종합대학만 따지면 서울대 가장 첫 손에 꼽힌 셈 = 종합대학만 따지면 서울대가 가장 첫손에 꼽힌 셈이다. It reduces to "P이다", where P = 서울대가 첫손에 꼽힌 셈. It's a no-subject sentence which is common in Korean, because indefinite or easily understood "it" as a subject is usually dropped. You can say "그것이(it) 서울대가 ...", but it only makes it more unnatural. (It can also be interpreted as "S is P", where S = 서울대, P = 첫손에 꼽힌 셈, but I think the first interpretation is more strictly correct) As for the rest: * 첫손에 꼽힌다 = passive form of "첫손에 꼽는다", an idiom for "count/include(꼽다) as among the first/best". It is a simplified expression of 첫손가락에 꼽는다 "count on your first finger" (꼽다's original meaning is counting with the fingers, 손가락). 첫손 and 첫손가락 are nouns but they imply (because of 첫) the action of counting as the first - sometimes they are used by themselves too ("... 실력도 대한민국에서 첫손가락인 선동렬"). * -ㄴ 셈이다 = it amounts/boils down to something. 셈 means counting or calculating (comes from 세다, to count), and can describe what something comes down to.