University Of Colorado At Boulder

Location and Contact Information

The campus is in a small city.

Overview

The University of Colorado at Boulder was founded in 1876, the same year the state was formally established. Old Main housed not only the first classrooms but the president's home, library and janitor's quarters.

The university is Colorado's flagship public research university. It is one of 34 U.S. public institutions belonging to the prestigious Association of American Universities and the only member in the Rocky Mountain region.

The main campus, set against the Flatirons, covers more than 780 acres in Boulder. It was the first of the current three-campus University of Colorado system.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is a Tier 1 research institution that received more than $280 million in sponsored research awards for the 2008 fiscal year--placing it 13th nationally and sixth among all public universities.

The university offers more than 150 academic programs and is organized into several colleges and schools. These include:

• College of Architecture and Planning
• College of Arts and Sciences
• College of Engineering and Applied Science
• College of Music
• Graduate School
• Leeds School of Business
• School of Education
• School of Journalism and Mass Communication
• School of Law

CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics is one of an elite group of university space centers able to meet the increasingly stringent requirements of space exploration in the new millennium.

CU-Boulder is one of only three U.S. colleges and universities to receive a 2007 Presidential Award for General Community Service.

The institution's College of Engineering and Applied Science offers several graduate programs via distance education / online studies, including those in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical/Computer/Energy Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering Management and Interdisciplinary Telecommunications.

CU-Boulder's mascot in all intercollegiate athletics--going back to 1934--is a real buffalo named Ralphie. In 2006 the ski team won the NCAA National Collegiate Skiing Championship for the 17th time. Overall, CU-Boulder has won 22 national championships, including four in cross country and one in football.

Famous alumni of the University of Colorado at Boulder are Alan Kay, a Turing Award-winning computer scientist; Christopher McKay, planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center; Academy Award-winning writer Dalton Trumbo; Kalpana Chawla, the NASA astronaut who died on the Space Shuttle Columbia; Byron White, the associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Ward Darley, president, University of Colorado; Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist and author of On Death and Dying; Judy Collins, folk musician; Dave Grusin, award-winning composer; actor Christopher Meloni; and John Wooten, All-American, played for Cleveland Browns.

Robert Redford, actor and founder of Sundance Film Festival, attended but did graduate.

Highlights (vs. Other Schools)

• Many students concentrating in fine arts, religion and philosophy, therapy and counseling, music, science, engineering, liberal arts, mathematics, media, architecture and planning, and conservation and resource management.
• Large number of students.
• Large number of programs of study offered.
• High faculty salary.
• High percentage of students are from out-of-state.
• High SAT scores (combined Verbal and Math).
• High male/female ratio.

School characteristics:

• The school is public.
• Academic calender: Semester.
• Carnegie classification: Doctoral/Research Universities, Extensive.

Features of note:

• The school offers a faculty tenure system.
• There are one or more libraries on-campus.
• Campus housing is available.
• Students have meal (board) plans.
• Students may study abroad.
• Distance learning is available.
• Part-time classes are available.
• ROTC.
• Athlete financial aid is awarded.

Tuition and Financial Aid (2009-2010)

Financial Aid

University Of Colorado participates in US Title IV financial assistance programs.

In 2009-2010, 52% of students received financial aid of some sort.

(Please refer to BrainTrack's financial aid articles section for background information.)

Similar Schools

Based on proprietary BrainTrack computer comparisons against all other US colleges, these schools appear to be most similar to University Of Colorado At Boulder:

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Degrees Awarded (in 2009-2010)

Faculty

Tenure (2009-2010):

Students

Student enrollment was 32,469 in 2009-2010 (28,802 full-time equivalent).

About 51% of the freshmen class in 2009-2010 was male and women were 49% of the class.

Undergrads are 82% of enrolled students, graduate students are 16%, and those seeking first-professional graduate degrees represent 1%.

Students under 25 years old represent 81% of the student body. About 3% of the school is at least 40 years of age.

Among freshmen students, 99% are full-time and 1% are part-time.

Admissions Summary (2009-2010)

SAT Test Scores:

Room and Board

University Of Colorado provides on-campus housing for 6,930 of its 28,802 (full-time) students (as of 2009-2010). The school requires freshmen to live on campus.

Students may purchase a meal plan which includes 19 meals weekly.

Athletics

School sports include football, basketball, baseball, and track. The school is in the Big Twelve Conference for major sports.

The school offers financial aid for athletes. Of students receiving athletic financial aid, 160 male students received the aid (men were 65% of those receiving aid) and 88 women were awarded financial aid based on athletics (representing 35% of students receiving such aid) .

Graduate School Focus

University Of Colorado offers graduate (post-Bachelor) studies. The highest degree offered is the Doctorate (Research/Scholarship & Professional Practice).

The school's Graduate School Carnegie Classification is Comprehensive Doctoral (No Medical/Veterinary).

Programs of Study

(Number of degrees in 2009-2010 in parentheses)

ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING (174 awarded)

• Environmental Design/Architecture

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT (875 awarded)

• Business Administration and Management

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (126 awarded)

• Computer Engineering
• Computer Science

CONSERVATION AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (116 awarded)

• Environmental Studies

DRAMA AND PERFORMING ARTS (46 awarded)

• Dance
• Drama and Dramatics/Theatre Arts

EDUCATION AND TEACHING (176 awarded)

• Curriculum and Instruction
• Educational Evaluation and Research
• Music Teacher Education
• Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education

ENGINEERING (831 awarded)

• Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
• Architectural Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Engineering Physics
• Engineering
• Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

FINE ARTS (161 awarded)

• Art History, Criticism and Conservation
• Fine/Studio Arts

LAW (166 awarded)

• Law (LLB, JD)

LIBERAL ARTS (2,004 awarded)

• Anthropology
• Asian Studies/Civilization
• Chinese Language and Literature
• Classics/Classical Languages, Lit & Linguistics
• Comparative Literature
• Creative Writing
• East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
• Economics
• English Language and Literature
• Ethnic, Cultural Minority, and Gender Studies
• French Language and Literature
• Geography
• Germanic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
• History
• Humanities/Humanistic Studies
• International/Global Studies
• Italian Language and Literature
• Japanese Language and Literature
• Latin American Studies
• Linguistics
• Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies
• Museology/Museum Studies
• Political Science and Government
• Russian Studies
• Sociology
• Spanish Language and Literature
• Women's Studies

MATHEMATICS (120 awarded)

• Applied Mathematics
• Mathematics

MEDIA (507 awarded)

• Communication Studies/Speech Communication and Rhetoric
• Journalism

MEDICAL SUPPORT AND TECHNOLOGY (1 awarded)

• Audiology/Audiologist and Hearing Sciences

MEDICINE (7 awarded)

• Neuroscience

MUSIC (104 awarded)

• Music History, Literature, and Theory
• Music Performance
• Music

PHOTOGRAPHY AND COMMERCIAL ART (95 awarded)

• Film/Cinema Studies

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY (103 awarded)

• Philosophy
• Religion/Religious Studies

SCIENCE (803 awarded)

• Astronomy
• Astrophysics
• Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
• Biochemistry
• Cell/Cellular and Molecular Biology
• Chemical Physics
• Chemistry
• Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology
• Geology/Earth Science
• Physics
• Physiology
• Science, Technology and Society

THERAPY AND COUNSELING (595 awarded)

• Cognitive Science
• Communication Disorders
• Educational Psychology
• Psychology