

10. Columbia University

From a one-room classroom with one professor and eight students, Columbia University has grown to include more than 4,000 faculty members and 23,000 students. Over the years, 72 of Columbia's alumni and current or former faculty have received the Nobel Prize. Today Columbia is what President Lee Bollinger has called "the quintessential great urban university"—attracting students and faculty from 150 countries to engage with each other and with the cultural, scientific, and business enterprises that make New York City one of the most exciting cities in the world.

Acedemic year at Columbia University