The University of Tokyo

The University of Tokyo is a public research university in Tokyo, founded in 1877 as Japan's first national university from earlier bakumatsu schools of Western science and medicine. It was the lead imperial university before 1947 and retained a comprehensive faculty structure after the postwar reorganization. Most teaching sits on the Hongo campus in Bunkyo, with further campuses at Komaba, Kashiwa, and Shirokane. Its defining fact is the pairing of undergraduate faculties with graduate schools and attached research institutes.

Academic work runs through ten faculties and fifteen graduate schools covering law, medicine, engineering, science, letters, economics, agriculture, education, and pharmaceutical sciences. Graduate students work in the Institute of Industrial Science, the Institute of Medical Science, the Earthquake Research Institute, the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, and the University of Tokyo Hospital. Engineering, physics, chemistry, and law are established strengths.

Enrollment is about 28,000, with graduate students making up roughly half. More than 4,000 international students come from over 100 countries. Several Nobel laureates in physics and physiology or medicine have taught or studied here. Alumni include architect Kenzo Tange, novelist Natsume Soseki, and physicist Leo Esaki.

Graduate study is organized around master's and doctoral degrees, with professional degrees in law and medicine and a supervisor-led research model. The academic year follows the Japanese calendar, with the main intake in April and a smaller October entry. MEXT scholarships, university fellowships, and research assistant posts fund many doctoral students. Laboratories and libraries on Hongo and Komaba sit in central Tokyo and are reached by subway and rail.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, The University of Tokyo lists 9 graduate programs across 9 subjects: 6 master's programs and 3 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in agriculture, food & forestry, biology and civil engineering. The University of Tokyo holds rank 53 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.