Motto: May I grow in the esteem of future generations
(Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
The University of Melbourne has been an international leader in research, teaching and learning for more than 150 years. Students from over 150 countries choose to study at the University of Melbourne, because of the quality of teaching, learning and research. The University offers flexible and innovative programs across more than 300 undergraduate and graduate study areas.
Founded in 1853, University of Melbourne is the oldest university in Victoria and the second-oldest in Australia. Times Higher Education ranks Melbourne the 34th-best university in the world, while QS World University Rankings specifically recognizes the university’s schools of Education (2nd in the world), Accounting & Finance (8th), Psychology (10th), Medicine (12th), and Computer Science (15th). With such an impressive reputation, it’s no wonder Melbourne is a magnet for large donations. One of the university’s most notable schools, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, was founded with funds from the couple’s estate, while just last year, Allan and Maria Myers generously donated $10 million to launch a new philanthropic campaign. University of Melbourne currently has an endowment of $1.37 billion.
Endowment: $1.37 billion
Average Cost per Student: $19,003 per year
Average Salary of Full-Time Faculty: $74,000
Annual Research Budget: Unknown
The University of Melbourne is both the oldest and the leading university in Australia. The school sits next to Melbourne’s center of commerce, and consequently benefits from all the culture and opportunity that a city which has been called “the fourth best city for college students” affords.
The University offers over 340 graduate tracks. One can study everything from professional degrees in law and medicine, to research programs in various sciences.
This is why every year 52,000 students—12,000 of whom are foreigners representing 129 different countries—come to Melbourne. This healthy research environment is one reason why Melbourne gave the world its first bionic ear and is currently developing the first bionic eye.
The school belongs to several prestigious university groups, such as the Asia-Pacific Rim and the Group of Eight. The university has refocused its research directives towards discerning three broad issues: our place/purpose, promoting well-being, and supporting sustainability.
Melbourne actively seeks to engage public discourse through its biennial Festival of Ideas and public lecture program.
Motto: Let there be light
Berkeley is unique among the elite universities of the world. Most of the schools it competes with are privately owned, but Berkeley is a state school—albeit one with the elite status of a private school.
Widely known as "Cal," the campus is renowned for the size and quality of its libraries and laboratories, the scope of its research and publications, and the distinction of its faculty and students. National rankings consistently place Berkeley?s undergraduate and graduate programs among the very best in a variety of disciplines. Our high-acclaimed faculty currently includes: 7 Nobel Laureates, 225 members of the Academy of Arts & Sciences, 131 members of the National Academy of Science, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, a Poet
The university is nestled in a pleasant city by the same name, within easy commuting distance of San Francisco. With over 36,000 students, Berkeley is also one of the larger elite universities.
An impressive selection of talented students feeds its over 350 degree programs, producing more Ph.D.’s annually than any other U.S. institution. Student research is encouraged as each year 52 percent of seniors assist their professors in their research.
Berkeley draws students from over 100 nations. During the previous decade the National Science Foundation granted its students more graduate research fellowships than any other school.
The faculty has produced 39 members of the American Philosophical Society, 77 Fulbright Scholars, 32 MacArthur Fellows, and 22 Nobel Laureates (eight of whom are current faculty members).
Academic Life:
The student-faculty ratio at University of California--Berkeley is 17:1, and the school has 59 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at University of California--Berkeley include: Social Sciences; Biological and Biomedical Sciences; Engineering; English Language and Literature/Letters; and Natural Resources and Conservation. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 96.8 percent.
Student Life:
University of California--Berkeley has a total undergraduate enrollment of 27,126, with a gender distribution of 47.9 percent male students and 52.1 percent female students. At this school, 26 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 74 percent of students live off campus. University of California--Berkeley is part of the NCAA I athletic conference.
Motto: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge
As one of the oldest universities in the world (founded in 1209), Cambridge is an ancient school steeped in tradition.
It is small exaggeration to say the history of western science is built on a cornerstone called Cambridge. The roster of great scientists and mathematicians associated with the university includes Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, Augustus De Morgan, Ernest Rutherford, G.H. Hardy, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, James Watson, Roger Penrose, and Stephen Hawking. Whether speaking of the unifying ideas in physics, the foundations of computer science, or the codifying of biology, Cambridge has been at the forefront of humanity’s quest for truth longer than most nations have existed.
Of course, great achievements are not restricted to the sciences. Such luminaries in the humanities as Desiderius Erasmus, John Milton, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, and C.S. Lewis, among dozens of other great names, taught and studied here.
But despite the many memories conjured by its imposing Gothic architecture, Cambridge does not live in the past. The university remains one of the world’s elite research institutions, with only Oxford to rival it in the U.K. and only a handful of American schools able to do so from overseas.
Its over 18,000 students represent more than 135 countries and its faculty have earned over 80 Nobel laureates.
Though Cambridge’s $8.1 billion endowment puts it squarely behind a number of other universities in terms of wealth, it is easily the richest university in Europe. In fact, if Cambridge were a country, its per capita GDP would eclipse that of Monaco, the richest country in the world. Such wealth is mostly attributed to the building and land assets the university has accumulated over its 800-year history (legend has it one can walk from Cambridge to Oxford on land owned by Cambridge’s Trinity College), though it has also produced a large number of high-achieving alumni, many of whom have left generous donations. Recently, Bill Gates gifted the university with $210 million to establish Gates Scholarships for international postgraduates.
Endowment: $8.1 billion
Average Cost per Student: $25,745 per year
Average Salary of Full-Time Faculty: $78,642
Annual Research Budget: Unknown
Entry Standards
Most conditional offers made by the Cambridge Colleges require A*A*A at A Level (or equivalent) for undergraduate science courses (excluding Psychological and Behavioural Sciences), and A*AA for arts courses and Psychological and Behavioural Sciences.
Colleges have the discretion to make non-standard offers where appropriate as part of their holistic assessment of candidates.
Undergraduate applicants may be asked to submit written work or sit a test (eg BMAT, TSA or a College-based test).
The University interviews the majority of its undergraduate applicants (approximately 80 per cent).
For more information visit www.cam.ac.uk/whycambridge
Motto: Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched
Summary:
The University of Chicago was only founded in 1890, making it one of the youngest elite universities in the world. But despite its youth, the school has spearheaded many of the world’s most important scientific achievements.
It was here that Italian physicist Enrico Fermi created the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942. It was likewise at Chicago that Stanley Miller and Harold Urey demonstrated in 1952 that amino acids essential to life could be produced starting from simple molecules such as methane and ammonia, thus founding the entire field of what has come to be known as “origin of life” research. Today, the university is one of the leading universities building on the work of its famous alum, James Watson, in the exploration of the human genome.
But Chicago is not just a science school. It also possesses great depth, with elite programs in the humanities and the social sciences, including its world-renowned Economics Department and its interdisciplinary gathering of highly distinguished thinkers known as the Committee on Social Thought.
Of Chicago’s 89 Nobel Prize winners, 22 have been in economics, which is remarkable given that the economics prize was only first awarded in 1969 (45 years ago at the time of this writing). Perhaps this is one reason why the university weathered the 2008 financial crisis relatively well!
In any case, the school’s approximately $7 billion endowment is now rapidly growing once more, assuring the continuation of the ample research opportunities it provides its faculty and students well into the future.
in 1890 with a $600,000 donation from oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, University of Chicago is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the fourth-best university in the United States. It’s especially known for strong graduate programs in law, business, and medicine. In fact, the school of business was renamed in 2008 after a $300 million donation by businessman and alumnus David G. Booth. Other sizable contributions have resulted in an expanded school of medicine, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, and a new center for the arts. Currently, the university’s endowment is just over $7.5 billion.
Endowment: $7.55 billion
Average Cost per Student: $31,917 per year
Average Salary of Full-Time Faculty: $112,717
Annual Research Budget: $314 million
Academic Life
The student-faculty ratio at University of Chicago is 6:1, and the school has 77.1 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at University of Chicago include: Economics; Biological and Biomedical Sciences; Mathematics and Statistics; Political Science and Government; and English Language and Literature/Letters. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 99 percent.
Student Life
University of Chicago has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,681, with a gender distribution of 52.7 percent male students and 47.3 percent female students. At this school, 54 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 46 percent of students live off campus. University of Chicago is part of the NCAA III athletic conference.
Motto: As a tree through the ages
University of Toronto is the leading Canadian research university. Even by the standards of large state schools, this institution is utterly massive, with over 80,000 students, 20,000 faculty and staff, and 530,000 alumni around the world.
Students can choose from 215 different graduate, 60 professional, and more than 700 undergraduate degrees spread over three different campuses. The student body represent over 150 nations.
Toronto has 44 libraries with holdings of over 21 million in all. The school has an operating budget of C$1.9 billion and contributes C$15.7 billion to the Canadian economy every year.
Toronto has produced no fewer than 10 Nobel Prize winners, including the first two from Canada. Given its immense size and resources, coupled with the world-class intellects it attracts, it should come as no surprise that Toronto ranks second among North American universities for faculty publications and third for citations.
The university’s ample research leads to dozens of new patents every year and many new technological spin-offs.
The University of Toronto has assembled one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in breadth and depth on any other Canadian campus. U of T faculty co-author more research articles than their colleagues at any university in the US or Canada other than Harvard. As a measure of impact, U of T consistently ranks alongside the top five U.S. universities whose discoveries are most often cited by other researchers around the world. The U of T faculty are also widely recognized for their teaching strengths and commitment to graduate supervision.
Motto: Knowledge is the adornment and protection of the Empire.
History
Imperial College London was established in 1907.
In 2007 the College celebrated its 100th year of academic excellence and became independent from the University of London.
Breakthroughs associated with the College include the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics.
Today Imperial researchers are working to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy technology and address security challenges.
Teaching Standards
Acknowledged worldwide as a centre of excellence for teaching.
In the 2014 National Student Survey the College’s overall Teaching Satisfaction score was 88%, and Overall Satisfaction increased to 87% (+1% from 2013).
Research Standards
Consistently recognised as one of the top UK university institutions for research quality.
Research income is one of the largest in the UK – £449 million for 2013–14.
In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, 91% of Imperial's research activity was judged as world-leading or internationally excellent, the highest proportion of any major UK university.
Academic Strengths
Amongst the top tier of scientific, engineering and medical research and teaching institutions in the world.
Pays particular regard to the practical application of science, engineering and medicine in industry, commerce and healthcare.
Fosters interdisciplinary working internally and collaborates widely externally
This university—whose full, official name is “Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine”—focuses on the empirical disciplines. It ascended to prominence by absorbing several smaller institutions, including the Royal College of Chemistry, the Royal School of Mines, the Royal College of Science, and the City and Guilds College.
Along the way, multiple medical facilities also joined with Imperial College, until now the university represents a conglomeration of research centers spread out across several campuses. Today, Imperial College is divided into three main schools: Engineering; Natural Science and Medicine; and Business.
Imperial College’s faculty has laid claim to 14 Nobel Prizes, and the Queen and the Prime Minister share the same physician who teaches there.
Imperial College is also ideally situated to work alongside of University College London, and to tap into the massive political and economic power associated with the U.K.’s capital city.
Summary:
University of Tokyo is not only the leading school in Japan, but also the leading school in all of Asia.
University of Tokyo has made many strides in an effort to become an internationally renowned research center. In 2012, the school developed PEAK, or “Programs in English at Komaba,” and now attracts students from over 100 nations.
University of Tokyo runs numerous research institutes studying multiple fields, including medical science, earthquakes, Asian culture, molecular bioscience, cosmic ray research, solid state physics, and environmental science. The school has produced seven Nobel Prize winners and one Field’s Medalist.
The university has also fully utilized its strategic location in the world’s largest city, and has had a major impact on the domestic front. Fifteen Japanese Prime Ministers have come from University of Tokyo.
The school’s influence on the Japanese government has been so extensive that former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa felt the need to order government agencies to reduce their percentages of University of Tokyo alumni to under 50 percent in order to promote diversity!
Tokyo offers courses in essentially all academic disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels and conducts research across the full spectrum of academic activity. The university aims to provide its students with a rich and varied academic environment that ensures opportunities for both intellectual development and the acquisition of professional knowledge and skills. The University of Tokyo has a faculty of over 4,500 and a total enrollment of about 29,000, evenly divided between undergraduate.
UTokyo has long been known as Japan’s premier institution of higher education and for our low student-to-faculty ratio. Our unique liberal arts education provides a sound base in the first half of our four-year undergraduate program, after which our students choose a two-year specialisation in line with their interests. We encourage interdisciplinary approaches throughout.
Our graduate schools provide an excellent environment for first-rate intensive research with the world’s leading researchers, and each graduate student can learn at the cutting edge of their field. In recent years UTokyo has established undergraduate and graduate English-language degree programs, such as our undergraduate PEAK program, further promoting campus diversity.
UTokyo is networked with top universities and research institutions from all parts of the world and the flow of students, research and researchers creates a truly global campus. UTokyo also goes abroad to bring our university to the world, through events such as the UTokyo Forum, held in close partnership with globally renowned academic institutions around the world since 2000.
UTokyo researchers and alumni have expanded the frontiers of human knowledge and their achievements have been recognized in multiple Nobel and other prizes. Yoichiro Nambu and Masatoshi Koshiba have transformed physics, while Kenzaburo Oe and Yasunari Kawabata have enriched global culture through their literary works, to mention just a few. Our website UTokyo Research offers a glimpse into the world of our cutting-edge research.
Motto: "Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward"
Summary:
UCL is a world-class university; with academic strength in breadth and depth. UCL offers an enormous range of taught programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, alongside exceptional postgraduate research opportunities. UCL’s eminence is recognised through its top five world ranking (QS World University Rankings 2013). It was also placed in the top three UK universities for the volume of its research assessed as 4* (world leading) in the most recent (2008) Research Assessment Exercise.
University College London (UCL) is blessed with an elite staff. Their ranks include 53 members of the Royal Society, 51 of the British Academy, 15 of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and 117 of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Moreover, the school’s past and present students and faculty members have earned 29 Nobel Prizes (40, if you include research fellows and honorary graduates). Two alumni and one current faculty member have earned the coveted Fields Medal in mathematics.
UCL ranks third among U.K. schools for national funding. It has also recently linked efforts with Yale to form a transatlantic research initiative called the Yale UCL collaborative.
Why study with us?
UCL’s renowned pioneering approach can be seen today in its application of interdisciplinary research to resolve the challenges facing the modern world, through focusing its research endeavour on the Grand Challenges of Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction, and Human Wellbeing. UCL also takes the lead in providing understanding of global citizenship concepts to all students, preparing them to respond to the intellectual, social and personal challenges that they will encounter throughout their lives and careers. Such examples of innovation and willingness to question traditional practice date back to its foundation in 1826, when UCL was established as a radical alternative to the social and religious restrictions of the only two other universities in England at that time.
The expertise of UCL’s world-leading academics is applied in the ongoing development of degree programmes which are broadly grouped in the Faculties of Arts and Humanities, Brain Sciences, Built Environment, Engineering Sciences, Laws, Life Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Medical Sciences, Population Health Sciences, and Social and Historical Sciences. Study at all levels at UCL offers rigorous academic investigation and discovery, and has embedded within it personal and professional development opportunities that will enhance students’ career prospects.
UCL is located in central London, and has a cosmopolitan, dynamic and friendly atmosphere. Students benefit from UCL’s own resources, including libraries, accommodation, careers, welfare and social facilities. They also have easy access to London’s array of specialist libraries, museums, galleries, and cultural and performing arts venues, as well as to the many London-based professional institutions, societies and international businesses.
The school also runs multiple interdisciplinary research programs, such as the UCL Energy Institute, the UCL Centre for Multidisciplinary & Intercultural Inquiry, and the UCL Cancer Institute.
As its name implies, University College London benefits from its location within the British capital and world-class city that is London.
Motto: Let there be light
University of Washington is a public institution that was founded in 1861. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 30,672, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 703 acres. It utilizes a quarter-based academic calendar. University of Washington's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 52. Its in-state tuition and fees are $12,394 (2014-15); out-of-state tuition and fees are $33,513 (2014-15).
Located in the University District neighborhood (known as the U District) just north of downtown Seattle, the University of Washington is a cutting-edge research university with a long-standing history as one of the oldest public institutions on the West Coast. Students can join one of the school’s 500-plus student organizations, including about 50 sororities and fraternities, or can start a brand new club with at least four other students. University of Washington is known as a commuter school, and freshmen are not required to live on campus. Housing is not guaranteed for any student. For those that do reside in the residence halls, the university stresses “living green” through energy conservation and recycling. On the sports fields, the school’s varsity athletes are competitive in the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference. The football team, in particular, is a traditional league stand-out. The teams are represented by two mascots: one, a costumed student known as Harry the Husky Dawg, and the other, Dubs, a live Alaskan husky. The university gym is free for students seeking a workout.
The University of Washington receives a hefty amount of federal funding each year to further its mission as a public research institution. True to its roots in research, the school hosts an Undergraduate Research Symposium every year for students to present their work to the community. The school has a highly ranked School of Medicine, College of Engineering and Michael G. Foster School of Business. Nearly three fourths of University of Washington graduates remain in the state. Notable alumni include Thomas Foley, former U.S. Speaker of the House; Chris DeWolfe, co-creator of MySpace; and Irv Robbins, co-founder and namesake of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain.
The University of Washington is yet another “public Ivy” to make the list of the world’s wealthiest universities. Founded in 1861 as the Territorial University of Washington, today’s University of Washington has multiple campuses throughout the state, is ranked in the top 50 of U.S. News & World Report’s list of the best universities in the country, and is especially known for its well-regarded medical school. It is also a preferred beneficiary of Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. In 1989, Allen donated $10 million to partly fund the Allen Library. More recently, Allen gifted the school with $14 million to establish the state-of-the-art Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. University of Washington’s current endowment is $2.8 billion.
Endowment: $2.8 billion
Average Cost per Student: $9,395 per year
Average Salary of Full-Time Faculty: $139,346
Annual Research Budget: $874 million
Academic Life
The student-faculty ratio at University of Washington is 11:1, and the school has 35.1 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at University of Washington include: Social Sciences; Biological and Biomedical Sciences; Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services; Engineering; and Visual and Performing Arts. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 93.3 percent.
Student Life
University of Washington has a total undergraduate enrollment of 30,672, with a gender distribution of 47.8 percent male students and 52.2 percent female students. At this school, 24 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 76 percent of students live off campus. University of Washington is part of the NCAA I athletic conference.
Oxford University is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Teaching has been taking place in Oxford since at least 1096 and developed rapidly through the 12th century.
The University has played a major role in the intellectual life of the country since its early days. Over nine centuries it has been a centre for debate and controversy in science, religion and the arts.
During the 20th and early 21st centuries, Oxford added to its humanistic core a major new research capacity in the natural and applied sciences, including medicine.
Oxford University traces its origins back to the 13th century. With its intellectual roots firmly planted in medieval scholasticism, Oxford has survived the centuries, adapted to the times, and grown into what it is today—one of the world’s most impressive centers of learning.
Perhaps more than any other school in the world, Oxford’s name has become synonymous with knowledge and learning. This is because the school runs the world’s largest—and arguably 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 may explain why almost 40 percent of the student body comes from outside the U.K.
Oxford’s academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100 Fellows of the British Academy. Over 17,200 people applied for 3,200 undergraduate places in 2014.
However, despite thousands of undergraduate students willing to pay full tuition and centuries of accumulated assets, the highest source of income for Oxford continues to be research grants and contracts.
Academic Strengths
Oxford has a world-class reputation for academic excellence and courses have an academic rather than vocational focus.
Many Oxford academics are international experts in their chosen fields in all disciplines of the sciences and arts.
Student Facilities
The Careers Service offers all students a comprehensive range of CV and interview workshops, eleven fairs (attended by 60+ employers at each one), hundreds of employer presentations throughout the year, and opportunities ranging from a 20-minute 1:1 careers guidance meeting with an experienced Careers Adviser, to taking part in The Student Consultancy, Insight into Teaching, and our leading Internship Programme around the world.
Every college has its own library which provide core material with multiple copies of the most popular books and other key works. Most are open around the clock. There are also departmental and major research libraries including the world-famous Bodleian which can claim a copy of every book published in Britain.
The University is well equipped with IT facilities with most departments and colleges providing computer rooms, network access and computing support. The central Oxford University Computing Services also offer computer facilities and free training.
All students may use the Language Centre, which offers courses, computer-based learning and audio-visual study rooms.
The University has a professionally staffed confidential Student Counselling Service.
