Columbia University, New York City

Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League. It has been ranked by numerous major education publications as among the top ten universities in the world as well as one of the most prestigious.
Columbia was established as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain in reaction to the founding of Princeton University in New Jersey. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University.
Columbia scientists and scholars have played an important role in the development of notable scientific fields and breakthroughs including: brain-computer interface; the laser and maser; nuclear magnetic resonance; the first nuclear pile; the first nuclear fission reaction in the Americas; Thomas Hunt Morgan's drosophila experiment – considered the origin of modern genetics; the first evidence for plate tectonics and continental drift; and much of the initial research and planning of the Manhattan Project during World War II. The Columbia University Physics Department has been affiliated with 33 Nobel Prize winners as alumni, faculty or research staff, the third most of any American institution behind MIT and Harvard. In addition, 22 Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine have been affiliated with Columbia, the third most of any American institution.


The university's research efforts include the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Goddard Institute for Space Studies and accelerator laboratories with major technology firms such as IBM. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree. The university administers the Pulitzer Prize annually. Columbia is organized into twenty schools, including three undergraduate schools and numerous graduate schools. It maintains research centers outside of the United States known as Columbia Global Centers.


In 2019, Columbia's undergraduate acceptance rate was 5.1%, making it one of the most selective colleges in the United States, and the second most selective in the Ivy League after Harvard. Columbia is ranked as the 3rd best university in the United States by U.S. News & World Report behind Princeton and Harvard. In athletics, the Lions field varsity teams in 29 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference. The university's endowment stood at $10.9 billion in 2019, among the largest of any academic institution.
As of 2018, Columbia's alumni and affiliates include: five Founding Fathers of the United States—among them an author of the United States Constitution and a co-author of the Declaration of Independence; three U.S. presidents; 29 foreign heads of state; ten Justices of the United States Supreme Court, two of whom currently serve; 96 Nobel laureates; 101 National Academy members; 53 living billionaires; eleven Olympic medalists; 33 Academy Award winners; and 125 Pulitzer Prize recipients.

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