University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA, USA)

The University of Pennsylvania (universally known as “Penn”) is an Ivy League school dating back to 1740. To this day, the university—which has become an integral part of the city of Philadelphia—carries forward the practical curiosity of its founder, Benjamin Franklin, in a wide spectrum of fields.

Penn is extremely diverse. Of the class of 2017, 50 percent of the student body is black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American. The school also has just under 500 international students.

The faculty include 84 Academy of Arts and Sciences members, 81 Institute of Medicine members, 33 National Academy of Science members, 31 American Philosophical Society members, 175 Guggenheim Fellowship recipients, and 12 National Academy of Engineering members.

These first-class thinkers power the school’s more than 100 research centers and institutes, and direct much of its $8 billion endowment.

The school owns 357 buildings spread over 994 acres, in addition to its own teaching hospital.

University of Washington (Seattle, WA, USA)

University of Washington’s $2.1 billion endowment combines with 54,000 students paying state school tuition via three campuses and distance learning. This combination makes the school a top-notch research center available to the masses.

The university runs several highly respected professional schools in medicine, engineering, business, and law.

However, unlike many schools of its size and caliber, UW does not forget about its undergraduates. They enjoy a low 11:1 student-to-teacher ratio, as well as an annual undergraduate research symposium. The university also boasts an impressive 93 percent freshman retention rate.

UW has launched multiple prominent social research centers such as the Diversity Research Institute, the Center for Women’s Health and Gender Research, the Institute for Ethnic Studies in the U.S., and the West Coast Poverty Center.

The school has produced 35 Rhodes Scholars and seven Marshall Scholars. Moreover, four current professors and three alumni have won the Nobel Prize, and over 130 have become Fulbright Scholars.

University of California at San Diego (San Diego, CA, USA)

With a roughly $750 million endowment and over 30,000 students, no one would ever expect that the University of California at San Diego is younger than many of its faculty members.

The school lies on the frontiers of knowledge despite being founded in 1960. It is also unique in that unlike many of the private schools it competes with, UC San Diego is a public school with competitive costs. In-state students pay only $13,302 for tuition, and even out-of-state students will typically save $10,000 or more per year.

The school is one of the 10 largest centers for scientific research in America, which is why it has attracted 16 Nobel Laureates to teach there during the past 50 years.

Over 650 companies were launched or utilize technology developed at UC San Diego and, as of 2013, the university’s Technology Office managed over 400 license agreements. This propensity for innovation has been especially productive in the increasingly lucrative field of biotechnology.

Besides being ranked 14th in the world overall, UC San Diego is also ranked 15th for scientific impact (according to the Center for Science and Technology Studies), sixth for happiest freshmen in America (CBS News), and first for positive impact on the world (Washington Monthly).

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, USA)

Cornell University is a sprawling city of scholarship that seems almost out of place amid the rolling upstate New York countryside.

Typically, schools numbering in the tens of thousands are integrated into much larger cities. Thus, in many ways Cornell has both the air of a quaint college nestled in the woods and the endless opportunity characteristic of urban centers.

But Cornell is not limited by its beautiful upstate campus. It also runs one of the nation’s leading medical schools in New York City. Moreover, the university is among the most active schools in seeking out international connections. In 2001, it started the first American medical school outside the states, in Qatar, and continues to develop strong ties with China, India, and Singapore.

Cornell is building itself into a transnational hub of intellectual inquiry. It has also developed multiple interdisciplinary research centers in nanotechnology, biotechnology, genomics, and supercomputing.

The university was also the first to build entire colleges for hotel administration, labor relations, and veterinary medicine.

University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

With over 72,000 applications for the fall of 2012 alone, UCLA receives more applications than any other school in America. This is all the more impressive when one considers the institution was only founded in 1919 as a two-year, undergraduate teacher-training program.

Today, the university can claim 13 Nobel Laureates, 12 Rhodes Scholars, 12 MacArthur Fellows, 10 National Medal of Science winners, three Pulitzer Prize winners, and a Fields Medalist.

UCLA has also produced numerous athletic achievements, with over 111 NCAA championships, 110 professional athletes, dominance over the No. 1 pick in the major league drafts, and 250 Olympic medals.

With a roughly $3 billion endowment and a budget exceeding $4.5 billion, UCLA has recovered rapidly from the 2008 financial crisis. Its substantial research funds are a part of the reason why over 100 companies have been created based on technology developed at the school.

Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA)

Yale University has everything one would expect from a major research university: it is one of the eight original Ivy League schools; it has a $20 billion endowment; and roughly one in six of its students come from foreign nations.

Yale has also had a disproportionate influence on American politics. Numerous major U.S. political careers have begun at Yale—the school’s notorious Skull and Bones secret society has produced three Presidents—and Yale Law School has been the preeminent law school in the country for years.

The university’s research centers address topics as varied as Benjamin Franklin’s writings, bioethics, magnetic resonance research, and the Russian archives.

Whereas many other elite institutions develop areas of specialization—be it Caltech’s and MIT’s focus on science and technology or Princeton’s focus on pure research—Yale is equally dominant in the humanities, the sciences, and the learned professions. This gives the school a unique ability to pursue interdisciplinary research.

Yale also enjoys a flexible alumni network that stretches to every corner of the globe.

Oxford University (Oxford, UK)

Oxford University traces its origins back to the 13th century. With its intellectual roots firmly planted in medieval scholasticism, Oxford has survived the centuries, adapted to the times, and grown into what it is today—one of the world’s most impressive centers of learning.

Perhaps more than any other school in the world, Oxford’s name has become synonymous with knowledge and learning. This is because the school runs the world’s largest—and arguably most prestigious—academic press, with offices in over 50 countries.

One in five people who learn English worldwide do so with Oxford University Press materials. This international appeal may explain why almost 40 percent of the student body comes from outside the U.K.

Oxford’s academic community includes 80 Fellows of the Royal Society and 100 Fellows of the British Academy. Over 17,200 people applied for 3,200 undergraduate places in 2014.

However, despite thousands of undergraduate students willing to pay full tuition and centuries of accumulated assets, the highest source of income for Oxford continues to be research grants and contracts.