Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the United States, founded in 1789 by John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States. Its story reaches back even further, to English Jesuit settlers who arrived in Maryland in 1634. For much of the colonial period, Catholic education had to operate carefully, and sometimes quietly, because religious tolerance, at the time, was still very much a work in progress. Still, the Jesuits held on to their commitment to learning.

After the American Revolution, plans for a permanent Catholic institution finally took shape, and on January 23, 1789, John Carroll secured the Georgetown property. Instruction began in 1792, setting the university’s long academic climb officially underway. Over time, Georgetown grew from a small Catholic educational project into one of the country’s most respected universities, with a reputation for scholarship and public service.

The campus centerpiece is Healy Hall, a grand National Historic Landmark built between 1877 and 1879. Designed by Paul J. Pelz and John L. Smithmeyer, the same architectural duo connected with the Library of Congress, Healy Hall brings serious Gothic drama to the Hilltop. With its towers, arches, and imposing profile, it looks less like a classroom building and more like a place where Latin verbs, political ambition, and intense student debates all gather under one roof...

Today, Georgetown stretches across four campuses in Washington, D.C., including the main undergraduate campus in Georgetown, the Medical Center, the School of Continuing Studies in Chinatown, and the Law Center. The main and medical campuses are known as “The Hilltop,” which is both geographically accurate and emotionally appropriate for anyone walking uphill with a backpack. Set above the Potomac River, the campus offers views toward Northern Virginia and manages to feel both compact and stately at the same time.

Across its 104-acre main campus, Georgetown combines collegiate Gothic buildings, Georgian brick architecture, residence halls, athletic facilities, fountains, trees, flowers, and open quadrangles. The result is a campus that can feel peaceful, polished, and slightly intimidating—in the way only a place filled with future lawyers, diplomats, doctors, and policy experts can. Georgetown still carries its Jesuit traditions of inquiry and service, while continuing to train students for lives of leadership, global engagement, and, very possibly, lifelong arguments over coffee...