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Which colleges and universities are the most influential in the world? And, in what do they excel?
Find the colleges and universities that have made the biggest historical impact in the discipline, country, and timeframe of your choice! We rank universities and colleges from around the world based on the scholarly work of their faculty and alumni, i.e., influence.
Note: The schools featured using this tool are influential in the disciplines selected. This does not necessarily mean that they offer a degree in the selected discipline. For example, Princeton University ranks highly for its influence in law. Given that Princeton is the alma mater of three former US presidents (James Madison, Woodrow Wilson, and John F. Kennedy) and three Supreme Court Justices (Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, & Sonia Sotomayor), among many other prominent statespeople and law makers, Princeton’s influence in the field of law is undeniable. Nevertheless, they offer degrees in politics and public policy, but not in law specifically.
To find influential schools in the US that offer degrees in your area of interest, use our Custom College Rankings tool.
List of the most influential schools in Psychology, for the years 2000 – 2020
#1
Harvard University
#1 institution's overall influence
#2 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
97%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/34
Cambridge, MA
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Harvard University is almost universally acclaimed as the world’s most prestigious university. There is little doubt that its towering reputation is well earned.
#2
Stanford University
#10 institution's overall influence
#1 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
4%
Graduation
94%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1495/33
Stanford, CA
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Stanford University was founded by Leland Stanford, a wealthy railroad magnate and erstwhile US Senator from California, as well as a former Governor of the Golden State. He placed the university in an unincorporated area about 30 miles south of San Francisco, adjacent to the town of Palo Alto (which he also founded). The campus lies in what is now known as Silicon Valley, which contributes greatly to the immense intellectual and economic influence of the private, research university that still bears the Stanford family name. Today, Stanford University is perhaps the closest thing to a true Iv...
#3
University of London
#2 institution's overall influence
An institution of higher education named University College London (UCL) was founded in the UK’s largest metropolis and capital city in 1826. A mere three years later, in 1829, a second, similar institution named King’s College London (KCL) opened its doors. Then, a mere decade after the founding of UCL, a third institution known simply as University of London (UL) was founded in 1836 by the merger of UCL and KCL.
#4
Columbia University
#3 institution's overall influence
#6 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
6%
Graduation
95%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
New York, NY
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Columbia is the eleventh-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. After New Jersey founded its college (now Princeton University) in 1746, New Yorkers, not wishing to be outdone, established their own college just eight years later. Its original name was King’s College.
#5
University of Michigan
#15 institution's overall influence
#37 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
23%
Graduation
91%
Student body
42K
Median SAT/ACT
1420/32
Ann Arbor, MI
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The flagship campuses of many of the state university systems have superb faculties and excellent academic reputations. However, setting aside Berkeley as a special case, by our criteria the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus is the most distinguished of all these many fine institutions. That is, Michigan has a strong claim to be considered (after Berkeley) the best public research university in the US.
#6
Yale University
#7 institution's overall influence
#4 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
6%
Graduation
98%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1515/34
New Haven, CT
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Yale was originally founded under the name of Collegiate School by Connecticut Colony in 1701. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher learning in the US, after Harvard, the College of William & Mary (in Williamsburg, Virginia), and St. John’s College (in Annapolis, Maryland). Called the “Collegiate School,” its original mission was to train future ministers for the Congregational Church.
#7
University of California, Berkeley
#6 institution's overall influence
#29 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
92%
Student body
41K
Median SAT/ACT
1425/33
Berkeley, CA
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The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the state's first land-grant university, it is the oldest campus of the University of California system and a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Among its 14 colleges and schools, the university employs over 2,500 faculty and enrolls some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students, and its 180 academic departments and 80 interdisciplinary research units offer over 350 degree programs. Berkeley is ranked among the world's top universities by ma...
#8
University of Pennsylvania
#17 institution's overall influence
#10 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
95%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1485/33
Philadelphia, PA
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The University of Pennsylvania (commonly known as “Penn”) is a leading private research university (note that nearly all US universities named after their state are public-supported—Penn is an exception to this rule).
#9
University of Chicago
#5 institution's overall influence
#8 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
94%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1520/34
Chicago, IL
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The University of Chicago is one of the foremost universities in the world academically, albeit one of the youngest in that august company. In spite of its relatively recent founding, the school has been associated with some of the world’s most important scientific achievements, above all, the first controlled, self-sustaining, nuclear chain reaction (atomic fission), which was achieved in late 1942 by a team led by the legendary Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, in a laboratory beneath a football field on the Chicago campus.
#10
New York University
#16 institution's overall influence
#44 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
20%
Graduation
85%
Student body
47K
Median SAT/ACT
1410/31
New York, NY
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As the cultural mecca of the US, New York City naturally contains many fine colleges and universities. One of the very best is New York University (NYU), located in Washington Square in Lower Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. While NYU is a quintessentially urban school lacking a conventional, pastoral college campus setting, its site is immediately recognizable thanks to Washington Square Arch, which is a replica of the ancient Roman Arch of Titus and very similar in appearance to Paris’s celebrated Arc de Triomphe (though only half its size).
#11
Princeton University
#8 institution's overall influence
#5 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
5%
Graduation
97%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/33
Princeton, NJ
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Although only the ninth-oldest university in the country, Princeton is one of the most historic. Originally founded as the College of New Jersey, the school’s sixth presidents, the Scottish theologian and educator John Witherspoon, signed the Declaration of Independence—the only college leader to do so. The next year, George Washington’s colonials dealt a small but significant blow to Lord Cornwallis’s superior forces at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. The victories at the earlier Battle of Trenton and at Princeton had an important positive effect on American morale, leading ...
#12
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
#9 institution's overall influence
#3 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
93%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1535/35
Cambridge, MA
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded shortly before the American Civil War and universally known as “MIT,” is located just across the Charles River from downtown Boston. Starting from the MIT campus, if you walk, cycle, or drive in a westerly direction along Massachusetts Avenue (“Mass Ave,” to the locals), or ride the Red Line underneath it, you soon arrive at Harvard Square, with the bulk of the town of Cambridge sandwiched in between. Thus, MIT is not unlike a bookend paired with Harvard, geographically speaking, and academically speaking, as well, it looks upon itself very mu...
#13
Cornell University
#14 institution's overall influence
#14 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
94%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
Ithaca, NY
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Cornell University was founded in turbulent times. With the Civil War winding down, and less than two weeks after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the Governor of New York signed the school’s official charter in the state capital, Albany, where only the day before Lincoln’s funeral procession had passed through the city’s streets.
#14
University of Vienna
#19 institution's overall influence
The University of Vienna was founded by the Habsburg ruler, Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria. This monarch was known as “Rudolf der Stifter” [Rudolf the Founder] on account of his fondness for building new cathedrals and monasteries, as well as the university. He may also have been motivated by rivalry with his Central European peers, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV (who had established Charles University in Prague just a few years earlier, in 1348) and Casimir III (known as “Casimir the Great”), King of Poland (who had founded Jagiellonian University in Kraków one year earlier, in 1364).
#15
University of Wisconsin–Madison
#25 institution's overall influence
#216 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
52%
Graduation
85%
Student body
36K
Median SAT/ACT
1365/29
Madison, WI
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The University of Wisconsin was founded at the same time that the eastern part of the Wisconsin Territory became the new state of Wisconsin and entered the union. In accord with its charter, the new state university was physically located in the state capital, Madison.
#16
University of California, Los Angeles
#23 institution's overall influence
#31 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
14%
Graduation
91%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1405/32
Los Angeles, CA
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The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA traces its early origins back to 1882 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School . It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system.
#17
University of Cambridge
#4 institution's overall influence
Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is one of the oldest universities in the world (or, at least, in Europe, not to prejudge the claims of several Islamic institutions to that title).
#18
Duke University
#31 institution's overall influence
#12 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1510/34
Durham, NC
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Duke began life as Brown’s Schoolhouse, on a site in what is now the town of Trinity in Randolph County, North Carolina, a little over 70 miles west of its current location in the city of Durham.
#19
University of Oxford
#11 institution's overall influence
The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, which affords it an aura of awe and respect that no amount of money can buy.
#20
University of Toronto
#24 institution's overall influence
The University of Toronto received its royal charter in 1827 from King George IV. Originally known as King’s College, it was the first institution of higher learning in the colonial Province of Upper Canada (consisting of mostly what is now southern Ontario).
#21
McGill University
#40 institution's overall influence
McGill University is the direct descendent of McGill College, founded by royal charter in 1821 and largely funded by a bequest from the Scottish-born Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist, James McGill. The university took its present name in 1885.
#22
University of Minnesota
#33 institution's overall influence
#890 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$15K
Acceptance
52%
Graduation
78%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/28
Minneapolis, MN
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The University of Minnesota (UM) traces its roots to a college preparatory school established in the city of Minneapolis seven years before Minnesota entered the Union in 1858. This school closed its doors during the Civil War, but reopened in 1867.
#23
Johns Hopkins University
#20 institution's overall influence
#21 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
92%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
Baltimore, MD
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Johns Hopkins was designed from its origin to contribute to the cutting edge of scientific discovery. With time, this goal has been fully achieved, leading to the top-tier research institution that the university is today. The school is named after its founding benefactor, the entrepreneur and philanthropist Johns Hopkins, who contributed $7 million (approximately $145 million in today’s money) to create both the university and an associated hospital.
#24
Brandeis University
#86 institution's overall influence
#167 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
90%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/31
Waltham, MA
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Brandeis University was founded in suburban Boston in 1948. Its founders intended to provide a top-rank research university that would be friendly to Jewish students and faculty—at a time when the American Ivy League schools all restricted the number of their Jewish students according to a strict quota system.
#25
University of Zurich
#41 institution's overall influence
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zürich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine which go back to 1525, and a new faculty of philosophy.
#26
Northwestern University
#28 institution's overall influence
#24 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
94%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1490/34
Evanston, IL
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The founding of Northwestern University was spearheaded by the physician and politician John Evans, for whom the town of Evanston, Illinois, is named. The school is a private institution whose campus lies along Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago.
#27
Humboldt University of Berlin
#13 institution's overall influence
This university has a fascinating pedigree. It was originally founded by Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm III, in consultation with three great German Enlightenment thinkers: the philologist and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, the philosopher J.G. Fichte, and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. Originally known simply as the University of Berlin, for most of its existence up until the aftermath of World War II, it was officially known as the Friedrich Wilhelm University.
#28
Brooklyn College
#116 institution's overall influence
#1381 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
44%
Graduation
51%
Student body
15K
Brooklyn, NY
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Brooklyn College, a component part of the City University of New York (CUNY) with a student body of around 1,850, was founded in 1930.
#29
University of Edinburgh
#12 institution's overall influence
In spite of dating back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the University of Edinburgh is only the fourth-oldest university in Scotland (after St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen), hence the sixth-oldest in the English-speaking world (with Oxford and Cambridge, of course, in first and second positions).
#30
University of British Columbia
#60 institution's overall influence
The University of British Columbia (UBC) was founded in 1908.
#31
Carnegie Mellon University
#46 institution's overall influence
#35 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
90%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1500/34
Pittsburgh, PA
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In 1900, the Scottish-born industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, donated the funds to establish a vocational college called the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, the Technical Schools’ name was changed to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT).
#32
University of California, San Diego
#48 institution's overall influence
#71 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
30%
Graduation
87%
Student body
36K
Median SAT/ACT
1365/30
La Jolla, CA
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The University of California, San Diego is a public research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling approximately 30,800 undergraduate and 8,000 graduate students. The university occupies near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately .
#33
University of Texas at Austin
#43 institution's overall influence
#43 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
81%
Student body
45K
Median SAT/ACT
1355/30
Austin, TX
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By rights, the University of Texas (known within Texas itself as “UT,” for short) ought to be 40 years older than it is. In 1839, the Republic of Texas officially set aside 40 acres of prime real estate in the center of the new country’s capital city, Austin, as the site for the campus of a national university. The Texas Congress also granted 288,000 acres of land, mainly in the western regions of the Republic, as a financial endowment for the future university.
#34
University of Washington
#42 institution's overall influence
#69 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
84%
Student body
46K
Median SAT/ACT
1340/29
Seattle, WA
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In the 1850s, the Governor of Washington Territory and some of his Seattle-based friends and business associates, including a prominent Methodist minister, put their heads together to figure out a way to advance two causes close to their hearts: the prospect of statehood for the territory and the economic welfare of the city of Seattle.
#35
Teachers College
#304 institution's overall influence
Student body
4K
New York, NY
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Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education, health and psychology in New York City. Founded in 1887, it has served as the Faculty and Department of Education of Columbia University since its affiliation in 1898. Teachers College is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
#36
Boston University
#37 institution's overall influence
#56 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
22%
Graduation
87%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/31
Boston, MA
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Boston University (universally known as “BU”) traces its roots to a Methodist Church training college, the Newbury Biblical Institute, founded in Newbury, Vermont, by a group of Boston-based Methodist ministers and elders. Ten years later, in 1849, the school was transferred to the much larger town (and state capital) of Concord, New Hampshire, where it operated as the Concord Biblical Institute for 20 more years. Finally, in 1869, it moved again, this time to Boston itself, under the new name of the Boston Theological Institute.
#37
University of Virginia
#44 institution's overall influence
#40 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
26%
Graduation
94%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/32
Charlottesville, VA
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The University of Virginia (UVA) was very much the personal project of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Virginia already had a venerable and distinguished university, the College of William & Mary, which is the second-oldest in the country—founded right after Harvard—and was Jefferson’s own alma mater.
#38
City College of New York
#58 institution's overall influence
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
48%
Graduation
47%
Student body
13K
New York, NY
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The City College of the City University of New York is a public college of the City University of New York system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City College was the first free public institution of higher education in the United States. It is the oldest of CUNY's 24 institutions of higher learning, and is considered its flagship college.
#39
Michigan State University
#103 institution's overall influence
#1461 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
78%
Student body
43K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/26
East Lansing, MI
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Michigan State University (MSU) was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the US. Its original curriculum elevated the study of the natural sciences over the Classical languages and humanities, which was quite unusual at the time.
#40
University of California, Santa Barbara
#94 institution's overall influence
#100 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
82%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1345/30
Santa Barbara, CA
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Dating all the way back to the 1891 founding of a small, vocational institution called the Anna Blake School, the University of California, Santa Barbara is now a full-blown public research university, and among the most influential schools in the world.
#41
Rutgers University
#47 institution's overall influence
Rutgers University’s full official name is Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
#42
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
#80 institution's overall influence
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was founded in 1918 in the ancient city of Jerusalem. At the time the city, as well as the entire surrounding region of Palestine, was under British military control.
#43
University of Pittsburgh
#71 institution's overall influence
#987 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$19K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
81%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1350/30
Pittsburgh, PA
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University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) traces its roots to the Pittsburgh Academy, a preparatory school founded in 1787, when Pittsburgh was still a frontier outpost. Defined in this way, Pitt is the oldest continuously chartered educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains.
#44
Ohio State University
#104 institution's overall influence
#77 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
52%
Graduation
84%
Student body
55K
Median SAT/ACT
1345/29
Columbus, OH
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Ohio State University (OSU) was founded in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. Three years later, in 1873, the new school opened its doors to a small group of 24 students. In 1878, the first class of just six students graduated.
#45
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
#75 institution's overall influence
#38 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
23%
Graduation
91%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
Chapel Hill, NC
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The University of North Carolina (UNC) system is a large network of 16 public universities with a total student enrollment of around 240,000 souls. The oldest member of the UNC system is the flagship campus in the small, centrally located town of Chapel Hill.
#46
University of Southern California
#39 institution's overall influence
#30 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
13%
Graduation
92%
Student body
37K
Median SAT/ACT
1440/32
Los Angeles, CA
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The University of Southern California (USC) was founded as the first private research university in the state (five years before Stanford) largely through the efforts of Judge Robert Widney, one of the most prominent citizens of Los Angeles at that time.
#47
University of Arizona
#84 institution's overall influence
#605 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
60%
Student body
39K
Median SAT/ACT
1190/24
Tucson, AZ
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The University of Arizona (UA) was founded in 1885, when Arizona was still a territory (it entered the Union in 1912).
#48
Leipzig University
#21 institution's overall influence
As with several other universities on this list, the founding of the University of Leipzig occurred in the context of the gradual coalescence in Central Europe of numerous principalities out of the slow disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire. Numerous semi-autonomous duchies, principalities, and kingdoms (small, medium, and large) were brought into being by this historic political transformation, and many of the dukes, princes, and kings who governed them coveted the prestige of having a university on their own territory.
#49
University of Iowa
#56 institution's overall influence
#369 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
72%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1225/25
Iowa City, IA
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The University of Iowa was founded in late February of 1847, as one of the very first legislative acts of the new state of Iowa after it was admitted to the union at the end of December of the previous year.
#50
Brown University
#36 institution's overall influence
#7 overall school desirability
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
8%
Graduation
96%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1485/33
Providence, RI
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Brown began life as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (officially) or Rhode Island College (unofficially). It is the twelfth-oldest institution of higher learning in the US.
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