1. Harvard University

3. Columbia University

New York City, New York, U.S.
As the fifth-oldest school in the United States and one of the colonial colleges, Columbia has a lot of history. That history has created an internationally recognized, elite university with a $10 billion endowment and a library with nearly 13 million volumes. This school, which once produced America’s first MD, now graduates nearly 1,400 doctors per year from one of the world’s most well-connected medical schools. Columbia is spread across five distinct campuses in the New York metropolitan area. As the leading school in New York City, its students have numerous unique opportunities that only proximity to Wall Street, Broadway, the United Nations, and other epicenters of business, culture, and politics can bring. Columbia’s ideal location simultaneously gives its students the chance to interact with various other respected institutions such as New York University. Ninety-six Columbians have won a Nobel Prize, making it third in the world in that coveted category (after Harvard and Cambridge University in the U.K.). It has also produced 29 heads of state, including three US Presidents. Columbia also administers the Pulitzer Prize.

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4. University of Oxford

Oxford, England, U.K.
Oxford University traces its origins back to the thirteenth century. Like the other great medieval universities, it was founded by Catholic clerics who espoused a philosophy that combined Christian teachings with the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient and medieval thinkers, which came to be known as the “philosophy of the Schools”, or “Scholasticism.” However, Oxford evolved with the times, surviving down through the centuries the manifold changes wrought by the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment, to grow into one of the contemporary world’s most impressive centers of learning. Today, just as 800 years ago, Oxford’s name is synonymous with knowledge and learning. Its high reputation is well earned, as is evidenced (among other things) by the fact that the school runs the world’s largest — and many would say, most prestigious — academic press, with offices in over 50 countries. One in five people who learn English worldwide do so with Oxford University Press materials. This international appeal explains why almost 40 percent of the student body comes from outside the U.K.. Over 17,200 people applied for 3,200 undergraduate places in 2014. But despite many hundreds of students willing to pay tuition, and centuries of accumulated assets, the school’s highest source of income continues to be research grants and contracts. Oxford’s academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100 Fellows of the British Academy.