Established in 1754, Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established as King\’s College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain and renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolutionary War. 

With an undergraduate acceptance rate of 5.8 percent, Columbia is currently the third most selective college in the United States and the second most selective in the Ivy League after Harvard. Its first president was none other than the literary great Samuel Johnson, and over the years Columbia has produced numerous distinguished alumni, from Oscar winners and Nobel laureates to Supreme Court judges. Three US Presidents and the authors of the Declaration of Independence and American Constitution were also schooled at Columbia. It also runs the highly distinguished Pulitzer Prize, an annual award for achievements in journalism, literature and musical composition. 

The university is organized into 20 schools, including undergraduate schools such as Columbia College, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of General Studies, as well as graduate schools such as Columbia Law School, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia Journalism School and Columbia Business School. It also had global research outposts across the world. Its total student body numbers around 28,000 and is comprised mainly of postgraduates, with roughly 8,500 undergraduate students. 

Columbia’s main campus is Morningside Heights, occupying around six city blocks in the Morningside Heights district of New York. It’s home to the neo-classical Butler library, one of the largest buildings on campus, and almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories. The university also owns 7,800 apartments in the local area, which house faculty members, students, and staff. 

The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts principles and was a late 19th century vision of a campus where all disciplines could be taught. Some of its standout features include the Low Memorial Library, a National Historic Landmark, the site of the invention of FM radio, and the location where the nuclear fission of uranium first took place. 

More significant for students are The Steps, a long series of granite steps which are a popular hangout and meeting place, and the bronze figure of Alma Mater, a female figure draped in an academic gown who serves as a daily reminder to students of their scholarly duties. 

Young and research-intensive, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is placed 12th globally, and 1st among the world’s best young universities for five consecutive years (QS university rankings).
 
Home to 33,000 students, NTU offers engineering, science, business, humanities, arts, social sciences, and education, and has a joint medical school with Imperial College London.
 
Ranked the top university in the world for citations in artificial intelligence (Nikkei and Elsevier 2017) for the period 2012-2016, NTU is embracing digital technologies for better learning and living as part of its Smart Campus vision. It has partnerships with the world’s leading technology companies such as Alibaba, Rolls-Royce, BMW, Volvo, Delta Electronics, and Singtel in many areas of societal importance and impact that include artificial intelligence, data science, robotics, smart transportation, computing, personalised medicine, healthcare and clean energy.
 
The NTU Smart Campus is not only a living testbed of tomorrow’s technologies, but it is also frequently listed among the world’s Top 15 most beautiful university campuses. It has 57 Green Mark-certified (equivalent to LEED-certified) building projects comprising more than 230 buildings, of which 95% are certified Green Mark Platinum.
 
Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a medical campus in Novena, Singapore’s healthcare district.

The oldest higher education institution in China, Peking University was founded in 1898 as a replacement for the ancient Guozijian school (Imperial College). By the early 1920s, it had become a center for Chinese progressive thought, playing an important role in China\’s New Culture Movement, the May Fourth Movement, and the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, among other significant historical events. 

Peking University has been consistently ranked as the top academic institution in China. As well as being renowned academically, it’s well-known for its stunning campus grounds and for the beauty of its traditional Chinese architecture. Peking University has educated some of the most prominent figures in Chinese history, including Mao Zedong. 

The main university campus is in the former site of the Qing Dynasty imperial gardens and as such features traditional Chinese-style landscaping, including traditional houses, gardens, pagodas, as well as many notable historical buildings and structures. Weiming Lake is to the north of the campus and is surrounded by walking paths and small gardens. 

The university grounds are also home to museums, such as the Museum of University History and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology, in which students can view objects dating back thousands of years. It’s an environment to feed the enquiring minds of young students – not that the academic curriculum doesn’t already do that. 

Peking University is a leading university for science research and teaching and has successfully developed applied sciences research and teaching as well. There are 30 colleges and 12 departments, with 93 undergraduate programs, 199 master\’s degree programs, and 173 options for doctoral candidates. 

Peking is eager for students to receive not only comprehensive education, but to take part in student life to the full.  Life on campus is rich with sport and extracurricular fare, with more than 200 student organizations and a range of activities running year-round. 

Sport is important, with Beida Cup Athletic Championships taking place each year, while festivals and events such as the International Cultural Festival, or Singing Competition for Foreign Students, allow students to meet up, make friends and enjoy a balanced life outside of their studies. 

The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, specializing in the natural sciences and engineering. 

Its roots can be traced back to the foundation of a private school in 1853, which to start with only had 11 students. Those days are long gone though, with the modern day EPFL one of two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and student numbers in Lausanne now totaling over 10,000. 

Located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, EPFL is twinned with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). As part of its research and teaching activities, EPFL is one of the only universities to run a nuclear reactor, a fusion reactor, a Gene/Q Supercomputer, and have P3 bio-hazard facilities.

EPFL has a very singular admissions process, which, for would-be undergraduates who are Swiss nationals, is not selective at all. At the end of freshman year, however, a block exam determines whether students can continue or have to repeat the year, with many home students dropping out entirely at this point. 

The EPFL campus lies on the shores of Lake Geneva and consists of 65 buildings across 136 acres. Facilities include banks, bars, two museums – the Musee Bolo and Archizoom – as well as bars, restaurants and cafeterias. 

There are students of 112 different nationalities here, though as of 2014 women made up only 27 percent of the student body. Life on campus is vibrant, with many student-formed clubs and associations providing social and recreational opportunities. 

A wide range of sports and leisure facilities keep students physically active while studying. EPFL also has an active student media, publishing the monthly newspaper Flash and there are daily broadcasts on the student radio station. 

Another priority on campus is the arts, with the university holding several annual music festivals each year. The largest is Balélec Festival, where 15,000 visitors descend upon the university to watch 30 concerts on two outdoor and four indoor stages.

Yale University is a private research university and a member of the prestigious Ivy League, a group of America’s most celebrated higher education institutions. Situated in New Haven, Connecticut, the first planned city in America, Yale was founded by English Puritans in 1701, making it the third-oldest higher education institution in the United States. 

Today, the city, which is part of the New York metropolitan area, is very much dominated by Yale, though it’s also billed as the “Cultural Capital of Connecticut”. According to the New York Times, New Haven is also extremely picturesque, with “art almost everywhere you look”.

Yale University’s central campus spans 260 acres and includes buildings from the mid-18th century. The university is organized into 14 schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and 12 professional schools. 

Undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum which allows you to think and learn across disciplines before deciding upon a major. Perhaps its most distinctive feature, Yale undergraduates are organized into a social system of residential colleges, which allows them to experience the cohesiveness and intimacy of a small school while still enjoying the cultural and scholarly resources of a large university.

A recently unveiled portrait of Barack Obama was by a Yale alumnus, and strolling across the Yale campus, you’ll find that you’re surrounded by public art. Be it in courtyards or plazas, lobbies or lecture halls, art at Yale inspires reflection and offers aesthetic pleasure. 

College life is similarly rich, reflecting the diversity of cultures and nationalities on campus. There’s always a packed arts calendar which includes exhibitions at world-class museums and galleries. There’s also a Tony Award-winning theater, Yale Cabaret – a theater-restaurant run by students – and hundreds of student groups, ranging from the serious to the silly. 

On top of this, you’ll also find the usual array of top quality sports facilities, a golf course and centers for tennis, polo, sailing, ice hockey, and more as well as competitive sports, with over 30 men’s and women’s varsity teams. 

To study at Yale is to join great company: four Yale graduates signed the American Declaration of Independence, and the university has educated five US presidents: William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It is rightly regarded as one of America and the world’s most prestigious universities, with competition to be admitted as fierce as it gets. 

Established in 1856, the University of Chicago is a private research university based in the urban center of Chicago, the third most populous city in the United States. Outside of the Ivy League, Chicago is one of America’s top universities, and holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings. 

Beyond the arts and sciences, Chicago has a glowing reputation for its professional schools, including the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Booth School of Business, and the Harris School of Public Policy Studies. University of Chicago alumni are responsible for the development of many academic disciplines, such as sociology, economics, law, and literary criticism.  

The college’s crest sees a phoenix rising from the ashes, a reference to the fire, foreclosure, and demolition of the Old University of Chicago campus, with the current University of Chicago emerging triumphantly in its place in 1890. The old university was founded through a land endowment from the controversial senator Stephen Douglas, a supporter of slavery who authored the Kansas-Nebraska act. By contrast, the new University of Chicago was co-educational and funded through donations from wealthy Chicagoans and the oil magnet John D. Rockefeller. 

Today, the University of Chicago has approximately 16,000 students enrolled, with a male to female ratio of 56:44. A quarter of all students hail from overseas, a nod to the institution’s progressive credentials. 

Students run more than 400 clubs and societies, which consist of a typical mix of sports teams, arts, cultural and religious groups, academic and political groupings, and societies that promote eclectic common interests. Among the more famous examples are the University of Chicago bowl team, which has won 118 tournaments and 15 national championships, while the university\’s competitive Model United Nations team was the top ranked team in North America in 2013–14 and 2014–2015. 

If you have an interest in media and film, then you’re well catered for: the university is home to the longest continuously running student film society Doc Films and publishes several newspapers and magazines. Budding thespians can join renowned improvisational theater troupe Off-Off Campus, or learn how to broadcast at the university-owned radio station WHPK.

Notable faculty members past and present include 29 Nobel laureates and former US president Barack Obama. Illustrious alumni come in practically every field, including the novelists Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, political movers and shakers such as pollster Nate Silver and Obama strategist David Axelrod, pioneering balloonist Jeannette Piccard, and the fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones. 

Students looking for great engineering and computer science programs need look no further than Tsinghua University in Beijing, which since 2015 has been ranked as one of the best in the world for both disciplines. 

Tsinghua University was established in 1911 in the wake of the anti-colonialist Boxer Rebellion, which saw the US fine China $30m as punishment. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated with Congress a reduction in the sum, with the leftover money earmarked for university scholarships for Chinese students to study in the US. Tsinghua University was established as a preparatory school for the students’ trips abroad. 

Today, Tsinghua’s motto of “self-discipline and excellence” has taken it far. Most university rankings place Tsinghua among the best universities in China, and famous alumni include President Xi Jinping himself, who graduated with a degree in chemical engineering in 1979. Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, and Bill Clinton are among the distinguished guests who have spoken at Tsinghua. 

The university is academically organized into 20 schools and 57 departments covering a broad range of subjects, including science, engineering, arts and literature, social sciences, medicine. Xinya College was established in 2014 as the school’s residential liberal arts college as part of a series of reforms to undergraduate education. Unlike other Tsinghua students who must choose a specific major upon enrollment, Xinya students can declare their majors at the end of their freshman year.

The campus of Tsinghua University is located in northwest Beijing, in the Haidian district, on the former site of the Qing Dynasty royal gardens. As such it retains Chinese-style landscaping as well as traditional buildings, although many of its buildings are also western in style, reflecting its American heritage. Like its archrival Peking, Tsinghua is known for having one of the most beautiful university campuses. 

On campus, students keep themselves occupied with more than just academic study (although the heavy workloads mean studying is always a priority). There are more than 110 student clubs and associations covering interests such as science and technology, health and fitness, humanities, arts and public welfare. 

Overseas students are particularly encouraged to join in the fun, with a host of extracurricular such as welcome parties, New Year’s parties, graduation parties, and visits to cultural and historical landmarks. 

Kyoto University is one of Asia’s leading research-oriented institutions and is famed for producing world-beating researchers, including 13 Nobel Prize laureates. 

The motto of the school, which was founded in 1897, is “freedom of academic spirit”, a value it aims to instill on the 22,000 students enrolled on its undergraduate and graduate programs. 

Kyoto ranks competitively in most major rankings, usually coming in the top two for Japan, the top 10 for Asia, and in the top 50 universities globally, making it a major player on the university scene.  

The main Yoshida campus has been at the core of the university since its founding, and is notable for its fascinating architecture, encompassing a variety of styles, from brick buildings such as the Clock Tower Centennial Hall (a symbol of the university) to modern laboratory buildings. 

Other campuses include Uji campus, which hosts research institutes, state-of-the-art laboratories and testing facilities, and Katsura campus, conceived as a “technoscience hill”. Mixing the traditional and cutting edge, there is therefore no one typical student experience at Kyoto, though what is common to all students is the sense of belonging to an academic community at the forefront of new scholarly horizons, in particular when it comes to new technologies and meeting global challenges.

For those interested in Japanese culture, the city of Kyoto will be of interest as it’s the birthplace of manga and was the capital city of Japan for over 1,000 years. Numerous cultural assets cultivated throughout its long history remain all over the city, and one in every 10 people there is a university student – by far the highest proportion of any Japanese city. 

Kyoto is also blessed with an abundance of nature, surrounded by mountains and tranquil temple gardens. Parts of the city are also a conservation hub. Compared with Osaka or Tokyo, the cost of living in Kyoto is relatively low; as the city center is fairly compact, students can travel around safely by bicycle.  

A leading global university centred in Asia, the National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s flagship university, which offers a global approach to education and research, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise.

NUS has 17 faculties and schools across three campuses. Its transformative education includes a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. Over 38,000 students from 100 countries enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives. NUS also strives to create a supportive and innovative environment to promote creative enterprise within its community.

The 17 Schools in NUS include:  

NUS takes an integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to research, working with partners from industry, government and academia, to address crucial and complex issues relevant to Asia and the world. Researchers in NUS’ Schools and Faculties, 30 university-level research institutes and centres, and Research Centres of Excellence cover a wide range of themes including: energy, environmental and urban sustainability; treatment and prevention of diseases common among Asians; active ageing; advanced materials; risk management and resilience of financial systems. The University’s latest research focus is to use data sciences, optimisation research and cyber security to support Singapore\’s Smart Nation initiative.

Princeton is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the United States. It was founded in 1746 and moved to its current site in New Jersey in 1896. 

Princeton is renowned for the spectacular greenery of its campus and for the architectural splendor of some of its landmark buildings, such as its Lewis Library, which was designed by Frank Gehry. Its student body is relatively small, with fewer than 10,000 enrolled in total, and international students make up 12 per cent of undergraduates. 

Princeton is one of the world’s foremost research universities, and has educated two US presidents, James Madison and Woodrow Wilson. Other distinguished graduates include Michelle Obama, actors Jimmy Stewart and David Duchovny, Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad.

Princeton was founded by New Light Presbyterians to provide training to its ministers. After the American Civil War, the college expanded, and its curriculum was overhauled. Around the turn of the 20th century, it officially became a university and its famous graduate school opened. 

Today’s Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering as well as offering a number of professional degrees. 

Princeton’s main campus is spread across 500 acres and has around 180 buildings, including 10 libraries. The main campus was named one of the most beautiful in the United States by New York’s Travel+Leisure magazine. Most Princeton students live, eat, study, work, and are at leisure on campus.  

The Ivy League institution guarantees accommodation to all of its undergraduate students across the four years of their degree and is committed to building a diverse campus community. Residential colleges offer a variety of academic, social, cultural and recreational programs, and opportunities abound for students to engage in interests beyond their academic study, whether that be writing for a literary publication, learning the science of beekeeping, or singing with an a capella group. 

The university is within easy reach of both New York City and Philadelphia, with the “Dinky” shuttle train providing a regular one-hour service to both cities. 

Studying at Princeton surrounded by natural beauty and architectural gems brings the best out in students. Several alumni and faculty members have been awarded Nobel prizes, and the university is consistently ranked in the top ten worldwide. Admissions are need-blind and, through a combination of grants and college jobs, few students graduate in debt – even though 60 percent of incoming students receive financial aid.