1. The student to faculty ratio of 5:1 is one of the best in the world.

2. Stanford is one of the most research-oriented universities in the world. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel and Stanford has the largest number of Turing award winners (dubbed the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”) for a single institution. Stanford’s current community of scholars includes 19 Nobel Prize laureates and 4 Pulitzer Prize winners.

3. Stanford is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires and 17 current astronauts.

4. Stanford is well-known for its culture of encouraging and nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit in its students. Faculty and alumni have founded many prominent companies including Google, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Sun Microsystems, Wipro, GAP, Firefox, PayPal, Yahoo!, etc. and companies founded by Stanford alumni generate more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue, equivalent to the 10th largest economy in the world. The Sun in Sun Microsystems originally stood for “Stanford University Network”. Forbes magazine has gone on-record remarking, “It is almost impossible to name a leading-edge company in Silicon Valley that isn’t closely associated with Stanford.”

5.  Stanford has a rich heritage of sports –  Stanford students have won medals in every Olympic Games since 1908, winning 244 Olympic medals total, 129 of them gold. In the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Stanford won more Olympic medals than any other university in the United States and, in terms of total medals won, would have tied with Japan for 11th place! Stanford students won 16 medals at the 2012 Olympics—12 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze.

6. Given Stanford’s focus on leadership, it’s no wonder that its list of alumni includes 2 former Japanese Prime Ministers, former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, former President of Guatemala Jorge Serrano Elias, President of the Maldives Mohammed Waheed Hassan, former Vice President of Iran Mohammad-Reza Aref, former Honduras President Ricardo Maduro, the Crown Prince of Belgium and former Ghanaian President John Atta Mills.

7. Harvard University was founded before calculus was invented.Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the U.S. The "New College," as it was originally called, had no calculus classes because it didn't exist yet. The invention of calculus would come in the late 17th century with Gottfried Leibniz's 1684 publication of "Nova Methodus," and in part with Isaac Newton's"Principia" in 1687, followed by additional explanations and reformulations by subsequent mathematicians. Also, European

physicist, mathematician and astronomer Galileo was still alive during Harvard's early years -- he died in 1642.

8. Only 2% of students throughout its history have flunked out of Harvard.

9. John Harvard’s statue is the third most photographed statue in the USA (#1 is the Statue of Liberty, and #2 is The Lincoln Memorial).It sits in Harvard Yard, and is a popular destination for tourists. Students call it the “statue of three lies” because the inscription underneath the statue reads “John Harvard, Founder, 1638.” The three lies are:

1. John Harvard didn’t found Harvard (he was a benefactor of Harvard, and that’s why it was named in his honor).

2. The university was founded in 1636 (not 1638).

3. The statue is not of John Harvard! All pictures of John Harvard were burned down in a fire in nearby Harvard Hall, so the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, apparently used a random good-looking student as a prop (no one knows how John Harvard really looks like).

10. This is a picture of the Johnston Gate, which is considered the main gate of Harvard University.Harvard has many other gates which are open 24/7 (anyone could visit the campus during regular days). However, Johnston Gate is closed for most of the year.

That’s because Harvard students should pass through it only twice. Once when they first arrive on campus during their Freshman year, and a second time after they graduate. It’s considered bad luck if they go through it more that those two times.

11. There are over 4,000 accredited colleges and universities in the U.S. which enroll over 15 million students and grants over two million degrees a year. j

12. Columbia University (1754) was originally named King’s College, and Brown University (1764) was originally named the College of Rhode Island. Rutgers (1764) was called Queen’s College. All had the dual purpose of educating civil leaders and preparing a learned clergy. l

13. Eight U.S. colleges make up the “Ivy League”: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale.l

14. Yale was named after Elihu Yale (1649-1721), a governor of the British East India Company who donated a crate of goods to the fledging school.l

15. Yale has the second largest academic library in the nation, boasting 9.5 million volumes. Harvard's is the largest, with 13.6 million volumes.

16. U.S. colleges with an acceptance rate of 100% include Baker College in Flint, MI; West Virginia University at Parkersburg; Mountain State University in Beckley, WV; and Northwest University in Kirkland, WA.

17. U.S. colleges with the lowest acceptance rates, in order, are Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA (4.0%); Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, TX (4.5%); Rust College in Holly Springs, MS (7.6%); Juilliard in New York, NY (7.6%); and Harvard University in Cambridge, MA 

18. The number one country of origin of foreign college students in the United States is India, followed by China and South Korea.

19. For the seventh year in a row, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) leads U.S. institutions in international student enrollment, with New York University in New York City coming in second.

20. Walk around the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on a Sunday afternoon, and it's very possible you will see dozens of students feeding squirrels peanuts. Far from being an isolated act of animal welfare, the weekly feeding is a regular engagement of the Squirrel Club - an officially sanctioned student group dedicated to nothing more than feeding peanuts to squirrels.

21. Need a hug? You might take a stroll through the Northwestern University campus. Students there have created an interesting student group - the Happiness Club. Members of the club strive to 'increase the happiness of members of the Northwestern community' by providing students with free hugs, hot chocolate, lemonade and smiley face stickers.

22. Everyone likes a ghost story - but do they like being a part of the ghost story? Ohio University students living in Wilson Hall might be asking themselves that very question. Students who live in this reportedly haunted dorm claim they have communicated with spirits and hear mysterious rattling of door knobs, among other things. The dormitory has garnered so much attention that it was even featured on the show Scariest Places on Earth.

23. If you head over to Vincennes University in Indiana, you can choose from a variety of business degrees, including accounting and hotel management. But the one business degree program that you won't find offered at any other schools is bowling management. This degree program allows students to get entry-level jobs in the bowling industry and includes classes on sales, pinsetter mechanics and pro-shop operations.

24. Columbia University has a unique annual tradition of its own. On Orgo Night, the marching band storms into the Butler Library and plays the alma mater. Occurring at the conclusion of the fall and spring semesters, the intention is to provide students cramming for finals with a few light moments before returning to their studies.

25. Tufts University has historically been the locale of a most unusual meeting of students. In recent years, individuals at the school have engaged in the Naked Quad Run - a nighttime streaking event held on campus each December. Responding to concerns that the run has become too dangerous, university president Lawrence Bacow outlawed the Naked Quad Run in 2011.

26. Carlton College might be known for its coordinated, pre-finals, stress-relieving 'Primal Scream', but it has a newer tradition that's picking up steam - a silent dance party. Held on one of two reading days, students download the same hour-long playlist onto their portable music devices and meet at the library. At 11pm, students don their headphones and dance to music only they can hear. The dance party doesn't stay in the library, though - students continue the party throughout campus, listening on their headphones the entire time.

27. A curious class found at Georgetown University seeks to make philosophy palatable for students by incorporating one very popular sci-fi franchise. 'Philosophy and Star Trek' addresses questions of important and serious concern: Is it possible to travel back in time? How are the body and brain connected? What is free will, and do humans have it?

28. Go! Fight! Win! We are the mighty mighty…banana slugs?! That's right - the mascot of University of California at Santa Cruz is the banana slug, resident mollusk of the redwood forest. This slimy creature was originally intended to be a joke of sorts. But, in 1980, when the chancellor thought that a sea lion was a more worthy mascot, the student body were none too pleased. After five years of refusing to be sea lions, students of UC Santa Cruz were finally able to adopt Sammy the Slug as their official mascot.

29. Another strange but true feature found on many college campuses around the U.S. are secret societies. Skull and Bones, a longtime secret society at Yale University, is perhaps the most well-known of such groups. The society features such prominent past members as George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry - two alum who remain tight-lipped about the group's activities to this day.