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Princeton University is a vibrant community of scholarship and learning that stands in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations. Chartered in 1746, Princeton is the fourth-oldest college in the United States. Princeton is an independent, coeducational, nondenominational institution that provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering.

As a world-renowned research university, Princeton seeks to achieve the highest levels of distinction in the discovery and transmission of knowledge and understanding. At the same time, Princeton is distinctive among research universities in its commitment to undergraduate teaching.

Today, more than 1,100 faculty members instruct approximately 5,000 undergraduate students and 2,500 graduate students. The University’s generous financial aid program ensures that talented students from all economic backgrounds can afford a Princeton education.

Academics: Overview

Undergraduate students at Princeton benefit from the extraordinary resources of a world-class research institution dedicated to undergraduate teaching. Princeton faculty have an unparalleled reputation for balancing excellence in their fields with a dedication to their students, through both classroom instruction and independent study advising.

Undergraduates fulfill general education requirements, choose among a wide variety of elective courses, and pursue departmental concentrations and interdisciplinary certificate programs. Required independent work is a hallmark of undergraduate education at Princeton. Students graduate with either the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) or the Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.).

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History

The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. He had earlier established Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, principally for the education of Native Americans. In seeking to expand his school into a college, Wheelock relocated his educational enterprise to Hanover, in the Royal Province of New Hampshire. Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian and one of Wheelock’s first students, was instrumental in raising substantial funds for the College. The Royal Governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, provided the land upon which Dartmouth would be built and on December 13, 1769, conveyed the charter from King George III establishing the College. That chartercreated a college "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land … and also of English Youth and any others." Named for William Legge, the Second Earl of Dartmouth – an important supporter of Eleazar Wheelock’s efforts – Dartmouth is the nation’s ninth oldest college.

The Supreme Court decision in the famous "Dartmouth College Case" of 1819, argued by Daniel Webster (Class of 1801), is considered to be one of the most important and formative documents in United States constitutional history, strengthening the contract clause of the Constitution and thereby paving the way for all American private institutions to conduct their affairs in accordance with their charters and without interference from the state.

In over two centuries of evolution, Dartmouth has developed from its roots on the colonial frontier into a college that has a special character and a unique place in private higher education: a superb undergraduate residential college with the intellectual character of a university, featuring thriving research and first-rate graduate and professional programs. The quality of the undergraduate experience is enhanced by close student-faculty interaction, opportunities for independent research, a broad range of off-campus programs, and a diverse student body. Dartmouth was named by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton as one of the world’s "most enduring institutions" in 2004.

An Ivy League institution, Dartmouth College enrolls approximately 4,100 undergraduates in the liberal arts and 1,700 graduate students. In addition to 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences, it is home to the nation’s fourth oldest medical school: the Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1797; the nation’s first professional school of engineering: the Thayer School of Engineering, founded in 1867; and the first graduate school of management in the world: the Tuck School of Business, established in 1900.

Mission

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Once called "the first American university" by educational historian Frederick Rudolph, Cornell University represents a distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and democratic ideals. Adding practical subjects to the classics and admitting qualified students regardless of nationality, race, social circumstance, gender, or religion was quite a departure when Cornell was founded in 1865.

Today’s Cornell reflects this heritage of egalitarian excellence. It is home to the nation’s first colleges devoted to hotel administration, industrial and labor relations, and veterinary medicine. Both a private university and the land-grant institution of New York State, Cornell University is the most educationally diverse member of the Ivy League.

On the Ithaca campus alone nearly 20,000 students representing every state and 120 countries choose from among 4,000 courses in 11 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Many undergraduates participate in a wide range of interdisciplinary programs, play meaningful roles in original research, and study in Cornell programs in Washington, New York City, and the world over.

Marks of Distinction

• Forty Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Cornell as faculty members or students. The 2006–07 Cornell faculty included 3 Nobel laureates, a Crafoord Prize winner, 2 Turing Award winners, a Fields Medal winner, 2 Legion of Honor recipients, a World Food Prize winner, an Andrei Sakharov Prize winner, 3 National Medal of Science winners, 2 Wolf Prize winners, 5 MacArthur award winners, 4 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Eminent Ecologist Award recipients, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, a Presidential Early Career Award winner, 26 National Science Foundation CAREER grant holders, a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Literature, a recipient of the American Mathematical Society’s Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science, 2 Packard Foundation grant holders, a Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grant holder, and a NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research) early career award winner.
• Cornell awarded the nation’s first university degree in veterinary medicine and first doctorates in electrical engineering and industrial engineering. It awarded the world’s first degree in journalism (and taught the first university course in that subject), and established the first four-year schools of hotel administration and industrial and labor relations.

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From its beginnings in a schoolhouse in lower Manhattan, Columbia University has grown to encompass two principal campuses: the historic, neoclassical campus in the Morningside Heights neighborhood and the modern Medical Center further uptown, in Washington Heights. Today, Columbia is one of the top academic and research institutions in the world, conducting pathbreaking research in medicine, science, the arts, and the humanities. It includes three undergraduate schools, thirteen graduate and professional schools, and a school of continuing education.

MISSION STATEMENT

Columbia University is one of the world’s most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the university to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLUMBIA

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.
Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates of New York City met with success on the first point, while the Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing the policies of the College.

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Yale University comprises three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. In addition, Yale encompasses a wide array of centers and programs, libraries, museums, and administrative support offices. Approximately 11,250 students attend Yale.

Welcome to Yale – from President Richard C. Levin

We invite you to visit us at any time—in person or through this site—and explore the life of our campus.

Some people think of Yale primarily as an undergraduate school, Yale College. Yale is indeed well known for the strength of its college, where its 5,200 students learn to lead and serve not only through a strong academic curriculum but also by participation in a host of extracurricular activities, from athletics to community service. Yale students are famous for forming and shaping their own clubs and organizations. More than 240 student organizations now exist, some over a century old and others formed just this year.

Yale is also a major research university. Led by a distinguished faculty, it carries on its education and research on the graduate level in our graduate and professional schools: the graduate school of arts and sciences, divinity, engineering & applied science, forestry & environmental studies, law, management, medicine,nursing, public health, and four schools of the arts:architecture, art, drama, and music. The University is home to one of the world’s great libraries and three outstanding public museums and galleries—Peabody Museum of Natural History, the University Art Gallery, and the Center for British Art—that help to enrich the cultural climate of the university and city.

Founded in 1701, Yale is a university with honored traditions. In the diversity of its students, its global outlook, and its outstanding research, it is also a university of compelling change. We welcome your interest in the University and in our community. Please browse Yale’s Web pages for information on all aspects of the University and the activities of its students, faculty, and staff. If you are in the New Haven area, our Visitor Center offers daily tours of the campus and its architecture and facilities.

Richard C. Levin, President

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Three schools make up the University-College

Approximately 5,900 students are enrolled in the Undergraduate College, 1,500 in the Graduate School and 340 in the Medical School. These students represent all 50 states and many foreign countries. For 2010, more than 18,000 applicants applied for 1,450 places in the freshman class. All undergraduates were admitted under a need-blind admission policy.

Brown’s three schools offer nearly 100 programs of study. The University adheres to a collaborative university-college model in which faculty are as committed to teaching as they are to research, embracing a curriculum that requires students to be architects of their education.

With 628 faculty members, the largest number in Brown’s history, the current student to faculty ratio stands at 9 to 1. Through the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the University is in the process of hiring 100 new faculty members.

Students participate in more than 300 organizations at Brown. In addition, students have the opportunity to join one of Brown’s 37 varsity athletic teams or compete at the club and intramurallevels.

Brown’s campus is composed of 238 buildings and sits on 143 acres in Providence, the capital of Rhode Island. The University library system contains more than 6,000,000 items, including bound volumes, periodicals, maps, sheet music and manuscripts. Other facilities include several hundred personal workstations, computers and terminals located around campus

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For more than two centuries, the University of Pennsylvania has been committed to excellence in scholarship, research and service. From its highly regarded undergraduate, graduate and professional schools to its wide-ranging program of interdisciplinary research and scholarship, Penn takes pride in being a place where students and faculty can pursue knowledge without boundaries, a place where theory and practice combine to produce a better understanding of our world and ourselves.

Introduction to Penn

At the University of Pennsylvania, you’ll find a historic, Ivy League school with highly selective admissions and a history of innovation in interdisciplinary education and scholarship. You’ll also find a picturesque campus amidst a dynamic city and a world-class research institution.

Intellectual rigor and a practical outlook

Penn carries on the principles and spirit of its founder, Benjamin Franklin: entrepreneurship, innovation, invention, outreach, and a pragmatic love of knowledge. Franklin’s practical outlook has remained a driving force in the university’s development.

Top students

Today Penn is home to a diverse undergraduate student body of nearly 10,000, hailing from every state in the union and all around the globe. Admissions are among the most selective in the country and Penn consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Another 10,000 students are enrolled in Penn’s 12 graduate and professional schools, which are national leaders in their fields. The Wharton School is consistently one of the nation’s top three business schools. The School of Nursing is one of the two best in the U.S. The School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Education, Law School, School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Annenberg School for Communication all rank among the top 10 schools in their fields.

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