Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, 9 miles (14 km) west of Boston.

It was founded in 1948 as a non-sectarian Jewish community-sponsored coeducational institution on the site of the former Middlesex University. The university is named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice of the U.S Supreme Court. In 2015 it had a total enrollment of 5,532 students on its suburban campus spanning over 235 acres. The institution offers more than 43 majors and 46 minors, and two thirds of the undergraduate classes have 20 students or less. It is a member of Association of American Universities since 1985 and the Boston Consortium which allows students to cross-register to attend courses at other institutions including Boston College, Boston University and Tufts University.

The university has a strong liberal arts focus and a quarter of its students coming from outside the United States. It was tied for 34th among national universities in the United States in U.S. News & World Report 2016 rankings. Forbes listed Brandeis as 36th nationally for research and 37th for entrepreneurship. Times ranks it 185th globally while USA Today ranks it among the top 10 in the country for economics. The university is also home to the Heller School, one of the top 10 policy schools in America. Its alumni include Academy Award winner Michael Sugar, Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman, Nobel Prize laureate Roderick MacKinnon, former Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde and two MacArthur Fellows.