Princeton University

Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton was the fourth chartered institution of higher education in the Thirteen Colonies and thus one of the nine Colonial Colleges established before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, where it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. It offers professional degrees through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The University has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States.

The University has graduated many notable alumni. It has been associated with 41 Nobel laureates, 17 National Medal of Science winners, the most Abel Prize winners and Fields Medalists of any university (four and eight, respectively), ten Turing Award laureates, five National Humanities Medal recipients, 209 Rhodes Scholars, and 126 Marshall Scholars. Two U.S. Presidents, 12 U.S. Supreme Court Justices (three of whom currently serve on the court), and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princeton's alumni. Princeton has also graduated many prominent members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of Defense, and two of the past four Chairs of the Federal Reserve. It is consistently ranked as one of the top universities in the world.

Campus:

The main campus sits on about 500 acres (2.0 km2) in Princeton. In 2011, the main campus was named by Travel+Leisure as one of the most beautiful in the United States. The James Forrestal Campus is split between nearby Plainsboro and South Brunswick. The University also owns some property in West Windsor Township.:44 The campuses are situated about one hour from both New York City and Philadelphia. The first building on campus was Nassau Hall, completed in 1756, and situated on the northern edge of campus facing Nassau Street. The campus expanded steadily around Nassau Hall during the early and middle 19th century. The McCosh presidency (1868–88) saw the construction of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles; many of them are now gone, leaving the remaining few to appear out of place. At the end of the 19th century Princeton adopted the Collegiate Gothic style for which it is known today. Implemented initially by William Appleton Potter and later enforced by the University's supervising architect, Ralph Adams Cram, the Collegiate Gothic style remained the standard for all new building on the Princeton campus through 1960. A flurry of construction in the 1960s produced a number of new buildings on the south side of the main campus, many of which have been poorly received. Several prominent architects have contributed some more recent additions, including Frank Gehry (Lewis Library), I.M. Pei (Spelman Halls), Demetri Porphyrios (Whitman College, a Collegiate Gothic project), Robert Venturi (Frist Campus Center, among several others), and Rafael Viñoly.

A group of 20th-century sculptures scattered throughout the campus forms the Putnam Collection of Sculpture. It includes works by Alexander Calder (Five Disks: One Empty), Jacob Epstein (Albert Einstein), Henry Moore (Oval With Points), Isamu Noguchi (White Sun), and Pablo Picasso (Head of a Woman). Richard Serra's The Hedgehog and The Fox is located between Peyton and Fine halls next to Princeton Stadium and the Lewis Library. At the southern edge of the campus is Lake Carnegie, a man-made lake named for Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie financed the lake's construction in 1906 at the behest of a friend who was a Princeton alumnus. Carnegie hoped the opportunity to take up rowing would inspire Princeton students to forsake football, which he considered "not gentlemanly." The Shea Rowing Center on the lake's shore continues to serve as the headquarters for Princeton rowing.

Organization:

The Trustees of Princeton University, a 40-member board, is responsible for the overall direction of the University. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the University's endowment and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies, such as those in instructional programs and admission, as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members. With an endowment of US$21 billion, Princeton University is among the wealthiest universities in the world. Ranked in 2010 as the third largest endowment in the United States, the university has the greatest per-student endowment in the world (over US$2 million for undergraduates). Such a significant endowment is sustained through the continued donations of its alumni and is maintained by investment advisers. Some of Princeton's wealth is invested in its art museum, which features works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol among other prominent artists.

Rankings:

From 2001 to 2015, Princeton University was ranked either first or second among national universities by U.S. News & World Report (USNWR), holding the top spot for 13 of those 15 years. Princeton was ranked first in the most recent 2015 U.S. News rankings, as well as #1 in a separate ranking for "best undergraduate teaching." In the 2014–15 Times Higher Education assessment of the world's greatest universities, Princeton was ranked 7th. In the 2014/15 QS World University Rankings, it was ranked 9th overall in the world and 5th among US universities. In the "America's Top Colleges" rankings by Forbes in 2014, Princeton University was ranked fourth among all national colleges and universities, after holding the number one position for a number of years.

In the 2015 U.S. News & World Report "Graduate School Rankings", all thirteen of Princeton's doctoral programs evaluated were ranked in their respective top 20, 8 of them in the top 5, and 4 of them in the top spot (Economics, History, Mathematics, Sociology). In Princeton Review's rankings of "softer" aspects of students' college experience, Princeton University was ranked first in "Students Happy with Financial Aid" and third in "Happiest Students", behind Clemson and Brown. Princeton was ranked the 360th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings. Princeton was ranked 7th among 300 Best World Universities in 2011 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR) on Measurements of World's Top 300 Universities Graduates' Performance . Princeton University has an IBM BlueGeneL supercomputer, called Orangena, which was ranked as the 89th fastest computer in the world in 2005 (LINPACK performance of 4713 compared to 12250 for other U.S. universities and 280600 for the top-ranked supercomputer, belonging to the U.S. Department of Energy).