Washington and Lee University

Washington and Lee University (Washington and Lee or W&L) is a private liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia, United States.

Washington and Lee University is the alma mater of three United States Supreme Court Justices, a Nobel Prize laureate, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, and the Emmy Award, as well as 27 U.S. Senators, 67 U.S. Representatives, 31 state governors, as well as numerous other government officials, judges, business leaders, entertainers, and athletes.

Several well-known alumni include Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, United States Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.; United States Senator John Warner from Virginia; United States Solicitor General John W. Davis, Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States during the 1924 presidential election; author Tom Wolfe, founder of New Journalism; broadcast journalist Roger Mudd; artist Cy Twombly; voice actor Mike Henry, explorer Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition; Federal Judge and Civil Rights Champion John Minor Wisdom; and billionaire Rupert Johnson, Jr. of Franklin Templeton Investments.

Archives of the papers of notable alumni and other resources relating to the history of the university may be found in the manuscript collections at Washington and Lee's James Graham Leyburn Library. Publication of the 1995 guide to the collections was made possible by a grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund.

Today the university has about 2,000 undergraduate students and 315 in the School of Law. Both the undergraduate and law schools are in the first tier of the U.S. News & World Report rankings for national liberal arts colleges and law schools, respectively. In the 2016 guide, the undergraduate college is ranked number 14,  amongst national liberal arts colleges and the law school is ranked number 42nd nationally amongst all law schools.  The 2015 Forbes magazine college rankings place W&L 29th. Kiplinger's Personal Finance had the college atop its 2016 list of the 300 best college values, one spot above its number two ranking in the 2015 list. In 2015, The Economist ranked Washington and Lee first among all undergraduate institutions in the United States in terms of the positive gap between its students' actual median earnings ten years from graduation and what the publication's statistical model would suggest. Of its findings, the newspaper wrote that "No other college combines the intimate academic setting and broad curriculum of a LAC [liberal arts college] with a potent old-boy network."

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as Berkeley, UC Berkeley, California or simply Cal)  is a public research university located in Berkeley, California. It is the flagship campus of the University of California system, one of three parts in the state's public higher education plan, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranks Berkeley 13th in the world for academics and 6th in the world for reputation. In its 2016 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Berkeley 3rd in their "Best Global University Rankings". In 2015, Berkeley was ranked 4th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)  and 26th in the QS World University Rankings. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked the university 7th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, citations, broad impact, and patents in 2015.

The 2016 U.S. News & World Report "Best Colleges" report ranked Berkeley first among public universities and 20th among national universities. The Washington Monthly ranked Berkeley fourth among national universities in 2015, with criteria based on research, community service, and social mobility.  The Money Magazine Best Colleges ranking for 2015 ranked Berkeley 9th in the United States based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings.  For 2015 Kiplinger ranked Berkeley the 4th best-value public university in the nation for in-state students, and 6th for out-of-state students.  The 2015 Forbes America's Top Colleges report ranked Berkeley 35th among all universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States. 

In 2014, The Daily Beast's Best Colleges report ranked Berkeley 11th in the country.  The 2013 Top American Research Universities report by the Center for Measuring University Performance ranked Berkeley 8th over-all, 5th in resources, faculty, and education, 9th in resources and education, and 1st in education.   Berkeley was listed as a "Public Ivy" in Richard Mull's 1985 Public Ivies.

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic research university located adjacent to South Bend, Indiana, in the United States.

Notre Dame is known for its competitive admissions, with the incoming class enrolling in fall 2015 admitting 3,577 from a pool of 18,156 (19.7%). The academic profile of the enrolled class continues to rate among the top 10 to 15 in the nation for national research universities. The university practices a non-restrictive early action policy that allows admitted students to consider admission to Notre Dame as well as any other colleges to which they were accepted. 1,400 of the 3,577 (39.1%) were admitted under the early action plan. Admitted students came from 1,311 high schools and the average student traveled more than 750 miles to Notre Dame, making it arguably the most representative university in the United States. While all entering students begin in the College of the First Year of Studies, 25% have indicated they plan to study in the liberal arts or social sciences, 24% in engineering, 24% in business, 24% in science, and 3% in architecture.

In 2015-2016, Notre Dame ranked 18th overall among "national universities" in the United States in U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges 2016. In 2014, USA Today ranked Notre Dame 10th overall for American universities based on data from College Factual.^[129] Forbes.com's America's Best Colleges ranks Notre Dame 13th among colleges in the United States in 2015, 8th among Research Universities, and 1st in the Midwest. U.S. News & World Report also lists Notre Dame Law School as 22nd overall. BusinessWeek ranks Mendoza College of Business undergraduate school as 1st overall. It ranks the MBA program as 20th overall. The Philosophical Gourmet Report ranks Notre Dame's graduate philosophy program as 15th nationally, while ARCHITECT Magazine ranked the undergraduate architecture program as 12th nationally. Additionally, the study abroad program ranks sixth in highest participation percentage in the nation, with 57.6% of students choosing to study abroad in 17 countries. According to payscale.com, undergraduate alumni of University of Notre Dame have a mid-career median salary $110,000, making it the 24th highest among colleges and universities in the United States. The median starting salary of $55,300 ranked 58th in the same peer group. Named by Newsweek as one of the "25 New Ivies," it is also an Oak Ridge Associated University.

Harvey Mudd College

Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, founded in 1955 and located in Claremont, California, United States. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds. The college's mission is: "Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities and the social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society."

For the class of 2019, the middle 50% of SAT scores for enrolled freshmen were 730–800 (out of 800) in mathematics, 670–760 in critical reading, and 680–760 in writing. A third of the student body are National Merit Scholars, and at one point, about 40 percent of graduates were going on to earn a Ph.D. — the highest rate of any college or university in the nation.

Harvey Mudd College, along with Wake Forest University, long held out as the last four-year colleges or universities in the U.S. to accept only SAT and not ACT test scores in their admissions process. In August 2007, however, at the beginning of the application process for the class of 2012, HMC began accepting ACT results, a year after Wake Forest abandoned its former SAT-only policy.

Harvey Mudd today still maintains the highest rate of science and engineering Ph.D. production among all undergraduate colleges and second highest (Caltech ranks first and MIT third) compared to all universities and colleges, according to a 2008 report by the National Science Foundation.

Money Magazine ranked Harvey Mudd 7th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking. The Daily Beast ranked Harvey Mudd 78th in the country out of the nearly 2000 schools it evaluated for its 2013 Best Colleges ranking. According to U.S. News & World Report's 2015 America's Best Colleges rankings, Harvey Mudd College is tied for the 15th best liberal arts college in the United States and is tied for the best undergraduate engineering school in the US whose highest degree is a Master's. Forbes in 2014 rated Harvey Mudd College #52 of its America's Best Colleges ranking, which includes military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges. In 2006, Harvey Mudd was also named one of the "new Ivy leagues" by Kaplan and Newsweek.

Harvey Mudd College is one of the few colleges in the US with very low grade inflation. As of 2010, only seven students in the history of the college have achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA.

In 1997, Harvey Mudd College became the sole American undergraduate-only institution ever to win 1st place in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. As of 2015, no American school has won the world competition since.

According to PayScale, graduates of Harvey Mudd College earn the highest salaries among graduates of any college in the United States. The Harvey Mudd College mathematics department is highly ranked and was the 2006 recipient of the American Mathematical Society award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department. Two of the department's alumni, Joshua Greene and Aaron Archer, were winners and honorable mention for the Morgan Prize in 2002 and 1998 respectively. The Morgan Prize is an annual award given to an undergraduate student in the US, Canada, or Mexico who demonstrates superior mathematics research.

Carleton College

Carleton College  is a private liberal arts college in the historic town of Northfield, Minnesota. The college enrolled 2,014 undergraduate students and employed 245 instructional faculty members in fall 2015. Carleton is one of few liberal arts colleges that runs on the trimester system.In its 2016 edition of national liberal arts college rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked Carleton eighth-best overall and first for undergraduate teaching.

Admission to Carleton has been deemed "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report with the most recent incoming class of 2019 admitting 20.6% of applicants, making the institution the most selective in Minnesota.  For the Class of 2019 (enrolled fall 2015), 211 of the 689 early decision applicants were accepted (30.6%) and 1,177 of the 6,033 regular decision applicants were accepted (19.5%). A spot on the waitlist was offered to 1,350 applicants, of whom 442 accepted and 16 were ultimately admitted (3.6%). Enrolling freshmen numbered 491, making the yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who enroll) 37.0%. Of the 224 who applied for transfer admission, 14 were admitted (6.3%), and 3 enrolled.

Carleton has a strong history of enrolling students who are in the National Merit Scholarship Program, often enrolling more than any other liberal arts college in the nation. Its Class of 2016 included 79 National Merit Scholars.

Business Insider ranked Carleton as the 7th smartest liberal arts college based on SAT scores and 26th smartest college overall in 2014. Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Carleton at 12th in its 2014 ranking of best value liberal arts colleges in the "United States. Carleton was ranked 5th in the 2015 Brookings Institution's list of "Four-Year or Higher Colleges With the Highest Value-Added With Respect to Mid-Career Earnings", with Carleton adding an estimated 43% in value, raising the predicted mid-career salary of $76,236 to $117,700. In a 2012 study of higher education institutions, Carleton was listed as the number one peer institution among liberal arts colleges, followed by Oberlin and Bowdoin, as well as number one overall followed by Princeton.

Carleton consistently ranks high among liberal arts colleges in the nation, ranking as high as 3rd in 1988 by the U.S. News & World Report. They have also ranked Carleton in the top 10 for 25 years since its inception and in the top 5 for 9 of those years, with its 2016 ranking placing it 8th. The 2016 U.S. News & World Report high school counselor rankings place Carleton tied for 13th place among liberal arts colleges.  In 2015, Washington Monthly rankings — using criteria of social mobility, research, and service — ranked Carleton 2nd best college in the liberal arts college category. In the 2015 Forbes magazine ranking of American colleges, which combines liberal arts colleges and national research universities, the college is ranked 30th.

Bucknell University

Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the town of Lewisburg, in central Pennsylvania, United States. The university consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Management, and the College of Engineering. Bucknell was founded in 1846, and features programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, engineering, management, education, and music, as well as programs and pre-professional advising that prepare students for study in law and medicine. It offers nearly 50 majors and over 60 minors.

U.S. News & World Report classifies Bucknell's selectivity as "more selective." For the Class of 2019 (enrolled fall 2015), Bucknell received 10,967 applications and accepted 2,718 (24.8%), with 938 enrolling. The middle 50% range of SAT scores for the enrolled freshmen was 590-680 for critical reading, 620-710 for math, and 590-690 for writing, while the ACT Composite range was 28–32. The average high school Grade Point Average (GPA) of enrolled freshmen was 3.54.

In its 2016 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Bucknell tied for 32nd in the "National Liberal Arts Colleges" category. In 2015, Forbes rated Bucknell 43rd in its "America's Best Colleges" list. For 2016, Kiplinger's Personal Finance ranked Bucknell 40th in terms of "Best Value among Liberal Arts Colleges in the U.S.," which took into account academic quality, cost and financial aid measures. It is named one of the "Hidden Ivies", an institution that is claimed to provide an education comparable to that of Ivy League institutions. The Princeton Review included Bucknell in its annual Best Value Colleges for 2012. Bucknell is ranked 18th on Payscale's 2015-2016 list of Top Liberal Arts Colleges by Salary Potential.

On January 26, 2013, Bucknell officials admitted that the SAT scores that they had provided to the public had been inflated by 16 points, on average, between 2006 and 2012. "Enrollment management leadership no longer with the university prepared these inaccurate numbers," school president John Bravman wrote in an email to alumni. As a result of the falsification of data, Forbes penalized Bucknell by removing it from the "America's Top Colleges" list for two years. For the same reason, Kiplinger's Personal Finance removed Bucknell from its 2012 "Best Values in Private Colleges" list.

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin, informally UT Austin, UT, University of Texas, or Texas in sports contexts, is a public research university and the flagship institution of The University of Texas System.

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the most selective universities in the region. Relative to other universities in the state of Texas, UT Austin is second to Rice University in selectivity according to a Business Journal study weighing acceptance rates and the mid-range of the SAT and ACT. UT Austin was ranked as the 18th most selective in the South. As a state public university, UT Austin was subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guaranteed graduating Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their class admission to any public Texas university. A new state law granting UT (but no other state university) a partial exemption from the top 10% rule, Senate Bill 175, was passed by the 81st Legislature in 2009. It modified this admissions policy by limiting automatically admitted freshmen to 75% of the entering in-state freshman class, starting in 2011. The university will admit the top one percent, the top two percent and so forth until the cap is reached; the university expects to automatically admit students in the top 8% of their graduating class for 2011. Furthermore, students admitted under Texas House Bill 588 are not guaranteed their choice of college or major, but rather only guaranteed admission to the university as a whole. Many colleges, such as the Cockrell School of Engineering, have secondary requirements that must be met for admission.

For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and by U.S. News & World Report. For Fall 2014, 38,785 applied and 15,381 were accepted (39.7%), and of those accepted, 47.4% enrolled. Among freshman students who enrolled in Fall 2014, SAT scores for the middle 50% ranged from 570-680 for critical reading, 600-710 for math, and 560-680 for writing. ACT composite scores for the middle 50% ranged from 26-31. In terms of class rank, 69.4% of enrolled freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school classes and 90.3% ranked in the top quarter.

UT Austin is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities in the country. Nationally, UT Austin was ranked tied for 52nd among all universities, and tied for 16th place among public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2016 rankings. Internationally, UT Austin was ranked tied for 30th in the 2016 "Best Global Universities" ranking by U.S. News & World Report, 37th in the world by Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in 2015, 46th worldwide by Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2015–16), and 77th globally by QS World University Rankings (2015-16).

UT Austin is considered to be a "Public Ivy" – a public university that provides an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price, having been ranked in virtually every list of "Public Ivies" since Richard Moll coined the term in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities. The seven other "Public Ivy" universities, according to Moll, were The College of William & Mary, Miami University, The University of California, The University of Michigan, The University of North Carolina, The University of Vermont, and The University of Virginia.

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system.

The University expended $472.7 million in support of research system-wide in 2006–07, using funds received from the state and federal governments, industry, foundations, and individual donors. The faculty and more than 400 research laboratories put Purdue University among the leading research institutions. Purdue University is considered by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to have "very high research activity". Purdue also was rated the nation's fourth best place to work in academia, according to rankings released in November 2007 by The Scientist magazine. Purdue's researchers provide insight, knowledge, assistance, and solutions in many crucial areas. These include, but are not limited to Agriculture; Business and Economy; Education; Engineering; Environment; Healthcare; Individuals, Society, Culture; Manufacturing; Science; Technology; Veterinary Medicine. Purdue University generated a record $438 million in sponsored research funding during the 2009–10 fiscal year with participation from National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and Health and Human Services.

The Purdue Research Park which opened in 1961 was developed by Purdue Research Foundation which is a private, nonprofit foundation created to assist Purdue. The park is focused on companies operating in the arenas of life sciences, homeland security, engineering, advanced manufacturing and information technology. It provides an interactive environment for experienced Purdue researchers and for private business and high-tech industry. It currently employs more than 3,000 people in 155 companies, including 90 technology-based firms. The Purdue Research Park was ranked first by the Association of University Research Parks in 2004.

In its 2016 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Purdue as tied for the 21st-best public university in the United States, tied for 61st overall, and tied for 72nd best globally. Additionally, U.S. News & World Report rated Purdue tied for 14th for best undergraduate teaching, and the graduate program in engineering tied for 6th best nationally. The Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2015 ranked Purdue's engineering program 19th internationally, and ranked the specific subjects of chemistry 20th and computer science 21st internationally.