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The University of Michigan (UM, U-M, UMich, or U of M), frequently referred to as simply Michigan, is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. It is the state's oldest university and has two satellite campuses located in Flint and Dearborn. The university was founded in 1817 in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, about 20 years before the Michigan Territory officially became a state. What would become the university moved to Ann Arbor in 1837 onto 40 acres (16 ha) of what is now known as Central Campus. Since its establishment in Ann Arbor, the university campus has expanded to include more than 584 major buildings with a combined area of more than 34 million gross square feet (781 acres or 3.16 km?), and has transformed its academic program from a strictly classical curriculum to one that includes science and research.The university has very high research activity and its comprehensive graduate program offers doctoral degrees in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) as well as professional degrees in medicine, law, nursing, social work and dentistry. Michigan was one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities, and its body of living alumni (as of 2012) comprises more than 500,000. Michigan's athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Wolverines. They are members of the Big Ten Conference.

The University of Oxford (informally Oxford University or simply Oxford) is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. While having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the world's second-oldest surviving university.[6] It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient universities are frequently jointly referred to as Oxbridge. The University is made up from a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges and a full range of academic departments which are organised into four Divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions as part of the University, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities.[9] Being a city university, it does not have a main campus; instead, all the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the metropolitan centre.Most undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the self-governing colleges and halls, supported by classes, lectures and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments. Oxford is also the home of several notable scholarships, including the Clarendon Scholarship which was launched in 2001[10] and the Rhodes Scholarship which has brought graduate students to read at the university for more than a century. Oxford also holds the largest university press in the world,[12] and the largest academic library system in the country.Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 27 Nobel laureates (58 total affiliations), 26 British Prime Ministers (most recently David Cameron) and many foreign heads of state.[14]

The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn or UPenn) is an American private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and one of the nine original Colonial Colleges. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple faculties (e.g., theology, classics, medicine) into one institution. It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), the first collegiate business school (Wharton, 1881) and the first student union (Houston Hall, 1896)[7] were all born at Penn. Penn offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. It is particularly well known for its medical school, dental school, design school, school of business, law school, communications school, nursing school, veterinary school, its social sciences and humanities programs, as well as its biomedical teaching and research capabilities. Its undergraduate programs are also among the most selective in the country (approximately 10% acceptance rate).[8] One of Penn's most well known academic qualities is its emphasis on interdisciplinary education, which it promotes through numerous joint degree programs, research centers and professorships, a unified campus, and the ability for students to take classes from any of Penn's schools (the One University Policy).[9] All of Penn's schools exhibit very high research activity. Penn is consistently included among the top five research universities in the United States,[10] and among the top research universities in the world, for both quality and quantity of research.[11] In fiscal year 2011, Penn topped the Ivy League in academic research spending with an $814 million budget, involving some 4,000 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,400 support staff/graduate assistants. As one of the most active and prolific research institutions, Penn is associated with several important innovations and discoveries in many fields of science and the humanities. Among them are the first general purpose electronic computer (ENIAC), the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines, Retin-A, cognitive therapy, conjoint analysis and others.Penn's academic and research programs are led by a large and highly productive faculty.[12] Nine Penn faculty members or graduates have won a Nobel Prize in the last ten years. Over its long history the university has also produced many distinguished alumni. These include twelve heads of state (including one U.S. President), three United States Supreme Court justices, and supreme court justices of other states, founders of technology companies, international law firms, and global financial institutions, university presidents and eighteen living billionaires.

The University of Toronto (U of T, UToronto, or Toronto) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed the present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises twelve colleges that differ in character and history, each retaining substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs.Academically, the University of Toronto is noted for influential movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, known collectively as the Toronto School. The university was the birthplace of insulin and stem cell research, and was the site of the first practical electron microscope, the development of multi-touch technology, the identification of Cygnus X-1 as a black hole, and the theory of NP completeness. By a significant margin, it receives the most annual research funding of any Canadian university. It is one of two members of the Association of American Universities located outside the United States. The Varsity Blues are the athletic teams representing the university in intercollegiate league matches, with particularly long and storied ties to gridiron football and ice hockey. The university's Hart House is an early example of the North American student centre, simultaneously serving cultural, intellectual and recreational interests within its large Gothic-revival complex. The University of Toronto has educated two Governors General and four Prime Ministers of Canada, four foreign leaders, fourteen Justices of the Supreme Court, and has been affiliated with ten Nobel laureates. The university ranks 1st in Canada and 20th in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 1st in Canada and 28th in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and also 1st in Canada and 17th globally in the QS World University Rankings.

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut. The university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Originally chartered as the Collegiate School, the institution traces its roots to 17th-century clergymen who sought to establish a college to train clergy and political leaders for the colony. In 1718, the College was renamed Yale College to honor a gift from Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company. In 1861, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences became the first U.S. institution to award the Ph.D.[5] Yale became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. Yale College was transformed, beginning in the 1930s, through the establishment of residential colleges. Yale comprises 15 academic schools with 12 residential colleges. Its central campus is in downtown New Haven, and additional lands in rural Connecticut and Horse Island hold the Yale golf course and nature preserves. The university's assets include an endowment valued at $20.80 billion as of 2013, the second-largest of any academic institution in the world.Almost all tenured professors teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually. Yale's library system holds a total of about 13 million volumes,[9] the second-largest of any academic library in country.[10] Its students compete intercollegiately as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I Ivy League.Yale has graduated many notable alumni, including five U.S. Presidents, 19 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and many foreign heads of state. Moreover, 51 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the University as students, faculty, or staff.