Public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
How does this school stack up?
The University of Virginia (UVA) was very much the personal project of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Virginia already had a venerable and distinguished university, the College of William & Mary, which is the second-oldest in the country—founded right after Harvard—and was Jefferson’s own alma mater.
However, in Jefferson’s day, William & Mary continued to require its students to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, whereas Jefferson had become a deist—not an atheist, but not a Christian, either, and certainly not a friend to the C of E.
Jefferson was a great admirer of the French Revolution, and nothing if not a child of the Enlightenment. Therefore, he wanted his home state of Virginia to benefit from a more modern kind of university that would advance the enlightened and progressive values he held dear.
In 1817, Jefferson met with three of his friends and political colleagues, the newly elected, fifth President of the United States, James Monroe; the outgoing fourth president, James Madison; and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall. At this meeting, they decided on a location for the new university near the town of Charlottesville.
Two years later, UVA received its charter from the Commonwealth of Virginia and construction began, with Jefferson himself serving as the main architect. The new university’s first classes began in 1825.
Two centuries later, UVA has become one of the premier public universities in the Old South. It has been affiliated with nine Nobel Prize laureates, namely,
Two UVA undergrads have gone on to win the Turing Award for outstanding achievements in the field of computer science:
Other UVA-connected faculty and alumni include:
What does this school look for?
Annual Applications
37,182
Acceptance
26%
Graduation Rate
94%
Median SAT Score
1415
Median ACT Score
32
How much does it cost to attend?
Tuition (in-state)
$14,509
Fees (in-state)
$2,845
Averages for 10 years after enrolling
Avg Earnings
$79,400
Employed
92%
What's it like to attend this school?
Full time on-campus stats
Student Body
24K
Under-Grads
17K
Graduates
8K
Where will you be attending?
Location
1827 University Avenue,
Charlottesville VA
22903-2628
On Campus Crime Rates
Property Crime
10k per 100k
Violent Crime
0k per 100k
City Crime Rates
Property Crime
26k per 100k
Violent Crime
5k per 100k
Our answer to this is to show you the disciplines in which a school's faculty and alumni have had the highest historical influence. A school may be influential in a discipline even if they do not offer degrees in that area. We've organized two lists to show where they are influential and offer corresponding degrees, and where they are influential through scholarship although they don't offer degrees in the disciplines.
Who are University of Virginia's Most influential alumni?
University of Virginia's most influential alumni faculty include professors and professionals in the fields of Law, Literature, and Education. University of Virginia’s most academically influential people include Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, and Ronald Coase.