Wondering which school, college or university is the best fit for you? We’ve made it easy for you to compare hundreds of the world’s best schools, and to get a better idea of what they teach, what each school is really like, and which will give you the most help in your career.
Below we have listed many of the world’s finest schools and universities. Just scroll down the list, and click ‘view more’ to read about as many schools as you like. Then you can explore what courses each school, college or university offers by clicking on them.
North Carolina State University – also called NCSU – was founded in 1887 as a land-grant college called the “North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts”. It became the “North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering” in 1917, and then the “University of North Carolina” in 1931, after merging with NC State and […]
Tufts University was founded by the Universalist Church in the 1840s on 20 acres of land donated by businessman Charles Tufts, but many notables including P.T. Barnum are counted as founders. It was officially chartered in 1852. It boasts the US’s oldest graduate school of international relations. By 1954 the school had lost its original […]
Arizona State University – often called simply ASU – began in 1886. As this was 30 years before Arizona existed as a state, it was called the Territorial Normal School at the time. In its first incarnation, it was a four classroom building in the city of Tempe, and a total of 33 students its […]
The University of Notre Dame du Lac (today called simply Notre Dame or ND) was founded by a Catholic group called the Congregation of the Holy Cross in 1842, but only chartered in 1844. At the time it was an all-male institution, and the women’s Saint Mary’s College was founded by a different Catholic order […]
Washington University (Not associated with the state of Washington or Washington DC) was chartered in 1853 by the Missouri General Assembly. Initially it was called the Washington Institute after General and President George Washington, but had its name changed to Washington University in 1856. The tag ‘in St Louis’ was added more than 100 years […]
Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873 in Nashville, Alabama. Its initial funding came from New York multimillionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt in hopes of establishing closer cultural and commercial ties between the North and South of the country. Construction began on what was initially called The Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1874. The […]
The University of Virginia was originally founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 just outside Charlottesville Virginia. It was first known as simply Central College, and was unusual for its time in that it incorporated a set of 8 independent schools – Moral Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, Modern Languages, Ancient Languages, Chemistry, Mathematics, Law and Medicine. The […]
The University of Southern California – informally USC – began in the 1870s, when the city of Los Angeles was much more the ‘old west frontier outmost’ than today’s world famous metropolis. The university finally welcomed some 53 students in 1880, a time when what would become ‘LA’ still lacked paved streets or an organised […]