The University of Virginia (also The University, Mr. Jefferson's University, or Virginia; often abbreviated as U.Va. or UVA) is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. Conceived by 1800 and established in 1819, it is the only university in the United States to be designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, an honor it shares with nearby Monticello.

The University is notable in U.S. history for being the first educational institution to offer academic programs in disciplines now common, such as astronomy and philosophy. Its School of Engineering and Applied Science was the first engineering school in the United States to be part of a comprehensive university. Officially, the University of Virginia is incorporated as The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.

Hunter College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY), located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Originally known as the Normal College, Hunter was founded in 1870 by Irish immigrant and social reformer Thomas Hunter as a teacher-training school for young women. Today, Hunter is a coeducational liberal arts and sciences college that offers undergraduate and graduate programs in more than 100 fields.[3] The college is organized into four schools: The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Health Professions, and the School of Social Work. Since 2001, Hunter has been led by President Jennifer Raab, former chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

According to the "Best Value Colleges for 2010," a ranking published by the Princeton Review and U.S.A. Today, Hunter is the nation's number 2 "Best Value" in public colleges (on the basis of the analysis of over 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs of attendance, and financial aid).[4] The Princeton Review's 2010 edition of the "Best 371 Colleges" includes Hunter as one of the best colleges or universities in the United States. Hunter also was cited among the Best Northeastern Colleges, one of five regional guides published by the Princeton Review. The 2010 edition of "America's Best Colleges," published by U.S. News & World Report, places the college 10th among public universities in the north in the "Best Universities-Master's" category, and among the 574 public and private institutions in this category, Hunter is in the first tier with a rank of 45. Hunter is 3rd in the nation among master's institutions in the number of students awarded Fulbright grants, according to the October 2009 ranking compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education

New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college located in Sarasota, Florida. Composed of 87 faculty and about 800 students, New College is known for its high academic standards, narrative evaluation system, and its focus on independent research and student-driven curriculum. Founded originally as an innovative private institution, it is now an autonomous honors college of the State University System of Florida

The Florida State University (commonly referred to as Florida State or FSU) is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation. The university comprises 15 separate colleges and 39 centers, facilities, labs and institutes that offer more than 300 programs of study, including professional programs.

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder, UCB officially; Colorado and CU colloquially) is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado. Considered a Public Ivy, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system and was founded five months before Colorado was admitted to the union in 1876. The university's colors are silver and gold.

Comprising nine colleges and schools, the university offered over 150 academic programs and enrolled 28,988 students and granted 6,781 degrees in 2007. Six Nobel Laureates, seven MacArthur Fellows, and 17 astronauts have been affiliated with CU Boulder as students, researchers, or faculty members in its history. The University received $266 million in sponsored research in 2007 to fund programs like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, JILA, and National Institute of Standards and Technology's NIST-F1 atomic clock.

The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the world, with a total enrollment of 438,361 students, plus 1.1 million continuing education students spanning 64 campuses across the state. The SUNY system has 83,547 faculty members and some 6,650 degree and certificate programs overall. SUNY includes many institutions and four University Centers: Albany (1844), Binghamton (1946), Buffalo (1846), and Stony Brook (1957). SUNY's administrative offices are in Albany.

The University of Georgia (UGA) is an American public research university located in Athens, Georgia, the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning. Founded in 1785, UGA is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States.

The university regularly performs well in both undergraduate and graduate program rankings in such publications as U.S. News & World Report and BusinessWeek, as well as studies ranking top journalism schools. It has also been recognized as one of three Southern Public Ivies.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech, is a land grant polytechnic university in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States.

Founded in 1872 as an agricultural and mechanical college, Virginia Tech continues to be one of the few public universities in the United States which maintains a corps of cadets. The Virginia Tech campus is located in the New River Valley in the Valley and Ridge physiographic region of the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, a few miles from the Jefferson National Forest in Montgomery County.

Texas A&M University, often referred to as A&M or TAMU, is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas. It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The seventh-largest university in the United States, A&M enrolls over 48,000 students in ten academic colleges. Texas A&M's designation as a land, sea, and space grant institution reflects a broad range of research with ongoing projects funded by agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research. The school ranks in the top 20 American research institutes in terms of funding and has made notable contributions to such fields as animal cloning.

The University of Oklahoma (abbreviated OU) is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. As of 2007, the university has 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its main campus in Norman. Employing nearly 3,000 faculty members, the school offers 152 baccalaureate programs, 160 master's programs, 75 doctorate programs, and 20 majors at the first professional level. David Boren, a former U.S. Senator and Oklahoma Governor, has served as President of the University of Oklahoma since 1994.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, North Carolina, or simply Carolina) is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. First enrolling students in 1795, UNC is one of multiple schools to claim the title of oldest public university in the United States and is one of the original eight schools known as a Public Ivy. Today, the university is the flagship of the consolidated University of North Carolina system.

All undergraduates receive a liberal arts education and have the option to pursue a major within the professional schools of the university or within the College of Arts and Sciences from the time they obtain junior status. In both teaching and research, UNC has been highly ranked by publications such as BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. The university forms one of the corners of the Research Triangle in addition to Duke University in Durham and North Carolina State University in Raleigh.