Famous American Universities

East Coast are home to the densest cluster of the top American universities, and therefore a good place to start the tour—you can cover a lot of institutions without having to spend too much time in transit.

* Amherst College [1] in Amherst, Massachusetts, is one of America's top small liberal arts colleges, with a charming campus.


* Brown University [2] is located on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. The neighborhood is also called College Hill. Brown is within walking distance of downtown Providence.


* Carnegie Mellon University [3] is located in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the Oakland neighborhood. It is famous for its world renowned School of Computer Science, where many of today's computer technology was pioneered.




* Columbia University [4] is at 116th & Broadway in New York City. Founded in 1754 as King's College, it was originally situated next to Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. From there, it moved to Park Place (near City Hall), then to E49th Street and Madison Avenue, and finally to its present Morningside Heights campus in 1897. The campus can be reached by the 1 train or by the M60, M104, M4, and M11 buses.



* Cornell University [5] is located in Ithaca, New York. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell, the university is situated on a hill that overlooks the scenic finger lakes region of New York State.


* Dartmouth College[6]] is located in the small town setting of Hanover, New Hampshire. An Ivy League member founded in 1769, it bears the name "college" due to its focus on undergraduate studies, but is a University with highly respected graduate schools in Arts & Sciences, Medicine, Engineering (Thayer) and Business (Tuck). Dartmouth can be reached by bus from Boston or by Amtrak's Vermonter line to nearby White River Junction, Vermont. From Boston by car (about 2.5 hours), take Interstate 93 to Interstate 89 to Rt. 120. Hanover is about a five hour drive from New York City.

* Georgetown University [7], is in Washington, D.C. and is the oldest Jesuit university in America, founded in 1789. The university is located in the historic Georgetown neighborhood in northwest Washington. Georgetown's campus is a combination of Gothic revival and Georgian styles.


* Harvard University's [8] landmark location is Harvard Yard, the heart of Harvard College (the undergraduate arm of Harvard University), and the home of the College's freshman dormitories, the mammoth Widener Library, and the statue of John Harvard (a favorite with tourists). The Yard is directly adjacent to the Harvard Red Line station. Across Massachusetts Avenue from the train station is the Harvard Coop, a three-building university store housing a cafe, a bookstore, and mountains of Harvard paraphanelia. Harvard Square's profusion of bookstores and coffee shops merit a discussion of their own, which may be found in the Cambridge article.


* The Massachusetts Institute of Technology [9] is located Cambridge, Massachusetts, just two metro stops away from Harvard University. Arriving by train from the south will bring you to South Station, which connects directly to MIT and Harvard on the Red Line subway. Arrival by plane will bring you to Logan Airport, from which Cambridge can be reached by car, or by train by taking the Blue Line to Government Center, the Green Line to Park Street, and the Red Line to Harvard or Kendall/MIT.


* New York University (NYU) [10] is located in Greenwich Village in New York City, near Washington Square (easily accessible via the West 4th St. subway station, which is on a mainline of the subway in lower Manhattan ("blue lines").)


* Princeton University [11] is located in Princeton, New Jersey; the article on the town carries more detailed information about the school. The campus can be reached by car or train from nearby New York City in about an hour, depending on traffic or train frequency.


* Rutgers University [12] has its main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey and nearby Picscataway; it is convenient from the train station, to which one can get to from New York (city) in 40 minutes to an hour (travel times are shorter than to Princeton (see below), as New Brunswick is closer on the line). By car, one can take the New Jersey Turnpike to exit 9 and take Route 18 to New Brunswick. Other campuses are in Newark, New Jersey and Camden, New Jersey.


* The University of Pennsylvania [13], informally known as Penn is located in the western region of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Penn is integrated into Philadelphia's urban transport grid, making it easily accessible by bus, subway, and car. Penn spans from 40th St to 32nd St, with the core of the campus between Walnut and Spruce streets.


* Williams College [14] in Williamstown, Massachusetts, is one of America's top small liberal arts colleges, and also one of the oldest.


* Yale University[15]] is in New Haven, Connecticut. Travelers looking to avoid expensive Amtrak fares are in luck if they are traveling from New York City; New Haven is the last stop on the New Haven line of the Metro-North commuter railroad. A one-way ticket will cost up to $18, depending on time of travel.. A recognizable destination for taxis should be "Phelps Gate," which is a gate that opens onto the east end, roughly speaking, of Old Campus, a major open space on campus. [edit] Get around Nearly all of the East Coast universities are easily reachable by the Boston-Washington Amtrak Northeast Corridor rail line, although it is much faster to fly between far-flung cities on the Corridor (Boston to Washington is a 90-minute flight versus an eight-hour train ride. Acela Express is a fast railroad means of going between the two, but it is quite expensive. Amtrak trains are also much faster than the eight hour estimate, which is obviously based on commuter services such as SEPTA, NJ Transit, and Metro-North.) Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. and cities between are also served by commercial bus lines, the cheapest of which are Chinatown bus services, which travel between the Chinatowns in the four major cities (as well as midtown in New York City; Chinatown in NYC is downtown, and so the buses serve both locations). Road travel, whether by bus or by car, may not be the best option for the farthest-flung points. Car travel can be a nightmare in tangled cities like Boston (home to the infamous Big Dig) and New York.