How is one college different from another one?

I've just recently moved to the United States from another country last August in my senior year in high school and I'm going to college next fall. The system here is very different than where I come from. I here the terms, university rankings and ivy league schools. I just wanted to know how are colleges different. How is Harvard different than Stanford, how is NYU different than Boston University, etc... Isn't the syllabus for each major supposed to be the same?