What are the top universities in the world?

As of 2008 there are OVER 500 Universities in the entire world today. Did you know that the U.S. has 42 TOP Universities alone? Yes quite a bit. The U.S. has the most of any country. Lets take a look at some of the World's top Universities...

• Harvard University, U.S.
  

• Yale University, U.S.
  

• University of Cambridge, U.K.

Above are the top 3 universities as of 2008. Here's a little about the top 3.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY:

Ranking the number 1 spot in the world, Harvard University. Harvard was named after its sponsor, John Harvard of Charlestown, MA. It was founded in 1636 by a vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Harvard is America's oldest college of higher learning. It was opened 140 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed! It started out having 9 students with a single teacher/professor and has progressed to over 52,000 bodies at the college including, offsite hospital teachers, faculty, ungrad strudents, princeipal academic officials. Did you know that there has been 7 presidents of the U.S. that graduated from Harvard? John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes, John F. Kennedy, and George W. Bush.

YALE UNIVERSITY:

World ranking #2 top university in the world. Started in 1701. It was opened under the name Collegiate School in Abraham Pierson's home, in Killingworth, CT. The school then was moved to New Haven in 1716. In 1718 A very thoughful and generous gift of 9 bales of goods, 417 books, a photograph of King George I, The gift was recieved from Elihu Yale. Upon recieving the gift The Collegiate School was renamed Yale College, in thanks to a Welsh Merchant, Elihu Yale. By the end of the first hundred years Yale had grown fast. The Yale School of Medicine was opened in 1810, the Divinity School in 1822, Law School 1824, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in1847. Along with many other schools. Yale awarded the first Ph.D. in the U.S.

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE:

University of Cambridge is amazingly rich in history. The university itself being 800 years old. It is one of the worlds oldest universities. It has an outstanding reputation for academic achievments. The earliest record of Cambridge is from 1209, when dozens of scholars gathered at the ancient Roman trading post of Cambridge solely for the purpose of studying. In 1284, the first college at Cambridge, Peterhouse was opened by Bishop of Ely. In 1584, The world's oldest press started. It was called The Cambridge University Press. It still publishes everyday, even today! It's 425 years old! It is ranked 3rd of the top universities in the world.

Here are some more of the top universities in the world:

• California Institute of Technology (Caltech), U.S.

• University of Oxford, U.K.

• Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT) U.S.

• Johns Hopkins University, U.S.

• Imperial College London, U.K.

• University of Tokyo, Japan

• Australian National University, Australia

• Mcgill University, Canada

• Kyoto University, Japan

• University of Chicago, U.S.

• University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China