Northwestern University
Northwestern's excellence is evident in many ways: test scores and class rank of entering students, library holdings, the success of our graduates. What sets us apart from many other large universities, however, is our commitment to undergraduate teaching: Our faculty teach more than 95 percent of the courses on campus, and the opportunities for undergraduates to do research projects or independent study are plentiful.
No matter which school or course of study you choose, you will find that a foundation in the liberal arts is an integral part of your education at Northwestern. Whether you enter the University knowing your major or, like most, are undecided, you will be encouraged to explore in directions both unexpected and exciting.
Our students rarely confine their talent and energy to the classroom. Northwestern's student-run daily newspaper has received national recognition, and audiences applaud performances featuring our student body. Approximately 250 campus organizations serve the interests and needs of our students.
If you would like to apply to Northwestern or if you would simply like to learn more about the University, keep surfing. We've answered some of the more common questions about Northwestern in the links to the left, and we've also provided opportunities for you to request more information below. To learn more about the concentrations, special programs, and requirements of our undergraduate programs, follow the links above.
University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
Our high-acclaimed faculty currently includes: 7 Nobel Laureates, 225 members of the Academy of Arts & Sciences, 131 members of the National Academy of Science, 87 members of the National Academy of Engineering, a Poet Laureate Emeritus of the United States, and 141 Guggenheim Fellows, more than any other university in the country. It was here that two professors discovered plutonium in 1941 as well as numerous other elements, including berkelium and californium. Berkeley faculty are quoted daily in newspapers and journals throughout the world as experts in their fields.
But Berkeley is also about extraordinary students! While most of our 22,800 undergraduates are Californians, every state and more than 100 foreign countries are represented on campus. The student body can best be characterized by its talent and its diversity; in fact, there is no single ethnic majority here. Berkeley students represent all age groups, economic, cultural, ethnic and geographic backgrounds. This dynamic mix produces the wide range of opinion and perspective found on the Berkeley campus.
Overlooking San Francisco Bay, UC Berkeley is a lush and tranquil 1,232 acre campus—yet close to many urban opportunities. It is bordered by wooded, rolling hills and the City of Berkeley, one of America’s most lively, culturally diverse, and politically adventurous municipalities. Cal students are also just minutes away from the many cultural, recreational and culinary resources of Oakland, San Francisco, and other Bay Area communities.
Carnegie Mellon University
More than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students at Carnegie Mellon receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions to solve real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors.
The university consists of seven colleges and schools: The Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering), the College of Fine Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Mellon College of Science, the David A. Tepper School of Business, the School of Computer Science and the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management. Carnegie Mellon also has campuses in California and the Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar and is expanding its international presence in Europe and Asia with master's programs and other educational partnerships.
Carnegie Mellon is one of the most technologically sophisticated campuses in the world. When it introduced its "Andrew" computing network in the mid-1980s, it pioneered educational applications of technology. Today, the university employs a university-wide wireless computing network that allows faculty, staff and students to log on to the Internet and communicate via email from anywhere at any time. Carnegie Mellon was ranked as the nation's "most wired" university by Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine.
Brown University
Brown University is a leading Ivy League institution with a distinctive undergraduate academic program, a world-class faculty, outstanding graduate and medical students, and a tradition of innovative and rigorous multidisciplinary study. A commitment to diversity and intellectual freedom has remained a hallmark of the University since its establishment.
Brown students are distinguished by their academic excellence, self-direction, and collaborative style of learning. Brown faculty are deeply committed to teaching, preeminent in their fields, and leaders in advancing knowledge that has broad scholarly, theoretical, and practical applications.
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
By 1914 Los Angeles had grown to a city of 350,000, and the school moved to new quarters�a Hollywood ranch off a dirt road that later became Vermont Avenue. In 1919, the school became the Southern Branch of the University of California and offered two years of instruction in Letters and Science. Third- and fourth-year courses were soon added; the first class of 300 students was graduated in 1925, and by 1927 the Southern Branch had earned its new name: University of California at Los Angeles. (The name was changed again in 1958 to University of California, Los Angeles.)
Continued growth mandated the selection of a site that could support a larger campus, and in 1927, ground was broken in the chaparral-covered hills of Westwood. The four original buildings�Royce Hall, Powell Library, Haines Hall, and Kinsey Hall�formed a lonesome cluster in the middle of 400 empty acres. The campus hosted some 5,500 students its first term in 1929. The Regents established the master�s degree at UCLA in 1933 and, three years later, the doctorate. UCLA was fast becoming a full-fledged university offering advanced study in almost every field.
The most spectacular growth at UCLA occurred in the 25 years following World War II, when it tripled its prewar enrollment of 9,000 students and undertook what would become a $260 million building program that included residence halls, parking structures, laboratories, more classrooms, service buildings, athletic and recreational facilities, and a 715-bed teaching hospital that is now one of the largest and most highly respected in the world.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Origins
The university traces its roots to a clause in the Wisconsin Constitution, which decreed that the state should have a prominent public university. In 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin's first governor, signed the act that formally created the university, and its first class, with 17 students, met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849.
From those humble beginnings, the university has grown into a large, diverse community, with about 40,000 students enrolled each year. These students represent every state in the nation, as well as countries from around the globe, making for a truly international population.
Mission
UW-Madison is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Wisconsin System, a statewide network of 13 comprehensive universities, 13 freshman-sophomore transfer colleges and an extension service. One of two doctorate-granting universities in the system, UW-Madison's specific mission is to provide "a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help insure the survival of this and future generations and improve the quality of life for all."
The university achieves these ends through innovative programs of research, teaching and public service. Throughout its history, UW-Madison has sought to bring the power of learning into the daily lives of its students through innovations such as residential learning communities and service-learning opportunities. Students also participate freely in research, which has led to life-improving inventions ranging from more fuel-efficient engines to cutting-edge genetic therapies.
The Wisconsin Idea
Students, faculty and staff are motivated by a tradition known as the "Wisconsin Idea," first started by UW President Charles Van Hise in 1904, when he declared that he would "never be content until the beneficent influence of the university [is] available to every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university's work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students, and the state's industries and government.
University of Washington
The primary mission of the University of Washington is the preservation, advancement, and dissemination of knowledge. The University preserves knowledge through its libraries and collections, its courses, and the scholarship of its faculty. It advances new knowledge through many forms of research, inquiry and discussion; and disseminates it through the classroom and the laboratory, scholarly exchanges, creative practice, international education, and public service. As one of the nation's outstanding teaching and research institutions, the University is committed to maintaining an environment for objectivity and imaginative inquiry and for the original scholarship and research that ensure the production of new knowledge in the free exchange of facts, theories, and ideas.
To promote their capacity to make humane and informed decisions, the University fosters an environment in which its students can develop mature and independent judgment and an appreciation of the range and diversity of human achievement. The University cultivates in its students both critical thinking and the effective articulation of that thinking.
As an integral part of a large and diverse community, the University seeks broad representation of and encourages sustained participation in that community by its students, its faculty, and its staff. It serves both non-traditional and traditional students. Through its three-campus system and through educational outreach, evening degree, and distance learning, it extends educational opportunities to many who would not otherwise have access to them.
The academic core of the University of Washington is its College of Arts and Sciences; the teaching and research of the University's many professional schools provide essential complements to these programs in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural and mathematical sciences. Programs in law, medicine, forest resources, oceanography and fisheries, library science, and aeronautics are offered exclusively (in accord with state law) by the University of Washington. In addition, the University of Washington has assumed primary responsibility for the health science fields of dentistry and public health, and offers education and training in medicine for a multi-state region of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The schools and colleges of architecture and urban planning, business administration, education, engineering, nursing, pharmacy, public affairs, and social work have a long tradition of educating students for service to the region and the nation. These schools and colleges make indispensable contributions to the state and, with the rest of the University, share a long tradition of educating undergraduate and graduate students toward achieving an excellence that well serves the state, the region, and the nation.
Boston University
With more than 30,000 students from all 50 states and 135 countries, it is one of the largest independent universities in the United States. For over 150 years, Boston University has anticipated the changing needs of its students while serving the greater needs of society.
As one of the nation's premier research universities, Boston University believes that all students benefit by learning from dedicated teachers who are actively engaged in original research. The University's learning environment is further enriched by an extraordinary array of direct involvements with the broader artistic, economic, social, intellectual, and educational life of the community. These relationships provide a distinctly practical edge to the University's educational and research programs, while enhancing the life and vitality of one of the world's great cities.
Boston University's policies provide for equal opportunity and affirmative action in employment and admission to all programs of the University.
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Budget: UCSD’s annual revenues are $1.9 billion. (33% of this total is from the federal government for research; 14% is from the State of California for education.)
Students: UCSD received over 40,000 applications for fall 2005 admission (the second highest application rate in the University of California system and possibly in the nation). The average high school GPA of enrolled freshmen for fall 2005 was 3.93 and average SATI score was 1251. Total campus enrollment for fall ‘05 was approximately 26,140. UCSD ranks 2nd nationally among major research universities sending students abroad in full-year programs, and 3rd among University of California schools in graduation rates at 83%.
Economic Impact: UCSD is an engine for regional economic growth. UCSD faculty and alums have spun-off close to 200 local companies, including over a third of the region’s biotech companies. In addition, UCSD is San Diego County’s largest single employer, with a monthly payroll in excess of $76 million, and over 23,500 employees.
Specialized Resources: UCSD’s graduate and professional schools include Scripps Institution of Oceanography; School of Medicine; School of International Relations and Pacific Studies; Center for U.S. - Mexican Studies; Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Jacobs School of Engineering (graduate and undergraduate), and Rady School of Management. The campus is also home to the San Diego Supercomputer Center; California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2); Center for Research in Computing and the Arts; Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; and Institute of the Americas.
