University of Sydney

Sydney, Australia · founded 1850 · 73,000 students · public research university

Known for: The University of Sydney is Australia's first university, renowned for its historic campus, strong research output, and prestigious programs in medicine, law, and the arts, with a highly diverse student population.

Rankings

QS World: #18
Times Higher Education: #60
ARWU Shanghai: #65

Top programmes

Medicine and Health
Law
Arts and Social Sciences
Engineering
Business
Education

Notable alumni

Edmund Barton — First Prime Minister of Australia
Malcolm Turnbull — Former Prime Minister of Australia
Germaine Greer — Feminist writer and academic
John Cornforth — Nobel Prize-winning chemist
Clive James — Writer, critic, and broadcaster
Jane Campion — Academy Award-winning film director
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine (multiple) —

Traditions

Orientation Week (O-Week)
Sydney Uni Sports and Fitness (SUSF) competitions
Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Commencement ceremony in the Great Hall

If University of Sydney were…

As a food: Sydney rock oysters with champagne at Circular Quay — Expensive, effortlessly elegant, consumed with harbour views by people who've already made it or are pretending they have. Sydney produces the kind of polished graduates who know which fork to use at establishment dinner
As an athlete: Roger Federer — Graceful, seemingly effortless excellence, beloved by traditionalists, plays the game with style over pure aggression. Sydney has that same old-money elegance and makes prestige look easy even when the rankings slip slig
As a person alive today: Hugh Jackman — Charming, internationally successful, polished to a sheen, equally comfortable at the Oscars or a backyard barbie. Sydney produces graduates who can code-switch between global elite circles and Aussie informality.
As a historical figure: Edmund Barton — Australia's first Prime Minister, Sydney alumnus, architect of federation, embodiment of establishment power. The university has always been the finishing school for NSW's ruling class and the nation's political elite.
As a movie or TV show: Brideshead Revisited — Gorgeous architecture, gilded youth, college traditions, a certain melancholic awareness that the golden age might be passing. Sydney's sandstone Gothic and residential colleges channel that same aestheticized privilege.
As a US president: Franklin D. Roosevelt — Establishment pedigree, effortless charisma, progressive instincts wrapped in old-money confidence, produced leaders during the nation's formative crises. Sydney has that same patrician reformist streak.
As a city: San Francisco — Stunning harbour setting, progressive politics mixed with old money, beautiful but eye-wateringly expensive, produces tech entrepreneurs and establishment lawyers in equal measure. Both are gorgeous, self-satisfied, and
As an element: Silver — Lustrous, valuable, historically prestigious, excellent conductor of electricity and heat—but always second to gold. Sydney is Australia's beautiful, accomplished runner-up to Melbourne in most academic rankings, though
As a car: Jaguar E-Type — Australia's oldest university pairs sandstone colonial elegance with modern global ambition, much like this British icon that defined 1960s style. Prestigious, photogenic, and confidently harbourside.

Campus life

The university offers a vibrant, socially active campus life with over 200 clubs and societies, set against a historic backdrop. It has a strong collegiate system, a bustling central campus, and is integrated into the social and cultural life of inner-city Sydney.