Cornell University

Overview

Cornell University is an Ivy League research university located in Ithaca, New York. It was founded in 1865 and it ranks consistently inside the top 20 and 10 brackets of major ranking organizations, including the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Its academic programs cover seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate schools. Aside from the Ithaca campus, Cornell has locations in New York City and Qatar for its medical school. As of 2019, the university is host to about 15,000 undergraduate students and 9,000 graduate students from across the United States and the world.

The university was founded by Senator Ezra Cornell, who donated his Ithaca farm as the campus site. With a strong technological culture since its inception, Cornell was one of the first universities to install electricity in 1883. It is also the site of student activism in the ‘60s in relation to civil rights, the Vietnam War and other cultural issues. Throughout its history, the university has played host to notable individuals in politics, science and media. These include 61 Nobel laureates, one Fields Medalist and four Turing Award luminaries.

Cornell has over a dozen colleges or schools covering a wide range of disciplines from agriculture, architecture and arts to law, medicine and tech. Some of its oldest colleges include the College of Architecture, Art and Planning founded in 1871, the College of Agriculture and LIfe Sciences founded in 1874 and College of Law founded in 1887. On the other hand, its latest schools include the business school founded in 1946, medical sciences founded in 1952 and, its latest addition, tech, which opened in 2011. The latter being behind Cornell’s reputation as one of the top five universities in the U.S. in establishing startup companies.

Likewise, the university offers study-abroad programs through its partnerships with foreign universities. These include the Queen’s University in Canada, Bocconi University in Italy and the University of Warwick in England.

Graduate students in Cornell pursue Ph.Ds in natural sciences and engineering, leveraging the university’s strong research investment. In 2016, for instance, Cornell spent $984.5 million on research.

Meanwhile, the Cornell University Library is the 11th largest in the country in terms of volume. The institution also runs one of the largest universities in the U.S. producing around 150 nonfiction titles annually in the fields of anthropology, Asian studies, biological sciences, literary criticism, theory, politics and history and industrial relations.