The University of Aberdeen is a public research-focused university in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It is an ancient university founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of James IV, King of Scots to create King’s College. This makes it Scotland’s third-oldest university and fifth-oldest in the English-speaking world. The university as it is today was formed in 1860 by a merger between King’s College and Marischal College, a second university founded in 1593 in Aberdeen city centre as a Protestant alternative to King’s College. Today, the University of Aberdeen is consistently ranked among the top 150 universities in the world and is one of two universities in Aberdeen.
The University has approximately 13,500 students from undergraduate to doctoral level, including many international students. There are also large numbers of Masters and PhD students. In addition, the university’s Centre for Lifelong Learning acts as an extension college, offering higher education courses to the local community even for those without the usual qualifications for admission to degree-level study. A full range of disciplines are offered and in 2012 the university offered over 650 undergraduate degree programmes.