The University of Edinburgh (abbreviated as Edin. in post-nominals), founded in 1582, is the sixth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's ancient universities. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university.
The University of Edinburgh is ranked 17th in the world by the 2013–14 and 2014–15 QS rankings. The Research Excellence Framework, a research ranking used by the UK government to determine future research funding, ranked Edinburgh 4th in the UK for research power. It is ranked 12th in the world in arts and humanities by the 2014–15 Times Higher Education Ranking. It is ranked the 15th most employable university in the world by the 2013 Global Employability University Ranking. It is ranked as the 6th best university in Europe by the U.S. News' Best Global Universities Ranking. It is a member of both the Russell Group, and the League of European Research Universities, a consortium of 21 research universities in Europe. It has the third largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, after the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
The university played an important role in leading Edinburgh to its reputation as a chief intellectual centre during the Age of Enlightenment, and helped give the city the nickname of the Athens of the North. Alumni of the university include some of the major figures of modern history, including physicist James Clerk Maxwell, naturalist Charles Darwin, philosopher David Hume, mathematician Thomas Bayes, surgeon Joseph Lister, signatories of the American declaration of independence James Wilson, John Witherspoon and Benjamin Rush, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, first president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere, and a host of famous authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.M. Barrie and Sir Walter Scott. Associated people include 20 Nobel Prize winners, 2 Turing Award winners, 1 Abel Prize winner, 1 Fields Medal winner, 1 Pulitzer Prize winner, 3 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, 2 currently-sitting UK Supreme Court Justices, and several Olympic gold medallists. It continues to have links to the British Royal Family, having had the Duke of Edinburgh as its Chancellor from 1953 to 2010 and Princess Anne since 2011.
Edinburgh receives approximately 50,000 applications every year, making it the fourth most popular university in the UK by volume of applicants. Entrance is competitive, with 2012–2013 having an acceptance rate of 11.5% and offer rate of 38.6%. After St Andrews, it is the most difficult university to gain admission into in Scotland and, 9th overall in the UK.
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