Harvard University was the first college established in the American colonies. Founded in 1636, it's located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. Nearly two-thirds of its 6,700 undergraduate students major in social sciences, biology and history. Its graduate schools of law, business and medicine are well respected.
Several clergymen founded a small college in New Haven, Connecticut in 1701. Administrators changed its name to Yale when Elihu Yale donated cash and 417 books to the school in 1718. The university's 11,560 students had access to 12.7 million books in Yale's libraries in 2010. The most popular majors among undergraduates are social sciences, history and integrated studies.
Benjamin Franklin established the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1740. In 2010, the university hosted more than 25,000 full- and part-time graduate and undergraduate students.
The College of New Jersey began in the town of Elizabeth in 1746. Administrators relocated the school to Princeton in 1756 and renamed it in 1896. Engineering, history and politics are the most popular majors for its 4,900 undergraduate students. Princeton is known for its scientific and academic research programs and for hosting Albert Einstein's work from 1933 until his death in 1955.
King George II of England established Columbia University in New York City in 1754. Twenty-one undergraduate and graduate schools served more than 27,000 students in 2010.
Brown University was founded in 1764 in Providence, Rhode Island. Its 6,102 undergraduates studied for bachelor's degrees in more than 70 concentrations in 2010. The university accepted only 9.3 percent of its undergraduate applicants in that same year.
Dartmouth College is the smallest of the Ivy League schools, with fewer than 6,000 graduate and undergraduate students. The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock established the college in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1769 to educate young Native Americans.
Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White founded Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1865. Their intention to offer higher education to all types of students, not just the elite, is reflected by Cornell's 4,000 courses in 20 different graduate and undergraduate schools, including a branch of its medical school in Doha, Qatar.