Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It began as the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. In 1912, the school became Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The University’s 140-acre main campus is three miles from Downtown Pittsburgh and abuts the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in the city's Oakland neighborhood.

The University has seven colleges and schools: the Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering), the College of Fine Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Mellon College of Science, the Tepper School of Business (formerly the Graduate School of Industrial Administration), the School of Computer Science, and the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management.

Since its inception, Carnegie Mellon has grown into a world-renowned institution, with programs that are frequently ranked among the best in the world. In the 2008 edition, U.S. News and World Report ranked Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate program 22nd in the nation, and its graduate programs in Computer Science 1st, Engineering 6th, Business 17th, Public Policy Analysis 4th, and Graphic Design 6th. The university attracts students from all 50 U.S. states and 93 countries and was named one of the "New Ivies" by Newsweek in 2006. Peer institutions of Carnegie Mellon include Caltech, Cornell, Duke, MIT, Northwestern, Princeton, Rice, Stanford and University of Pennsylvania.

History

Carnegie Technical Schools was founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh by the Scottish American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who wrote the time-honored words "My heart is in the work" when he donated the funds to create the institution. Carnegie's vision was to open a vocational training school for the sons and daughters of working-class Pittsburghers. The name was changed to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912, and the school began offering four-year degrees. In 1965, it merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, Carnegie founded Carnegie Mellon's coordinate women's college, Margaret Morrison Carnegie College in 1903 (the college closed in 1973).

There was little change to the campus between World War I and II. A 1938 master plan by Githens and Keally suggested acquisition of new land along Forbes Avenue, but the plan was not fully implemented. The period starting with the construction of GSIA (1952) and ending with Wean Hall (1971) saw the institutional change from Carnegie Institute of Technology to Carnegie Mellon University. New facilities were needed to respond to the University's growing national reputation in artificial intelligence, business, robotics, and the arts. In addition, an expanding student population resulted in a need for improved facilities for student life, athletics, and libraries. The campus finally expanded to Forbes Avenue from its original land along Schenley Park. A ravine long known as "the cut" was gradually filled in to campus level, joining "the Mall" as a major campus open space.

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Carnegie Mellon solidified its status among elite American universities, consistently ranking in the top 25 in US News and World Report rankings. Carnegie Mellon is distinct in its interdisciplinary approach to research and education and through the establishment of programs and centers that are outside the limitations of departments or colleges has established leadership in fields such as computational finance, information systems management, arts management, product design, behavioral economics, human-computer interaction, entertainment technology, and decision science. Within the past two decades, the university has built a new University Center, theater and drama building (Purnell Center), business school building (Posner Hall), and several dormitories. Baker Hall was renovated in the early 2000s, and new chemistry labs were established in Doherty Hall soon after. Several computer-science buildings, such as Newell Simon Hall, also were established, renovated, or renamed in the early 2000s. The university is in the process of building the Gates Center for Computer Science and renovating historic academic and residence halls.

Academics

Carnegie-Mellon seven distinguished schools and colleges are:

Carnegie Institute of Technology (College of Engineering)
College of Fine Arts
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Tepper School of Business
H. John Heinz III College
Mellon College of Science
School of Computer Science

The Gates Center for Computer Science will sit on a 5.6-acre site on the university's West Campus, surrounded by Cyert Hall, the Purnell Center for the Arts, Doherty Hall, Newell-Simon Hall, Smith and Hamburg halls and the Collaborative Innovation Center. It will contain 318 offices as well as labs, computer clusters, lecture halls, classrooms and a 250-seat auditorium. The Gates Center for Computer Science was made possible by a $20 million lead gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The building is anticipated to be completed within 2 years.

On April 15, 1997, Jared L. Cohon, former dean of Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, was elected president by Carnegie Mellon's Board of Trustees. During Cohon's presidency, Carnegie Mellon has continued its trajectory of innovation and growth. He leads a strategic plan that aims to leverage the University's strengths to benefit society in the areas of biotechnology and life sciences, information and security technology, environmental science and practices, the fine arts and humanities, and business and public policy.

Carnegie Mellon's offerings in computer science, engineering, business, public policy, psychology, and the arts are considered among the best in their fields. Carnegie Mellon is ranked 22nd amongst national research universities in the most recent US News and World Report rankings. In the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) ranking of world universities, Carnegie Mellon ranks 12th overall in the United States (20th in the world) and fifth in the United States (7th in the world) in the "Engineering/IT" category. The university is one of 60 elected members of the Association of American Universities and its academic reputation has led it to be included in Newsweek’s list of “New Ivies”.

Carnegie Mellon has consistently ranked first for graduate studies in computer science in the US, in rankings released by the US News and World Report. Carnegie Mellon is also ranked #13 in the social sciences and #14 in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences among Shanghai Jiao Tong University's world's top 100 universities.Detailed information on the rankings of undergraduate and graduate programs at Carnegie Mellon is available on the University website.

Carnegie Mellon University ranked 20th in the 2007 THES-QS World University ranking

Carnegie Mellon University ranked 21st in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking
Carnegie Mellon University ranked 27th in the 2009 THES-QS World University ranking
Carnegie Mellon University ranked 34th in the 2010 QS World University ranking

Carnegie Mellon University ranked 43th in the 2011 QS World University ranking

Hong Kong University

The University of Hong Kong (commonly abbreviated as HKU, pronounced as "Hong Kong U") is the oldest and most prestigious tertiary institution in Hong Kong. Its motto is "Sapientia et Virtus" in Latin, meaning "wisdom and virtue", and "明德格物" in Chinese. The official language of instruction is English.

History

The University of Hong Kong traces its origin to the former Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, founded by the London Missionary Society in 1887. The University itself was founded when Sir Frederick Lugard (later Lord Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard), Governor of Hong Kong, proposed to establish a university in Hong Kong. At that time, Lugard felt an urgent need to establish a university in China to compete with other Western powers, most notably Prussia, which had just opened Tongji University in Shanghai. Lugard laid the foundation stone of the Main Building on March 16, 1910 and hoped that the university would educate more Chinese people in British "imperial values", as opposed to those of other Western powers. The founding of the university was possible because of funding and support from the government and the business sector in southern China, which were both equally eager to learn "secrets of the West's success", referring to technological advances made since the Industrial Revolution.

The University of Hong Kong opened with only a Faculty of Medicine which had evolved from the Hong Kong College of Medicine. But within a year of the official opening of the University, the Faculties of Engineering and Arts were established. On December 1916, the University held its first congregation, with just 23 graduates.

The University was founded as an all-male institution. Women students were admitted for the first time only ten years later. In 1937, the Queen Mary Hospital opened and has served as the University's teaching hospital ever since. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, there were four Faculties - Arts, Engineering, Medicine, and Science. During the Second World War, HKU was temporarily closed.

After the war, the University reopened and underwent structural developments as post-war reconstruction efforts began in earnest. The Faculty of Social Sciences was established in 1967 and the Law Department in 1969. In 1982, the Faculty of Dentistry, based at the Prince Philip Dental Hospital, was established. It remains to this day Hong Kong's only faculty training dental professionals. In 1984, both the School of Architecture and School of Education became fully-fledged faculties, and in the same year a separate Faculty of Law was created. The Faculty of Business and Economics was established in 2001 as the University's tenth and youngest faculty.

HKU has nurtured the largest number of research postgraduate students in Hong Kong, making up approximately 10% of the total student population. All ten faculties and departments provide teaching and supervision for research (MPhil and PhD) students with administration undertaken by the Graduate School. About 45% of the University's academic staff are recruited from overseas.

The year 2001 marked the 90th Anniversary of HKU. Growing with Hong Kong: HKU and its Graduates - The First 90 Years was published by the University Press in 2002 as an impact study on HKU's graduates in different fields of Hong Kong.

In January 2006, despite protest from some students and various alumni, the Faculty of Medicine was renamed as the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine "as a recognition of the generosity" of Mr. Li Ka Shing and his Foundation, who pledged HK$1 billion in support of the University "general development as well as research and academic activities in medicine".

According to the latest profile indicators, the student population of the University was 21,508 in 2005-2006, comprising 11,584 undergraduates, 7,928 taught postgraduates, and 1,996 MPhil/PhD students. There were 1,278 non-local students studying at the university.

HKU attracts some of the best students in Hong Kong. For the last five years, the University has admitted around 50% of all the Hong Kong A-level Grade-A students. It accepts most of its undergraduate students from Form 7 graduates of local secondary schools through the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS). The University also operates an Early Admission Scheme (EAS) which allows Form 6 students with at least 6 Grade A in the HKCEE (local schools) or at least 6 A* in GCSE or IGCSE (international schools) results to join the University without sitting the Hong Kong A-Level Examination. In 2005-2006, over 50% of all students eligible to apply through the Early Admission Scheme chose HKU as their first choice.

Being the oldest and the only university in Hong Kong for decades, the University of Hong Kong has educated many notable people. One of them was Dr Sun Yat-sen, father of modern China, who was a graduate of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, the predecessor of HKU. Over 40 principal officials, permanent secretaries, and Executive Council/Legislative Council members of the Hong Kong SAR Government are HKU graduates. HKU graduates also form the senior management teams of many large organisations in the private sector, covering many business and professional fields.

In 2003, the HKU management panel put forth a strategic development plan with the goal of placing HKU even higher among the world's best universities in the next decade or so.

The University will build a new campus, the Centennial Campus, west of the Main Campus. The construction of the Centennial Campus will begin in 2008, and will be completed by 2011.

In addition to increased academic research and development, HKU also aims to promote continuing education to the public, through improved links between the University and the School of Professional and Continuing Education (SPACE).

HKU is also trying to better its alumni and external network for financially sustainable development.

Academics

Faculty of Architecture
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Business and Economics
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Law
Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Social Sciences
Graduate School
School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE)


Hong Kong university ranked no 18th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

Hong Kong university ranked no 26th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
Hong Kong university ranked no 24th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
Hong Kong university ranked no 23rd in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

Hong Kong university ranked no 22nd in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne, is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. The second oldest university in Australia, and the oldest in Victoria, its main campus is in Parkville, an inner suburb just north of the Melbourne CBD. Other campuses across Melbourne and rural Victoria have been acquired through amalgamation with smaller colleges of advanced education. It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight" lobby group, and the Sandstone universities.

Melbourne University is ranked amongst the top universities both in Australia and the world. The University is highly regarded in the fields of the arts, humanities, and biomedicine.

The University has almost 40,000 students, who are supported by nearly 6,000 staff members (full or part-time). On November 15, 2005, Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis announced a reform programme entitled 'Growing Esteem'. The University will aim to consolidate its three core activities - Research, Learning and Knowledge transfer - in order to become one of the world's finest institutions. The University's degree structure will be changed to the 'Melbourne Model', a combination of various practices from American and European Universities, which administrators claim will make the university consistent with the Bologna Accord, ensuring its degrees have international relevance.

History

The University was established by Hugh Childers in 1853 by an Act of the Victorian Parliament passed on Saturday 22 January, and classes commenced in 1855 with three professors and sixteen students. The original University buildings were officially opened by the then Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, on 3 October 1855. The first chancellor, Redmond Barry (later Sir Redmond), held the position until his death in 1880.

In the university's early days, an architectural masterplan was developed, establishing the intended prevailing building style as gothic revival. Early influential architects included Melbourne's own Joseph Reed, who was responsible for the design of many of the early campus buildings. Although the masterplan held as late as the 1930s, the 1950s saw the modernist style established as a new "house style" for the university, resulting in the mix of buildings seen today.

The inauguration of the University was made possible by the wealth resulting from Victoria's gold rush, and the University was designed to be a "civilising influence" at a time of rapid settlement and commercial growth (Selleck, 2003). The University was secular, and forbidden from offering degrees in Divinity - the churches could only establish colleges along the northern perimeter. The local population largely rejected the supposed elitism of its professoriate, favouring teaching of 'useful' subjects like law, over those they deemed 'useless' in the city's context, like Classics. The townspeople won this debate, and law was introduced in 1857, and medicine and engineering in the 1860s.

The admission of women in 1881 was a further victory for Victorians over the more conservative ruling council (Selleck 2003, p164–165). Subsequent years saw many tensions over the direction of the emerging University, and in 1902 it was effectively bankrupt following the discovery of a ₤24,000 fraud from the period 1886-1901 (the University's yearly grant was ₤15,000) by the University's Bursar, Frederick Dickson, who was jailed for seven years.

This resulted in a Royal Commission that recommended new funding structures, and an extension of disciplinary areas into agriculture and education.

By the time of World War I, governance was again a pressing concern. The Council, consisting of more businesspeople than professors, obtained real powers in 1923 at the expense of the Senate. Undergraduates could elect two members of the Council. In this period, the University tended to attract students drawn from affluent backgrounds, with a few opportunities for gifted scholarship students. The first Vice-Chancellor to be paid a salary was Raymond Priestley (1936) followed by John Medley in 1939.

After World War II, demand for Commonwealth-funded student places grew in Australia, and the University followed demand by becoming much larger and more inclusive.

The University celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2003. The University is the home of the Grainger Museum, celebrating the life and work of composer Percy Grainger.

With more than 150 years of history behind it, The University of Melbourne is not short of notable graduates. They include: Prime Ministers of Australia, Governors-General, Attorneys-General, Governors of Victoria, Surgeons, High Court Justices, State Premiers, Nobel Laureates, a First Lady of East Timor, ministers of foreign countries, Lord Mayors, academics, architects, historians, poets, philosophers, politicians, scientists, physicists, authors, industry leaders, Defence Force generals, corporate leaders and artists.

Academics

The University has twelve faculties/graduate schools:
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Economics and Commerce
Faculty of Education
Melbourne School of Engineering
Melbourne School of Land and Environment (was Faculty of Land and Food Resources)
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
Faculty of Music
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Veterinary Science.

These faculties offer courses from Bachelor Degree to Doctorate level. Arts is the largest (7,222 students in 2004), followed by Science (6,328). The University has some of the highest admission requirements in the country, with the median ENTER of its undergraduates being 94.5. Furthermore, around 70% of those who finish in the top 1% of school leavers choose to study at Melbourne

Melbourne University ranked 27th in the 2007 THES-QS World University ranking

Melbourne University ranked 38th in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking
Melbourne University ranked 36th in the 2009 THES-QS World University ranking
Melbourne University ranked 38th in the 2010 QS World University ranking

Melbourne University ranked 31st in the 2010 QS World University ranking

École Normale Supérieure Paris

The École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup', Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Ulm) is a prestigious French grande école, possibly the most prestigious. This establishment of higher education, with small attendance, focuses on training future academics in a variety of fields.

History

The École normale supérieure of today is the result of the merger, completed in 1985 between the École normale supérieure of the rue d'Ulm and the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles (Sèvres).

The first began in 1794. 9 Brumaire an III, on the report Lakanal speaking on behalf of the Committee of Public Instruction, the Convention decreed that "it is established in Paris a Normal School, which will be invited from all parts of the Republic, citizens who are already educated in the sciences useful to learn under the most skilled teachers in every genre, the art of teaching. "

The École normale supérieure de Sèvres was established in 1881, one year after the Act Sée (1880) on secondary education of girls, and three years before the creation of an aggregation of women in science (1884).

The decree of 26 August 1987, which establishes the new school provides in Article 2 that "The ENS is preparing a cultural and scientific high-level, students intending to basic or applied scientific research at the university education and in the preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles and secondary education and, more generally, for the State administrations and local authorities, their public institutions and enterprises. "

Campus

Its main campus is located around the rue d'Ulm (Ulm Street, the main building being at 45, rue d'Ulm) in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The ENS has annex campuses on Boulevard Jourdan (48.822439, 2.331312, in Paris) and in Montrouge (a suburb; 48.820742, 2.315180), as well as a biology annex in the countryside at Foljuif.

Three other "écoles normales supérieures" have been established: the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (sciences); the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (humanities) in Lyon; the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics and management, English language) in Cachan. They make up the informal ENS-group. For this reason the ENS in Paris is often called 'ENS-Paris' or 'ENS-Ulm'.

Originally meant to train high school teachers through the agrégation, it is now an institution training researchers, professors, high-level civil servants, as well as business and political leaders. It focuses on the association of training and research, with an emphasis on freedom of curriculum.

Its alumni include eight laureates of the Fields Medal (all French holders of the Fields medal were educated at the École Normale Supérieure), which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the mathematical sciences, as well as Nobel Prize winners in both science and literature.

As in many other grandes écoles, the ENS mostly enrolls its students two or three years after high school. The majority of them come from prépas (preparatory classes, see grandes écoles) and have to pass France's most selective competitive exams. Studies at ENS last four years. Many devote the third year to the agrégation which allows them to teach in high schools or universities. ENS-Ulm annually enrolls about 100 students in science and 100 in the humanities.

The normaliens, as the students of the ENS are known, keep a level of excellence in the various disciplines in which they are trained. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including those of studies. Although it is seldom applied in practice, this exclusivity clause is redeemable (often by the hiring firm).

Apart from the normaliens, ENS also welcomes select foreign students ("international selection"), as well as select students from neighboring universities, to follow the same curriculum but without the reception of a stipend. It also participates in various graduate programs and has extensive research laboratories.

The professors at the ENS are called the "caïmans", and the goldfish in the pond the "Ernests".

The fictitious mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki's "association of collaborators" is based at ENS.

The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was founded in 1810 as a branch of the École normale supérieure and later gained independence.

The ENS group has opened a branch at the ECNU in Shanghai.

Academics

Training through research at the ENS involves a wide range of scientific disciplines and literary whose teachings are grouped in thirteen departments or literary and scientific sections (biology, chemistry, cognitive studies, geography, history, science, literature and languages, pure and applied mathematics, philosophy, physics, sciences of antiquity, social sciences, earth-atmosphere-ocean). In each of these departments or sections, research laboratories and educational services are closely intertwined. If the original mission to train teachers remains the essential purpose of the School, it has considerably expanded our days, and opportunities of students are very diverse.

It entered the contest by ENS at the end of at least two years of college. Schooling at the École normale supérieure lasts four years. It starts with an undergraduate training provided by a second cycle (Bachelor, Master) and DEA, which usually hold two to three years of schooling (in science, These lessons are grouped into a master). It continues in principle by the beginning of a thesis, and has possibly at a variable fees, the preparation of an aggregation. In these four years, during which the normaliens french and European officials are paid as interns (about 1200 Euros per month), may be added, ongoing studies, one or two years' leave without pay which is often abroad with scholarships and exchange agreements.

Students make a university to get their diplomas and Master's Degree, usually in the context of masters cohabilités by ENS where they can be enrolled in the ENS.

In addition, the School issues a certificate of establishment that punishes the training it provides. This training leads to the preparation of the PhD, often from the 4th grade, and also hosts students from preparatory schools to large universities or French or foreign, selected according to criteria of excellence

The influence abroad of the university can be seen by its positioning in international university rankings. In the 2006 THES - QS World University Rankings, the university ranked 18th in the world, and 5th in Europe.

ENS-Paris ranked 26th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

ENS-Paris ranked 28th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
ENS-Paris ranked 28th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
ENS-Paris ranked 33rd in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

ENS-Paris ranked 33rd in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Johns Hopkins offers its main undergraduate and graduate programs at the Homewood campus in Baltimore and maintains full-time campuses in greater Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, and China. Johns Hopkins was the first university in the United States to emphasize research, applying the German university model developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schleiermacher.

History

The Johns Hopkins University is named for Johns Hopkins, who left $7 million in his 1867 incorporation papers and 1873 will for the foundation of the university and Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the time, this was the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history, the equivalent of over $131 million in the year 2006. Hopkins is no stranger to significant monetary gifts; in 2001, Sidney Kimmel, founder and chairman of Jones Apparel Group, donated $150 million for cancer research. Though Kimmel’s gift is the largest single gift in the university’s history, alumnus Michael Bloomberg's confirmed personal donations total over $200 million. Bloomberg, whose first donation of $5 was given in 1964, the year he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, is the largest individual benefactor in the university's history.

The university opened on February 22, 1876, with the stated goal of "The encouragement of research... and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell."The university's first president was Daniel Coit Gilman. Its motto in Latin is Veritas vos liberabit – "The truth shall make you free." The undergraduate student population at Hopkins was all male until 1970 although many graduate programs were integrated earlier.

Johns Hopkins was the first American research university,and the first American university to teach through seminars, instead of solely through lectures. The university was the first in America to offer an undergraduate major (as opposed to a purely liberal arts curriculum) and the first American university to grant doctoral degrees. Johns Hopkins was a model for most large research universities in the United States, particularly the University of Chicago.

Johns Hopkins is particularly regarded for its hospital and schools of medicine, public health, and international studies. The Johns Hopkins Hospital was ranked as the top hospital in the United States for the seventeenth year in a row by the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking of American hospitals. For medical research, U.S. News ranked the School of Medicine second nationally and School of Public Health first nationally for 2007, and, in an August 2005 study, the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was ranked as the top master's program in international relations.

Academics

Homewood Campus

The original main university campus was in downtown Baltimore City. However, this location did not permit room for growth and the trustees began to look for a place to move. Eventually, they would relocate to the estate of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Homewood House, a wedding gift from Charles to his son Charles Jr.

The park-like main campus of Johns Hopkins, Homewood, is set on 140 acres (0.57 km²) in the northern part of Baltimore. The architecture was modeled after the Georgian-inspired Federalist style of Homewood House. Most newer buildings resemble this style, being built of red brick with white marble trim, but lack the details. Homewood House was later used for administrative offices but now is preserved as a museum.

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences: Located at the university’s Homewood campus, the Krieger School is the core institution of the university and offers undergraduate and graduate programs,[with more than 60 undergraduate majors and minors and more than 40 full-time and part-time graduate programs.

G.W.C Whiting School of Engineering: The Whiting School is located on the main Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and offers undergraduate and graduate engineering programs.

School of Education: The School of Education was established in 2007, incorporating divisions of the former School of Professional Studies in Business and Education.

Medical Institutions campus.

School of Medicine: The School of Medicine is headquartered at the university's Medical Institutions campus in East Baltimore with Johns Hopkins Hospital. The School of Medicine is widely regarded as one of the best medical schools and biomedical research institutes in the world.

School of Nursing: The School of Nursing, is located in East Baltimore and is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital and the School of Medicine

Bloomberg School of Public Health: The Bloomberg School was founded in 1916, is the first and largest public health school in the world. It has consistently been ranked the number one school of public health by U.S. News & World Report.

Downtown Baltimore

Carey Business School: The Carey Business School was established in 2007, incorporating divisions of the former School of Professional Studies in Business and Education.

Peabody Institute: founded in 1857, is the oldest continuously active music conservatory in the United States. Located in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood, it became a division of Johns Hopkins in 1977. The Conservatory retains its own student body and grants its own degrees in musicology, though both Hopkins and Peabody students may take courses at both institutions.

Washington D.C.

Johns Hopkins' Washington, DC campus located near Dupont Circle is home to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and the part-time graduate program Advanced Academic Programs (AAP). SAIS is devoted to international studies, particularly international relations, diplomacy, and economics.

Laurel, MD

Applied Physics Laboratory: The university operates the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, which specializes in research for the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and other Government agencies. The Space Telescope Science Institute is located on the Homewood campus and controls, analyzes, and collects data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

At the collegiate level, in its annual National Universities ranking U.S. News placed The Johns Hopkins University 14th (tied with Brown University and Northwestern University) for 2008,up from 16th in 2007. Hopkins ranked 8th in that publication's peer assessment category this year, and is also one of a select group of universities to have ever been top 10 in the nation overall.

Meanwhile, comprehensively, the 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities, popularized by The Economist and produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, ranked Johns Hopkins 19th amongst universities globally in terms of quality of scientific research leading towards numerous awards. Further, in the annual rankings by the The Times Higher Education Supplement, based on a subjective peer review by scholars, Hopkins placed 10th nationally and 15th worldwide.. Finally, in its 2007 evaluation of universities on the dual basis of distinction in research and international diversity, Newsweek ranked the Johns Hopkins University 15th worldwide.

Johns Hopkins University ranked 15th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 13th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 13th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 17th in the 2010 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 16th in the 2011 THES-QS World University Ranking

McGill University

McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. McGill's main campus is set upon 320,000 square metres (80 acres) at the foot of Mount Royal in Montreal's downtown district. A second campus—Macdonald Campus—is situated on 6.5 square kilometres (1,600 acres) of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres west of the downtown campus. McGill has 21 faculties and professional schools and offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study. The university also has field research stations in Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Schefferville, Quebec; Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut; and Holetown, Barbados.

History

McGill was founded in 1821 from a bequest by James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant, who left an endowment in addition to the property on which the university now stands. McGill would become the first non-denominational university in the British Empire.

McGill's Redpath Museum, commissioned in 1880 and opened in 1882, is the oldest building built specifically as a museum in North America. Its natural history collections boast material collected by the same individuals who founded the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian.

Resting at the foot of Mont Royal, McGill University owes its origins to the vision and philanthropy of James McGill, a wealthy fur trader and merchant who left £10,000 and a 46-acre estate towards the establishment of a college or a university bearing his name.

Founded in 1821, "McGill College" began holding classes on January 27 in 1829 in the merchant's former country house. Four years later, the College awarded a Doctor of Medicine and Surgery to its first graduate, William Leslie Logie. Construction on the Arts Building began in 1839, as the college had quickly outgrown the country house. This iconic structure still anchors the downtown campus today.

The Importance of Philanthropy
Philanthropy continued to shape McGill in the ensuing decades. With the arrival of the charismatic and world-renowned geologist, Sir William Dawson, Principal from 1855-1893, McGill grew in both size and prestige. Under his leadership, the great benefactors of the day—Lord Strathcona, Sir William Macdonald, William Molson and Peter Redpath—supported a major expansion of campus, which included the construction of more than ten new buildings. In 1885, the name McGill University was formally adopted by the college's Board of Governors.

A Tradition of Innovation
With investment came innovation and progress. Lord Strathcona established a special fund for the education of women which led to the admission of McGill's first female students in 1884. One graduate, Carrie Derick, BA1890, was the first woman to become a professor in Canada, teaching botany at McGill. Large gifts from Sir William Macdonald around the turn of the century allowed McGill to add a second campus in Ste Anne de Bellevue and attract professors such as Ernest Rutherford, whose Nobel Prize-winning research on the nature of the radioactivity began a long tradition of McGill innovation, which has included the invention of the world's first artificial cell and Plexiglas.

Rapid Growth
McGill's reputation for excellence continued to grow as the post-war years dramatically transformed the University. The influx of returning soldiers, and then the Baby Boom generation tripled McGill's enrolment. The shift from a purely private institution to a publicly funded one opened its doors to more students. At the same time, the campus grew, with modern concrete and glass structures springing up alongside McGill's older stone buildings.

General Information

McGill's student population includes, both full-time and part-time, 23,758 undergraduate and 7,323 graduate students in over 340 academic programs in eleven faculties (as of 2007-2008). Its students represent a diverse geographic and linguistic background. Of the entire student population, 57.3% are from Quebec, while 23.7% come from the rest of Canada, and 19.0% are international. As their mother tongue, 52.8% of all students speak English, while 18.1% speak French, and 29.1% speak a language other than English or French.

About 90% of students ranked in the top 10% of their high school graduating class.McGill has produced 128 Rhodes Scholars, more than any other Canadian university, as well as seven Nobel Laureates.

Nearly 30% of all students are enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, McGill's largest academic unit. Of the other larger faculties, the Centre for Continuing Education enrolls 13%, the Faculty of Science enrolls 14%, and the Faculty of Engineering enrolls 10%. The Desautels Faculty of Management enrolls 10%, and the Faculty of Medicine enrolls 12%. The remainder of all students are enrolled in McGill's smaller schools, including the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Law, Schulich School of Music, and the Faculty of Religious Studies.

Comprising nearly 20% of the university's student body, international students are a significant presence on the McGill campus. The majority of McGill's international students are from the United States, making up 37% of all international students and 49% of all undergraduate international students. A growing number of American students are attending McGill, with such students representing 9.7% of all undergraduates and 6.9% of all students at the university.

Many are attracted to the culture and dynamism of Montreal, the university's reputation, and the relatively low tuition in comparison to many top public and private universities in the United States. However, this trend is being repeated at many other Canadian universities, particularly those close to the Canada/U.S. border. In turn, many Canadian universities, including McGill, are stepping up their recruitment efforts at U.S. high schools.

Academics

McGill faculties and Schools

Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Faculty of Arts

Centre for Continuing Education

Faculty of Dentistry

Faculty of Education

Faculty of Engineering

Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Faculty of Law

Desautels Faculty of Management

Faculty of Medicine

Schulich School of Music

Faculty of Religious Studies

Faculty of Science

Since 1996, McGill, in accordance with the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS), has had eight categories qualifying certain international students an exemption from paying international fees. These categories include students from France, a quota of students from select countries which have agreements with MELS (including Algeria, China, and Morocco), students holding diplomatic status (and their dependants), and students enrolled in certain language programs leading to a degree in French.

There are nearly 1,600 tenured or tenure-track professors, plus another 4,300 adjunct and visiting professors teaching at the university.McGill consistently leads the rest of Canada in terms of research dollars per full-time faculty member and number of refereed publications per full-time faculty member. According to a study by Research Infosource, research funding represents approximately $259,100 per faculty member, the fourth highest in the country. Overall, in 2007, Research Infosource ranked McGill the second-best research university in the country, after the University of Toronto.McGill also has one of the most per faculty research dollars nationwide from federal and provincial sources of funding (including the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council).

McGill professors have won 26 Prix du Québec, 14 Prix de l'Association francophone pour le savoir and 13 Killam Prizes.

McGill is Canada's top-ranked medical-doctoral university, ranking first in Canada for the third consecutive year in the Maclean's 17th annual University Rankings issue. The university has held first place in student awards for nine consecutive years, and consistently ranks first for reputation and average size and number of social sciences/humanities grants per full-time faculty.

In the THES - QS World University Rankings 2007, McGill University was ranked the best public university in North America, 8th overall in North America, and 12th in the world. In the world, McGill ranked 26th in the natural sciences, 10th in the life sciences and biomedicine, 27th in technology, 12th in the social sciences, and 12th in the humanities. This achievement has been regarded as the "highest rank to be reached by a Canadian institution."

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in its Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007, ranked McGill third in Canada, 44th in the Americas, and 63nd in the world.

In 2006, Newsweek also ranked McGill third in Canada, 30th in North America, and 42nd worldwide.

McGill is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization of research-intensive universities in North America. It is also a member of Universitas 21, an international association of research-driven universities. In addition, it is a member of the G13, a group of prominent research universities in Canada.

McGill University ranked 11th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

McGill University ranked 20th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
McGill University ranked 18th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
McGill University ranked 19th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

McGill University ranked 17th in the 2011 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Founded in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, the University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892, and was a founding member of the Big Ten Conference. Chicago was one of the first universities in the country to be conceived as a combination of the American interdisciplinary liberal arts college and the German research university.

Affiliated with 81 Nobel Prize laureates, the University of Chicago is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost universities. Historically, the university is noted for the unique undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Maynard Hutchins in the 1930s, and for influential academic movements such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, the Chicago School of Literary Criticism, and the law and economics movement in legal analysis. The University of Chicago was the site of the world's first man-made self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It is also home to the largest university press in the United States.

The University of Chicago is principally located seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Chicago, in the Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods. The campus is bisected by Frederick Law Olmsted's Midway Plaisance, a large linear park created for the 1893 World's Fair. While the bulk of the campus is located north of the Midway, some of the professional schools are located south of the Midway. The quadrangles of the main campus feature a botanical garden and neo-Gothic buildings constructed mostly out of limestone in the late 19th century. The tallest building is Rockefeller Chapel, designed by Bertram Goodhue. Buildings of the original quadrangles were deliberately patterned after the layouts of Oxford University and Cambridge University. Mitchell Tower, for example, is a smaller-sized reproduction of Oxford's Magdalen Tower, and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Oxford's Christ Church Hall.

Contemporary buildings have attempted to complement the style of the original architecture. Notable examples include the Laird Bell Law Quadrangle by Eero Saarinen, the School of Social Service Administration by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright. The largest modern addition is the Regenstein Library, designed by architect Walter Netsch and constructed on the grounds of the former Stagg Field, the site of the world's first nuclear reaction.



The University of Chicago also maintains a number of facilities apart from its main campus. The university's Graduate School of Business maintains campuses in Singapore, London and in downtown Chicago, while the Paris Center, a campus located on the left bank of the River Seine in Paris, hosts various undergraduate and graduate study programs.

The university's Yerkes Observatory, constructed in 1897 and located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is home to the largest refracting telescope ever built. Although Yerkes was never able to match the observation conditions afforded by the mountaintop location of its main competitor, the Lick Observatory, the telescope was a leader in astrophysics. Yerkes was the first telescope to determine the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the first to observe carbon in stellar spectra.

The University of Chicago campus is also home to the Oriental Institute, an internationally renowned archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies. The Institute is housed in an unusual Gothic and Art Deco building designed by the architectural firm Mayers Murray & Phillip. The Museum has artifacts from digs in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Notable possessions include the famous Megiddo Ivories, various treasures from Persepolis, the old Persian capital, a 40-ton human-headed winged lamassu from Khorsabad, the capital of Sargon II, and a monumental statue of King Tutankhamun.

Across the street from the Oriental Institute is the Seminary Co-op bookstore, located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary. The Co-op stocks the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States.

The University of Chicago's economics department is particularly well-known. In fact, an entire school of thought (the Chicago School of Economics) bears its name. Led by Nobel Prize laureates such as Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, George Stigler, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, James Heckman, and Robert Fogel, the university's economics department has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market. The Chicago School of Economics is also famous for applying economic principles to every aspect of human life, as famously demonstrated by University of Chicago Professor Steven Levitt in his best-selling book, Freakonomics.

The university is also known for creating the first sociology department in the United States, which later gave birth to the Chicago School of Sociology. Scholars affiliated with this school are considered pioneers in the field and include Albion Small, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, W. I. Thomas, and Ernest Burgess.

The university is home to several committees for interdisciplinary scholarship, the most famous of which is the Committee on Social Thought. One of several Ph.D-granting committees at the university, it was started in 1941 by University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins along with historian John U. Nef, economist Frank Knight, and anthropologist Robert Redfield. The committee is interdisciplinary, but it is not centered on any specific topic. Since its inception, the committee has drawn together noted academics and writers to "foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry". Members of the committee have included Hannah Arendt, T. S. Eliot, David Grene, Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Friedrich von Hayek, Leon Kass, Mark Strand, Wayne Booth, Joseph Rutherford Hicks, and J.M. Coetzee.

In 1983, the University of Chicago implemented the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, a comprehensive mathematics program for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Today, an estimated 3.5 to 4 million students in elementary and secondary schools in every state and virtually every major urban area are now using UCSMP materials.

Academics

Biological Sciences Division
Booth School of Business
The College (undergraduate studies)
Divinity School
Graham School of General Studies
Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Humanities Division
Law School
Physical Sciences Division
Pritzker School of Medicine
School of Social Service Administration
Social Sciences Division

University of Chicago ranked 7th (tied with Caltech) in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 7th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking