Founded in 1838, Duke University is a private research university. Duke University was formerly known as Trinity College. From 2013 to 2014, "U.S. News and World Report" ranked Duke University as the seventh in the United States, tied with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. The Duke University library has the third largest collection of books in the United States, after Harvard and Yale. Unlike other top academic universities, Duke University's sports, especially basketball, is very famous and is the best basketball school in the United States. Its men's basketball coach Coach K was also hired as the US men's basketball coach due to his outstanding record in the NCAA.

Programs: The best programs for Duke's undergraduate courses are political science, public policy, history, and chemistry. The engineering department is also very good, especially electrical engineering and biomedical engineering. The subjects most students choose to read in universities are: social sciences (30%), liberal arts (16%), engineering (14%), life sciences (11%), and psychology (8%). Duke University is an international university. The school has more than 2,000 international students and teaches 25 foreign languages, from Brazilian music to African dance, and art courses are also all-encompassing. The school has a variety of religious activities for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and followers of other religions.