Major Universities in the USA

Harvard University

• Harvard University is the oldest university in the United States, notching up 370 years in 2006. Not only is it the oldest university in the United States, but also it is regularly listed as the best both at the national and international levels. In 2009, it was ranked in joint first position with Princeton in the "U.S News & World Report's" rankings of national universities. In the same year, QS World University Rankings placed it at the top stop for international universities, ahead of Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

  Harvard is home to more than 20,000 students who are split between its 14 schools, which range from business, divinity and education, to law, engineering, government and public health. The university is also famous for its library, which is the second largest in the United States and the largest academic library in the world. The collection includes more than 15 million volumes, which are housed in more than 90 libraries within the university campus and across the world.

  Harvard University
  Massachusetts Hall
  Cambridge, MA 02138
  617-495-1000
  harvard.edu

Yale University

• With a history that dates back to 1701, Yale University is the third-oldest higher education institution in the United States. It has seen the likes of Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman study in its halls, which in 2010 were home to 5,200 undergraduate students and 6,169 postgraduate students.

  In 2009, the university was ranked as the third best university in the United States after Harvard and Princeton, according to the "U.S News & World Report." Yale possesses the fourth largest library collection in the United States and the second largest academic library after Harvard, with more than 12 million volumes.

  Each year, the university spends $2 million acquiring new material, and in 2010 it held more than 300 international newspaper subscriptions. The university is divided into 10 schools: architecture, art, divinity, drama, forestry and environmental studies, law, management, medicine, music and nursing with a total of 3,600 faculty members working across these different departments. Yale is set in its own 310-acre campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

  Yale University
  246 Church St.
  New Haven, CT 06520-8321
  203-432-2334
  yale.edu

Princeton University

• Princeton is located in New Jersey on the East Coast of the United States. It was ranked No. 1 in the "U.S News & World Report" rankings of national universities in 2009, sharing the accolade with Harvard University. The same year it was ranked as the eighth best university in the world in the QS World University Rankings.

  The university has a total of 29 different departments, where students can complete either Bachelor of Arts (BA) or Bachelor of Science (BSE) degrees. With approximately 5,000 undergraduate students to a faculty made up of 1,100 members, Princeton has a staff-to-student ratio of 5 to 1. The university also provides its students with financial aid, should they need it.

  According to Princeton, more than 50 percent of its undergraduate students receive some form of aid, the amount of which depends on the student's financial circumstances. Grants awarded by the university to its students ranges from $5,000 to $50,000 a year.

  Princeton University
  Princeton, NJ 08544
  609 258-3000
  princeton.edu