Yale University is a private research university and a member of the prestigious Ivy League, a group of America’s most celebrated higher education institutions. Situated in New Haven, Connecticut, the first planned city in America, Yale was founded by English Puritans in 1701, making it the third-oldest higher education institution in the United States.

Today, the city, which is part of the New York metropolitan area, is very much dominated by Yale, though it’s also billed as the “Cultural Capital of Connecticut”. According to the New York Times, New Haven is also extremely picturesque, with “art almost everywhere you look”.

Yale University’s central campus spans 260 acres and includes buildings from the mid-18th century. The university is organized into 14 schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and 12 professional schools.

Undergraduates follow a liberal arts curriculum which allows you to think and learn across disciplines before deciding upon a major. Perhaps its most distinctive feature, Yale undergraduates are organized into a social system of residential colleges, which allows them to experience the cohesiveness and intimacy of a small school while still enjoying the cultural and scholarly resources of a large university.

A recently unveiled portrait of Barack Obama was by a Yale alumnus, and strolling across the Yale campus, you’ll find that you’re surrounded by public art. Be it in courtyards or plazas, lobbies or lecture halls, art at Yale inspires reflection and offers aesthetic pleasure.

College life is similarly rich, reflecting the diversity of cultures and nationalities on campus. There’s always a packed arts calendar which includes exhibitions at world-class museums and galleries. There’s also a Tony Award-winning theater, Yale Cabaret – a theater-restaurant run by students – and hundreds of student groups, ranging from the serious to the silly.

On top of this, you’ll also find the usual array of top quality sports facilities, a golf course and centers for tennis, polo, sailing, ice hockey, and more as well as competitive sports, with over 30 men’s and women’s varsity teams.

To study at Yale is to join great company: four Yale graduates signed the American Declaration of Independence, and the university has educated five US presidents: William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It is rightly regarded as one of America and the world’s most prestigious universities, with competition to be admitted as fierce as it gets.