Why is New York University so well-regarded?

New York University (NYU) is a private, non-sectarian American research university based in New York City. Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the largest private non-profit institutions of American higher education. NYU is organized into more than twenty schools, colleges, and institutes, located in six centres throughout Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. NYU’s main campus is located at Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan with institutes and centres on the Upper East Side, academic buildings and dorms down on Wall Street, and the Brooklyn campus located at MetroTech Centre in Downtown Brooklyn. The University also established NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Shanghai and maintains 11 other Global Academic Centres in Accra, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, London, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C.
NYU was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1950. NYU counts thirty-six Nobel Prize winners, four Abel Prize winners, three Turing Award winners, over thirty National Medals for Science, Technology and Innovation, Arts and Humanities recipients, over thirty Pulitzer Prize winners, over thirty Academy Award winners, as well as several Russ Prize, Gordon Prize, Draper Prize and Fields Medal winners, and dozens of Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winners among its faculty and alumni. NYU also has many MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship holders as well as hundreds of National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences members, and a plethora of members of the United States Congress and heads of state of countries all over the world, among its past and present graduates and faculty. NYU has the most Oscar winners of any university. The alumni of NYU are amongst the wealthiest in the world, and include seventeen living billionaires.
Arts and Science is currently NYU’s largest academic division. It has three subdivisions: the College of Arts and Science, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Liberal Studies program. The College of Arts and Science and Liberal Studies program are undergraduate divisions, and the former has existed since the founding of NYU.
Undergraduate divisions are also found in the College of Dentistry, College of Nursing, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU Shanghai, Tandon School of Engineering, Silver School of Social Work, School of Professional Studies, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the Tisch School of the Arts. Postgraduate divisions are found in all of NYU’s schools and colleges.
NYU manages one of the largest annual collegiate research budgets of any university in the United States. In 2014, NYU received $524 million in research grants from the National Science Foundation alone. NYU has over 450 student clubs and organizations on campus. In addition to the sports teams, fraternities, sororities, and study clubs, there are many organizations on campus that focus on entertainment, arts, and culture.
Nationally, NYU is ranked #14 in the Centre for World University Rankings, #15 by Global Language Monitor, #17 by QS World University Rankings, #19 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, #24 by Business Insider, and #32 by U.S. News & World Report.