One of the most striking features of California Institute of Technology

is its unusually small size;

only around 1,000 undergraduates and 1,250 postgraduates are enrolled there. Caltech aims to foster an

interdisciplinary environment in which students learn about and tackle the most challenging and fundamental

scientific or technological problems. Among the unusual features ofthe university are the customary cookie break

taken every Thursday by physicists and their students, and the university’s status as a distributor of olive oil.

Stanford University

has generated many start-ups and entrepreneurs and was partly responsible for

the development of the surrounding Silicon Valley. The large campus is home to 97 per cent of undergraduates

and nearly 700 university buildings, alongside museums, gardens and recreational centres. There are just

under 7,000 undergraduates and 9,000 graduates at the university, with a 7:1 student-to-staff ratio. Research at

Stanford has a $1.22 billion budget and more than 5,000 of the projects are externally funded.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

was founded mid-19th century and has always endeavoured

to provide financial aid to students on a needs basis. The first female student, Ellen Swallow Richards, was

admitted to the chemistry department in 1871. Just two years later, the first international student - from Canada -

graduated from MIT. Admission to the university is extremely selective; only 8 per cent o f applicants won a place

in the graduating class o f 2019. Graduates are employed by top companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple.

The University of Cambridge

operates a collegiate system, much like the University of Oxford.

Almost all ofthe 18,000 students belong to a college or hall, where they have the option to live, study and sleep

on site. There are 3 1 colleges and 150 academic departments at Cambridge. Every college has unique traditions

and all students matriculate in a formal ceremony when arriving at the university. Many famous politicians,

cultural figures and scientists spent time in Cambridge, including Isaac Newton and the founder of another the

most prestigious and well-known universities in the whole world.

The University of Oxford

is one of the oldest and the most prestigious university in the UK and

one of the best known in the world. There are more than 20,000 students at Oxford, with an almost equal

number of undergraduates and postgraduates. About 95 per cent of Oxford graduates are either employed or in

postgraduate study within six months o f completing their studies. The university employs staff from just under

100 different countries and foreign citizens make up about 40 per cent of the student and academic body.

Princeton University

is one of the world’s foremost research universities with connections to more than

40 Nobel laureates, 17 winners of the National Medal of Science and five recipients of the National Humanities

Medal. Princeton has also educated two US presidents, James Madison and Woodrow Wilson, who was also the

university’s president prior to entering the White House. Other distinguished graduates include Michelle Obama,

actors Jimmy Stewart and Brooke Shields, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad.