Sophia University (Japanese: 上智大学, Jōchi Daigaku; Latin: Universitas Sedis Sapientiae) is a private research university in Japan. Sophia is one of the three Sōkeijōchi (早慶上智) private universities, a group of the top three private universities in Japan with the other two being Keio University and Waseda University, according to the Times Higher Education. It is also ranked number 18 in the 2021 Times Japan University Rankings. Founded by the Roman Catholic religious order of the Society of Jesus in 1913, the university has grown from its three original academic departments of Philosophy, German Literature, and Commerce to 9 undergraduate Faculties and 10 Graduate Schools, with over 13,900 students in total at the moment. Sophia has international students from 77 countries and it has forged agreements with 395 overseas universities in 81 countries to encourage students joining the exchange programs with several other top universities throughout the world. Sophia is a leading institution in globalisation, foreign languages, and literature in Japan. As a prominent institution for research and higher learning in the fields of the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, the university has been selected by the Japanese Ministry of Education to be one of 37 universities to receive funding for its internationalisation efforts through the "Top Global University Project". The university has been ranked as the top third Catholic university in Asia Before 1957, the university only admitted male students to degree programmes, but the numbers of male and female students are now more or less equal. Sophia's alumni are referred to as "Sophians", among whom include the 79th Prime Minister of Japan, Morihiro Hosokawa, several politicians represented in the Japanese National Diet, professors at various higher education institutions, and even actors and musicians in the Japanese film and music industries. Origins of the university name The name of the university is traced to letters of correspondence between two of the three founders of what would become Sophia University, Fr. James Rockliff, SJ and Fr. Hermann Hoffmann, SJ. The Japanese term 上智 ("higher wisdom" or "supreme wisdom", Jōchi) was the equivalent of the Latin word sapientia, which means wisdom. According to Catholic Church tradition, the term sapientia refers to the one of the Church's devotional titles for the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Seat of Wisdom. When Joseph Eylenbosch, SJ began teaching Greek at the university in April 1924, he thought that the Japanese term jōchi was the equivalent of