NYU is one of the largest private universities in the United States by enrollment, with a total of 51,848 enrolled students in 2021.[17] It is one of the most applied-to schools in the country and admissions are considered selective.[18][19][20]
Albert Gallatin,Secretary of the Treasury underThomas Jefferson andJames Madison, declared his intention to establish "in this immense and fast-growing city ... a system of rational and practical education fitting and graciously opened to all."[1] A three-day-long "literary and scientific convention" held inCity Hall in 1830 and attended by over 100 delegates debated the terms of a plan for a new university. These New Yorkers believed the city needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based upon merit rather than birthright or social class.
On April 18, 1831, the institution that would become NYU was established with the support of a group of prominent New York City residents from the city'smerchants,bankers, andtraders.[27] Albert Gallatin was elected as its first president.[11] On April 21, 1831, the new institution received itscharter and was incorporated as the University of the City of New York by theNew York State Legislature; older documents often refer to it by that name. The university has been popularly known as New York University since its inception and was officially renamed New York University in 1896.[11] In 1832, NYU held its first classes in rented rooms of four-story Clinton Hall, situated near City Hall.[11] In 1835, theSchool of Law, NYU's first professional school, was established. Although the impetus to found a new school was partly a reaction byevangelicalPresbyterians to what they perceived as theEpiscopalianism ofColumbia College,[28] NYU was creatednon-denominational, unlike many American colleges at the time.[11] TheAmerican Chemical Society was founded in 1876 at NYU.
NYU Building in Washington Square, 1850The University Heights campus, now home toBronx Community College
Soon after its founding, it became one of the nation's largest universities, with an enrollment of 9,300 in 1917.[29] The university purchased a campus atUniversity Heights inthe Bronx because of overcrowding on the old campus. NYU also had a desire to follow New York City's development further uptown. NYU's move to the Bronx occurred in 1894, spearheaded by the efforts of ChancellorHenry Mitchell MacCracken.[11] The University Heights campus was far more spacious than its predecessor was. As a result, most of the university's operations, along with the undergraduateCollege of Arts and Science and School of Engineering, were housed there. NYU's administrative operations were moved to the new campus, but the graduate schools of the university remained at Washington Square.[30] In 1914, Washington Square College was founded as the downtown undergraduate college of NYU.[citation needed] In 1935, NYU opened the "Nassau College-Hofstra Memorial of New York University at Hempstead, Long Island." This extension would later become a fully independentHofstra University.[31]
Financial crisis gripped the New York City government in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the troubles spread to the city's institutions, including NYU.[34] Feeling the pressures of imminent bankruptcy, NYU PresidentJames McNaughton Hester negotiated the sale of the University Heights campus to theCity University of New York, which occurred in 1973.[15] In 1973, the New York University School of Engineering and Science merged intoPolytechnic Institute of Brooklyn,[35] which eventually merged back into NYU in 2014, forming the presentTandon School of Engineering. After the sale of the Bronx campus, University College merged with Washington Square College. In the 1980s, under the leadership of PresidentJohn Brademas,[36] NYU launched a billion-dollar campaign that was led byNaomi B. Levine[37] and was spent almost entirely on updating facilities.[38] The campaign was set to complete in 15 years, but ended up being completed in 10.[39]
In 1991,L. Jay Oliva was inaugurated the 14th president of the university.[40] Following his inauguration, he moved to form theLeague of World Universities, an international organization consisting ofrectors andpresidents fromurbanuniversities across six continents. The league and its 47 representatives gather every two years to discuss global issues ineducation.[41]
In 2003, PresidentJohn Sexton launched a $2.5 billion campaign for funds to be spent especially on faculty and financial aid resources.[42] Under Sexton's leadership, NYU also began its transformation into a global university, including the opening of a campus in Abu Dhabi in 2010.
Mortgage loans issued to some administrators and faculty by the university were criticized following published reports of August 2013, detailing terms of the loans, including that the school had issued some which approached zero percent interest rates, and some that were partially forgiven.[43] Uniquely, among universities,[44] the school had also issued multi-million-dollar loans for luxury vacation homes. President Sexton would step down at the end of his term in 2016, in the wake of a vote of no confidence in March 2013,[45] closely followed by controversy over having received a vacation home loan from NYU.[43]
In August 2018, theNew York University Grossman School of Medicine announced it would be offering full-tuition scholarships to all current and future students in its MD program regardless of need or merit, making it the only top-10 medical school in the United States to do so.[46]
In Spring 2022, PresidentAndrew D. Hamilton announced that the 2023 academic year would be his last, and that he would be returning to research.[47] He was succeeded byLinda G. Mills, the university's first female president.[48]
Enrollment
From 2007 to 2018, NYU experienced a 114% increase in applications to its university system, increasing from around 35,000 applicants to more than 120,000 in 2024 and 2025.[49] This has also caused the acceptance rate to drop significantly, with a record-low acceptance rate of 8% in 2023 and 2024.[50] In 2025, this number dropped even further to 7.7% for the upcoming Class of 2029.[50] In parallel to NYU's expansion in the early 1900s, the university similarly expanded vigorously in the early 2000s, becoming the largest private university in the United States with a combined undergraduate/graduate enrollment of over 59,000 students as of 2018[update].
University logo
The university logo, the upheldtorch, is derived from theStatue of Liberty, signifying NYU's service to New York City.[51] The torch is depicted on both the NYU seal and the more abstract NYU logo, designed in 1965 by renowned graphic designerTom Geismar of the branding and design firmChermayeff & Geismar.[52] There are at least two versions of the possible origin of the university color,violet. Some believe that it may have been chosen becauseviolets are said to have grown abundantly in Washington Square and around the buttresses of the Old University Building. Others argue that the color may have been adopted because the violet was the flower associated withAthens, the center of learning inancient Greece.
Cultural setting
Washington Square andGreenwich Village have been hubs ofcultural life in New York City since the early 19th century. Much of this culture has intersected with NYU at various points in its history.Artists of theHudson River School, the United States' first prominent school of painters, settled around Washington Square.Samuel F.B. Morse, a noted artist who also pioneered the telegraph and created the Morse Code, served as the first chair of Painting and Sculpture. He andDaniel Huntington were early tenants of the Old University Building in the mid-19th century. (The university rented out studio space and residential apartments within the "academic" building.) As a result, they had notable interaction with the cultural and academic life of the university.[34]
In the 1870s, sculptorsAugustus Saint-Gaudens andDaniel Chester French lived and worked near the Square. By the 1920s, Washington Square Park was nationally recognized as a focal point for artistic and moral rebellion. As such, the Washington Square campus became more diverse and bustled with urban energy, contributing to academic change at NYU.[34] Famed residents of this time includeEugene O'Neill,John Sloan, andMaurice Prendergast. In the 1930s, the abstract expressionistsJackson Pollock andWillem de Kooning, and the realistsEdward Hopper andThomas Hart Benton had studios around Washington Square. In the 1960s the area became one of the centers of the beat and folk generation, whenAllen Ginsberg andBob Dylan settled there. This led to tension with the university, which at the time was in the midst of an aggressive facilities expansion phase.[34] In 1975, the university opened TheGrey Art Gallery at 100 Washington Square East, housing the NYU art collection and featuring museum quality exhibitions.[53][54]
Budget and fundraising
NYU has successfully completed a seven-year, $2.5 billion campaign, surpassing expectations by raising more than $3 billion over the seven-year period.[55] Started in 2001, this campaign was the university's largest in its history, in which they planned to "raise $1 million per day for scholarships and financial aid, faculty building, new academic initiatives, and enhancing NYU's physical facilities."[56] The campaign included a $50 million gift from the Tisch family (after which one building and theart school are named) and a $60 million gift from sixtrustees called "The Partners Fund", aimed at hiring new faculty.[56][57] On October 15, 2007, the university announced that the Silver family donated $50 million to theSchool of Social Work, which will be renamed as a result.[58] This is the largest donation ever to a school of social work in the United States.[59]
The 2007–2008 academic year was the most successful fundraising year to date for NYU, with the school raising $698 million in only the first 11 months of the year, representing a 70% increase in donations from the prior year.[60] The university also recently announced plans for NYU's Call to Action, a new initiative to ask alumni and donors to support financial aid for students at NYU.[61]
The university has announced a 25-year strategic development plan, scheduled to coincide with its bicentennial in 2031. Included in the "NYU 200" plans are increasing resident and academic space, hiring additional faculty, and involving the New York City community in a transparent planning process. Additionally, NYU hopes to make their buildings more environmentally friendly, which will be facilitated by an evaluation of all campus spaces.[62] As a part of this plan, NYU purchased 118 million kilowatt-hours of wind power during the 2006–2007 academic year – the largest purchase of wind power by any university in the country and any institution in New York City.[63] For 2007, the university expanded its purchase of wind power to 132 million kilowatt-hours.[64] As a result, theEPA ranked NYU as one of the greenest colleges in the country in its annual College & University Green Power Challenge.[65]
NYU consistently ranks as one of the top fundraising institutions in the country, raising $506.4 million in 2015 and $648 million in 2016.[66] NYU is also the 19th wealthiest university in America with $5.3 billion in cash and investments in fiscal year 2014.[67]
NYU'sNew York City campus includes more than 171 buildings spread betweenManhattan andBrooklyn.[68][69] Most of the school's buildings in Manhattan are located across a roughly 230-acre (93 ha) area bounded byHouston Street to the south,Broadway to the east,14th Street to the north, andSixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west. The core of NYU consists of buildings that surround Washington Square Park.[70][71][72] In addition to its New York campus, NYU has 49 additional buildings overseas located throughout two 'portal' campuses and 12 Global Academic Centers.
Washington Square campus
Washington Square Park, with its gatewayarch, is surrounded largely by NYU buildings and plays an integral role in the university's campus life.
Since the late 1970s, the central part of NYU has been its Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. The Washington Square Arch is an unofficial symbol of NYU. Until 2007, NYU had held its commencement ceremonies in Washington Square Park, but because of renovations to Washington Square moved the 2008 ceremonies to theoriginal Yankee Stadium and all subsequent ones to thecurrent Yankee Stadium.[73]
TheSilver Center for Arts and Science, home to theCollege of Arts & Science and theGraduate School of Arts & Science, is one of the main academic buildings on the Washington Square campus.[74] It is located on Washington Square East, between Washington Place andWaverly Place, and many individual departments of the two schools it houses are located in its vicinity. Meanwhile, Vanderbilt Hall, the main building for theSchool of Law, is located near the southwest corner of Washington Square betweenMacdougal Street andSullivan Street onWashington Square South. The Kimmel Center for University Life is also on Washington Square South, and is the primary hub for student life at the university, providing event and meeting space for student organizations and other gatherings.[75] Located closer to the eastern edge of the campus along Broadway are the main buildings for theTisch School of the Arts and theGallatin School of Individualized Study, as well as the main office forLiberal Studies and NYU's Bookstore andStudent Health Center. Other nearby university buildings and complexes of note include 5 Washington Place, which houses NYU's distinguishedDepartment of Philosophy, 7 East 12th Street, which serves as the main building for theSchool of Professional Studies, theBrown Building, which was the location of the infamousTriangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire before its acquisition by NYU, as well asWashington Square Village andUniversity Village, two housing complexes for faculty members and graduate students. Undergraduateresidence halls in the immediate surroundings of Washington Square include Goddard Hall, Lipton Hall, and Weinstein Hall, while those that are slightly farther but still nearby include Brittany Hall and Rubin Hall.
In the 1990s, NYU became a "two square" university by building a second community aroundUnion Square, in close proximity to Washington Square. NYU's Union Square community primarily consists of the priority residence halls of Carlyle Court,Palladium Residence Hall, Alumni Hall, Coral Tower, Thirteenth Street Hall, University Hall, Third North Residence Hall, and Founders Hall.[70]
On its Washington Square campus, NYU operates theaters and performance facilities that are often used by the Tisch School of the Arts as well as the university'smusic conservatory, which is within theSteinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. External productions are also occasionally held in NYU's facilities. The largest performance accommodations at NYU are theSkirball Center for Performing Arts (850 seats) at 566 LaGuardia Place, just south of Washington Square South, and the Eisner-Lubin Auditorium (560 seats) in the Kimmel Center. Notably, the Skirball Center has hosted important speeches on foreign policy byJohn Kerry[citation needed] andAl Gore.[76] The Skirball Center is the largest performing arts facility south of42nd Street.[77][78]
The Jeffrey S. Gould Plaza, located betweenWashington Square East andMercer Street on West 4th Street, is surrounded by the buildings for some departments of the College of Arts and Science as well as the main buildings for theStern School of Business and theCourant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Other NYU buildings near the plaza include the Bonomi FamilyAdmissions Center, the Jeffrey S. Gould Welcome Center, the Alumni Relations building, Goddard Hall, Frederick Loewe Theatre, and the main building for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, as well as unrelated religious institutions such asJudson Memorial Church, theIslamic Center at NYU, andHebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. Because of its high student traffic during the academic year, Gould Plaza has become a popular meeting spot for NYU students and a performance area forstreet musicians and buskers.
The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, built between 1967 and 1972, is the largest library at NYU and one of the largest academic libraries in the United States. Designed byPhilip Johnson andRichard Foster, the 12-story, 425,000-square-foot (39,500 m2) structure sits on the southern edge of Washington Square Park (at 70 Washington Square South) and is the flagship of an eight-library, 4.5 million-volume system. Bobst Library offers one Multidisciplinary Reference Center, a Research Commons, 28 miles (45 km) of open-stacks shelving, and approximately 2,000 seats for student study. The library is visited by more than 6,800 users each day, and circulates more than one million books annually.[81]
Bobst's Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media is one of the world's largest academic media centers, where students and researchers use more than 95,000 audio and video recordings per year.[82]
Bobst Library is also home to many special collections. TheFales Collection houses collections of English and American fiction in the United States, the unique Downtown Collection, documenting the New York literary avant-garde arts scene from the 1970s to the present, and the Food and Cookery Collection, which documents American food history with a focus on New York City. Bobst Library also houses the Tamiment Library, which holds collections in labor history, socialism, anarchism, communism, and American radicalism for scholarly research. Tamiment includes the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, the Archives of Irish America, the Center for the Cold War and the U.S., and the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center.[83]
Bobst Library made headlines in the early 2000s whenSteven Stanzak, who is also known as "Bobst Boy", gained a following for living in Bobst Library after he was unable to pay for board at the university and began to write about his life on a self published blog.[84] The story was reported byWashington Square News before becoming an overnight national sensation, which helped Stanzak receive financial assistance from NYU until graduation.[85]
Brooklyn campus
Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology on the Brooklyn campus
NYU's Brooklyn campus is located atMetroTech Center, an urban academic-industrialresearch park.[35] It sits on top of theJay Street–MetroTech station, is only a few blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge, and is connected to NYU's Manhattan campus via the NYU Shuttle Bus System.[86][87] It houses the Tandon School of Engineering, theCenter for Urban Science and Progress and also several of Tisch School of the Arts[88] and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development's degree programs.[89]
MetroTech Commons, the 3.5-acre (14,000 m2)privately owned public space at the heart of the MetroTech complex, functions as a quad for students at the Brooklyn campus in much the same way that Washington Square Park does for students at the main campus, hosting events including concerts, health fairs, chess tournaments and holiday celebrations. Bounded by Lawrence and Duffield Streets, the square is frequently adorned by modern art exhibits. Two pieces calledAlligator andVisionary are part of the Commons' permanent public art collection by the well-known sculptorTom Otterness.
The Brooklyn campus is home to NYU's Game Center Open Library, which is the largest collection of games held by any university in the world,[88] as well as the NYU MakerSpace and Design Lab, which allows all NYU students who undergo training sessions to access advanced3D printing,prototyping,CNC machining, andstress testing devices.[90]
In 2014,NYU Langone Medical Center acquired a 125,000 square feet (11,600 m2) healthcare facility in Brooklyn.[91] Quickly following this announcement, NYU announced in 2017 that it would invest over $500 million in the coming years to renovate and expand its Brooklyn campus, including370 Jay Street, which opened in December 2017.[92]
InSterling Forest, nearTuxedo, NYU has a research facility that contains various institutes, in particular the Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine.[98] The Midtown Center at 11 West 42nd Street is home to the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. TheWoolworth Building in the financial district is home to some of NYU's professional studies and education programs.[99]
NYU has two units located on theUpper East Side. TheInstitute for the Study of the Ancient World, a discrete entity within NYU, independent of any other school or department of the university, is located on East 84th Street,[100] while theInstitute of Fine Arts, a graduate school of art history and fine arts, is located at theJames B. Duke House at 1 East 78th Street.[101] Additionally, the nearby Stephen Chan House at 14 East 78th Street houses the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, which boasts the oldest graduate degree-grantingconservation program in the world.[102]
Global campuses and sites
NYU has a host of foreign facilities used forstudy away programs, referred to as Global Academic Centers. As of 2012[update], NYU operates 12 academic sites in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, including undergraduate academic-year and summer study away programs inAccra,Berlin,Buenos Aires,Florence,London,Los Angeles,Madrid,Paris,Prague,Sydney,Tel Aviv, andWashington, D.C.[103] One of the most noteworthy sites is the 57-acre (230,000 m2) campus of NYU Florence, located atVilla LaPietra in Italy. The estate was bequeathed by the late SirHarold Acton to NYU in 1994, and at the time it was the largest donation to a university in history.[104] In spring 2014, NYU Paris moved to a new campus, formerly occupied by theÉcole Spéciale des Travaux Publics (ESTP Paris), in the student area of theQuartier Latin, where NYU Law also set up an EU Regulatory Policy Clinic in partnership withHEC Paris taught byAlberto Alemanno andVincent Chauvet.[105]
In addition to the Global Academic Centers, NYU also maintains 10 Global Research Initiative Institutes, 9 of them are located in the academic centers at Berlin, Florence, London, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Shanghai, Tel Aviv, and Washington DC, with the other being located in Athens.[106] Meant to provide faculty and graduate students with NYU infrastructural support while conducting international research projects, those who are interested can apply for fellowships at all sites during the academic-year and a limited number of sites during the summer.[107]
Spearheaded byJohn Sexton,[108] president of the university during 2002–2015; in Fall 2010,New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) opened as the university's first overseas "Portal Campus" with an inaugural class of 150 students.[109]
The campus faced controversy even before it opened. In 2009, the university responded to a series of interviews inThe New York Times that showed a pattern of labor abuses at its fledgling Abu Dhabi location (which would open for classes the next year), creating a statement of labor values for Abu Dhabi campus workers. A 2014 follow-up article found that while some conditions had improved, contractors for the university were still frequently subjecting their workers to third-world labor conditions. The article documented that these conditions included confiscation of worker passports, forced overtime, recruitment fees and cockroach-filled dorms where workers had to sleep under beds. According to the article, workers who attempted to protest the NYU contractors' conditions were promptly arrested.[110] Reports also claimed that those arrested by police were later abused at the police station. Many workers who were not local were then deported to their home countries.[111] The university quickly responded to the reports with an apology to the workers.[112] Though the campus construction costs were entirely funded by the Abu Dhabi government, as will be the operational costs and any future expansions, in 2015, NYU additionally compensated thousands of migrant workers on its Abu Dhabi complex.[113][114]
Unlike NYU's other study abroad centers, NYUAD functions as a separate liberal arts college within a university, offering complete degree programs to students admitted directly to NYUAD. NYUAD recruits students from all over the world and describes itself as the "World's Honor College". The main campus for NYUAD is onSaadiyat Island and opened in 2014. Until then, the school operated from a campus located in downtown Abu Dhabi.[115]
In 2011, NYU announced plans to open another portal campus, NYU Shanghai, for the fall semester of 2013. It was expected to have about 3,000 undergraduate students, the majority of whom would beChinese. It was approved by theMinistry of Education of the People's Republic of China in January 2011.[116] NYU's local partner would beEast China Normal University (ECNU). ECNU's presidentYu Lizhong would be the chancellor and play a major role in government relations whileJeffrey S. Lehman, former president ofCornell amongst other positions, would serve as vice chancellor and have "free rein in academic affairs".[117] Since late summer of 2014, NYU Shanghai has been based inPudong, Shanghai, at 1555 Century Ave. The main campus is contained in a single building, the Academic Center, a new 15-story building with two underground floors.[118] On May 30, 2019, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new campus building in theQiantan International Business Zone. The Qiantan campus building is also located in Pudong, and was designed and built by architectural firmKohn Pedersen Fox (KPF). The design features four buildings arranged in a pinwheel shape reminiscent of NYU Shanghai's logo, that are connected as one building above the fifth floor. In 2022, the university moved up to 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students into the new campus.[119]
Former global campuses
Tisch School of the Arts, Asia was NYU's first branch campus abroad. The result of a partnership between Tisch School of the Arts and the Singapore Government, it offered Master of Fine Arts degrees in animation and digital arts, dramatic writing, film and international media producing. The campus opened in fall 2007 with the intention to enroll approximately 250 students.[120] Anticipated enrollment figures were not achieved, financial irregularities were alleged, and President Pari Sara Shirazi was dismissed from her post by NYU in November 2011.[121] She subsequently announced her intention to commence legal proceedings against NYU alleging wrongful termination and defamation.[122] In a letter to the Tisch Asia community dated November 8, 2012, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell announced that the campus would close after 2014 with recruitment and admission of new students suspended with immediate effect.[123] In 2016, three former students of the now defunct Tisch Asia sued NYU.[124][125]
Before moving to its current location at the former campus of ESTP Paris, NYU Paris was located in a small building in the historic neighborhood ofPassy.[126]
NYU houses approximately 12,000 undergraduate and graduate residents,[127] and had the seventh-largest university housing system in the U.S. as of 2007[update], and one of the largest among private schools.[128] NYU's undergraduate housing system consists of more than 20 residence halls and is governed by theInter-Residence Hall Council (IRHC), an umbrella student council organization.[127][129]
Uniquely, many of NYU's residence halls are convertedapartment complexes or old hotels. In general, NYU residence halls receive favorable ratings, and some are opulent. Many rooms are spacious and contain amenities considered rare for individual college residence hall rooms, such as kitchens, lavatories, living rooms and common areas.[130] The university operates its own transit system to transport its students bybus to its campus.[131] A few of the residence halls are considered to be among the nicest in the nation, being furnished with granite counter-tops, stainless-steel appliances, in-hall gyms, wood flooring, marble bathroom fixtures, large floor lounges, floor to ceiling windows and extensive views of lower and midtown Manhattan.[132]
Undergraduate students are guaranteed housing during their enrollment at NYU and are split into two categories, FYRE (First-Year Residential Experience) and TRUE (The Residential Upperclassmen Experience). Most FYRE halls are located near the Washington Square area. While nearly all TRUE halls are located near the Union Square area, two former residence halls were located in theFinancial District and one is still in use inChinatown.[133][134] Two residence halls are located in and around the MetroTech Commons, intended to serve NYU's Brooklyn Campus.
NYU has made the greening of its campus a large priority. For example, NYU has been the largest university purchaser of wind energy in the U.S. since 2009.[136] With this switch to renewable power, NYU is achieving benefits equivalent to removing 12,000 cars from the road or planting 72,000 trees. In May 2008, the NYU Sustainability Task Force awarded $150,000 in grants to 23 projects that would focus research and efforts toward energy, food, landscape, outreach, procurement, transportation and waste.[137]These projects include a student-led bike-sharing program modeled after Paris' Velib program with 30 bikes free to students, staff, and faculty. NYU received a grade of "B" on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010 from the Sustainable Endowments Institute.[138]
NYU purchased 118 millionkilowatt-hours ofwind power during the 2006–2007 academic year – the largest purchase of wind power by any university in the country and any institution in New York City.[63] For 2007, the university expanded its purchase of wind power to 132 million kilowatt-hours.[64]
The EPA ranked NYU as one of the greenest colleges in the country in its annual College & University Green Power Challenge.[65]
NYU 2031
In 2007, NYU created a strategic plan for a six billion-dollar, 25-year, 6,000,000-square-foot (560,000 m2) expansion scheduled to conclude by the university's bicentennial in 2031.[21] Details of the plan include 2,000,000 sq ft (190,000 m2) of additional on-campus housing and 3,500,000 sq ft (330,000 m2) of modern academic spaces spread between NYU's New York City campuses.
The expansion started in earnest in 2017 with the groundbreaking of181 Mercer Street, a new multi-purpose building that will act as the flagship athletic facility for NYU, while also accompanying a 350-bed Residence Hall, 58 general purpose classrooms and a 350-seat theater.[139] The roughly 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2), $1.1 billion building is directly adjacent to the south eastern corner of the Washington Square campus and represents a significant focus on the university owned super blocks. Work on the plans second project, 370 Jay Street, a 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2) addition to the Brooklyn campus is scheduled to conclude in 2019. The building will house 'the digital arts and sciences' such as the Tandon School of Engineering departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering; the Tisch School of the Arts Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music and Game Center and various other NYU initiatives such as the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and NYU Wireless (5G research).[140]
To date, NYU has confirmed specific construction details for its NYU 2031 plan to the tune of 1,300,000 sq ft (120,000 m2) at a cost of $1.6 billion with roughly 12 years to go until the university's bicentennial. In order to meet the plans outlined goals on time, the university would have to significantly increase spending, fundraising and construction over the next decade.
Academics
Admissions and scholarships
Admission to NYU is highly selective. For the undergraduate first-year class of 2029, 7.7% were admitted from an applicant pool of more than 120,000. Three of NYU's undergraduate colleges offered admission to fewer than 5% of applicants.[18] In 2021, NYU became the first private university in the US to top 100,000 applications.[19]
Admission statistics, including global network[141][18]
Class of
2029
2028
2027
2026
2025
Applicants
120633
118000
120,000
100,500
100,131
Admits
9289
9440
9,600
12,810
12,500
% Admitted
7.7
8
8
12.2
12.8
Enrolled
5705
6,500
6,500
6,500
Of those admitted, about 6,500 made up the total enrollment for the class, representing 102 countries, all 50 US states, and theDistrict of Columbia. Most freshmen have a typical unweighted GPA of 3.7/A (90–95%) and are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. The medianSAT score was 1540 out of 1600 (within the 99th percentile).[18] The student-to-faculty ratio at the New York campus is 9:1, and less than that at the Abu Dhabi and Shanghai campuses. The average scholarship amount awarded to freshmen is over $35,000, and 20% of freshmen received Pell Grants.[142]
As of 2016[update], NYU's graduate schools have acceptance rates of 1.8% to the School of Medicine, 23% to the School of Business,[143] 28% to the School of Engineering,[144] 29% to the Graduate School of Arts and Science,[145] and 34% to the School of Law.[146]
AverageMCAT score of students at the School of Medicine is 522,[147] averageGMAT score of graduate students at the School of Business is 723,[148] and the medianLSAT score of students at the School of Law is 170.[149]
Schools and leadership
NYU is a private, global, non-sectarian andnot-for-profit institution of higher education[150] organized into 10 undergraduate schools and 15 graduate/professional schools, with a roughly even split of students between the divisions.[151] Arts and Science is currently NYU's largest academic division. It has three subdivisions: the College of Arts and Science, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Liberal Studies program.[13] The College of Arts and Science and Liberal Studies program are undergraduate divisions, and the former has existed since the founding of NYU.[152]
According to NYU, it has created a "global network university" with its primary campus, two "portal" campuses, and 12 academic sites. The portal campuses atNYU Shanghai and NYU Abu Dhabi function as full-fledged colleges, allowing students to study all four years of their undergraduate studies and receive a degree, never having set foot on NYU's traditional campus in New York.[153] The academic sites at Accra, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Washington, D.C. function as study away sites, allowing students to spend up to a year away from their home campus. NYU, citing a report by theInstitute of International Education, asserts that it has sent more students abroad and brought more international students in than any other university for five continuous years.[154]
The President of New York University, is selected by the board of trustees and serves as the primary executive officer of the university for an unspecified term length. On July 1, 2023,Linda G. Mills became the 17th and current President of NYU.[155]
Globally, NYU is ranked 23 in theCenter for World University Rankings,[180] 25th in theAcademic Ranking of World Universities, 26th in theTimes Higher Education World University Rankings,[181] and 35th in theQS World University Rankings.[182] Additionally, NYU is ranked 26th in theTimes Higher Education World University Rankings Reputation Rankings.[183]
U.S. News & World Report ranks NYU's graduate schools 6th for law, 10th for public policy, 9th for mathematics (1st for applied mathematics),[184] 8th forOccupational therapy under Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, 10th for business, 11th for economics, 12th for political science, 4th for medical school research, 10th for education, 19th for nursing doctorate, 38th for physical therapy, 30th for computer science, 36th for psychology, and 38th for engineering.[185]
Globally, NYU's social sciences are ranked 8th by theAcademic Ranking of World Universities,[186] 15th by theTimes Higher Education World University Rankings,[187] and 16th by theQS World University Rankings.[188] NYU is globally ranked 11th for psychology by theQS World University Ranking.[189] TheSocial Psychology Network ranks NYU 5th for industrial/organizational psychology, 14th for clinical psychology,[190] andU.S. News & World Report ranks NYU 9th for social psychology and 9th for behavioral neuroscience.[191]
U.S. News & World Report ranks the New York University School of Law 1st for tax law, 1st for international law, 1st for business and corporate law (tie), and 1st in criminal law. The publication also ranks The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service 10th in public policy.[192] TheNYU Department of Philosophy is globally ranked 1st byThe Philosophical Gourmet Report[193] and theQS World University Rankings.[194] The annual Global Employability Survey inThe New York Times ranks NYU 11th nationally and 29th globally for employability.[195][196] NYU ranks 19th in the world based on the number of patents generated.[197]
Globally, NYU is ranked 7th by theTimes Higher Education World University Rankings for producing alumni who are millionaires, 5th among universities with the highest number of alumni worth $30 million or more, and 4th by Wealth-X for producing ultra high net-worth and billionaire alumni.[198][199][200][201]
Student life
Student body composition As of May 2, 2022[update]
The Student Government Assembly (SGA) is thegoverning student body at NYU. The SGA has been involved in controversial debates on campus, including a campus-wide ban on the sale ofThe Coca-Cola Company's products in 2005 to protest its refusal to investigate apparent human rights violations at their Colombian bottling plant[203][204] and theGraduate Student Organizing Committee unionization in 2001 and subsequent strike in 2005.[205][206] The Coke ban was lifted by the University Senate on February 5, 2009.[207] SGA consists of 75 voting members from subsidiary student government organs including theStudent Senators Council (SSC) and the Presidents Council, which are elected from their respective individual undergraduate and graduate colleges.
In 2018, the structure of the university's student government was called into question by students through school newspapers and social media pages calling for "sweeping changes to itsbyzantine structure." Advocates claimed the structure of SGA failed to represent all students, wasted university funds and operated in an undemocratic manner. Opponents claimed that advocates were merely motivated by legislation supporting theBDS movement that was likely to pass.[208]
Student organizations
A bus system transports students to and from the far ends of campus.
NYU has over 450 student clubs and organizations on campus.[209] In addition to the sports teams, fraternities, sororities, and study clubs, there are many organizations on campus that focus on entertainment, arts, and culture.
Journalism, media, and broadcast organizations
These organizations include various student media clubs: for instance, the dailystudent newspaper theWashington Square News, theNYU Local daily blog,The Plague comedy magazine, "Washington Square Local web-based satire news source, and the literary journalsWashington Square Review andThe Minetta Review, as well as student-run event producers such as the NYU Program Board and the Inter-Residence Hall Council. It also operatesradio stationWNYU-FM 89.1 with a diversecollege radio format, transmitting to the entireNew York metropolitan area from the original campus, and via booster station WNYU-FM1 which fills in the signal inlower Manhattan from atop one of the Silver Towers, next to thefootball field at the Washington Square campus.[210][211]
Students publish a campus comedy magazine,The Plague. Like manycollege humor magazines, this often pokes fun atpopular culture as well as campus life and the idiosyncrasies of New York University.[212]The Plague was founded in 1978[213] by Howard Ostrowsky along with Amy Burns, John Rawlins, Joe Pinto and Dan Fiorella,[214] and is currently published once per semester.[215] It is not NYU's first humor magazine, asThe Medley was a humor magazine published by theEucleian Society from 1913 to 1950.[212]
Debate team
Since winning the national championship in the 2003–2004 season, the NYUCross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate team is considered one of the perennial collegiatepolicy debate teams in the country.[216] For the 2020–21 season, they placed 5th in the nation at CEDA Open Nationals[217] and 2nd in the nation at JV Nationals,[218] along with students named the 1st and 4th place speakers at Novice Nationals.[219] In 2021, they ranked 10th in the nation, finishing ahead of Harvard and Cornell.[220] This marked 14 years of Top 20 National finishes dating back to the 2007 season.[221]
Mock trial team
The New York University Mock Trial team is consistently ranked as one of the best collegiate mock trial teams in the country. NYU has qualified for the National Championship Tournament for 10 consecutive seasons and placed in the top 10 during each of those years. In the 2009–2010 season, NYU won the 26th National Championship Tournament in Memphis over rivalHarvard.[222] The following season, they qualified for the final round once more only to be the runners-up toUCLA.[223] In the American Mock Trial Association's 2015–2016 power rankings, NYU ranks third, behind Harvard andYale.[224]
Campus traditions
NYU has traditions which have persisted across campuses. Since the beginning of the 20th century initiation ceremonies have welcomed incoming NYU freshmen. At the Bronx University Heights Campus, seniors used to grab unsuspecting freshmen, take them to a horse-watering trough, and then dunk them head-first into what was known colloquially as "the Fountain of Knowledge". This underground initiation took place until the 1970s.[225] Today freshmen take part in university-sponsored activities during what is called "Welcome Week".[226] In addition, throughout the year the university traditionally holds Apple Fest (an apple-themed country fest that began at the University Heights campus), the Violet Ball (a dance in the atrium of Bobst Library), Strawberry Fest (featuring New York City's longeststrawberry shortcake), and the semi-annualmidnight breakfast where Student Affairs administrators serve free breakfast to students beforefinals.[227]
A cappella groups
NYU is home to a number of student-run a cappella groups, several of which compete regularly at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). Most notable of these groups is The NYU N'Harmonics, who won the ICCA title in 2019.[228] In 2020, The A Cappella Archive ranked The NYU N'Harmonics at No. 6 among all ICCA-competing groups.[229]
Greek life
Some of the firstfraternities in the country were formed at NYU.[230][231] Greek life first formed on the NYU campus in 1837 whenPsi Upsilon chartered its Delta Chapter.[230] The first fraternities at NYU were social ones. With their athletic, professional, intellectual, and service activities, later groups sought to attract students who also formed other groups. Since then, Greek letter organizations have proliferated to include 25 social fraternities and sororities. As of 2014[update], approximately 13% of NYU undergraduate students are members of fraternities or sororities.[232]
Four governing boards oversee Greek life at the university. The Interfraternity Council (IFC) has jurisdiction over all twelve recognized fraternities on campus. Eight sororities are under the jurisdiction of the Panhellenic Council (PhC), which features seven national sororities (ΔΦΕ, ΑΕΦ, ΑΣΤ, ΠΒΦ, ΚΚΓ, ΖΤΑ, ΔΓ) and two local sororities (ΑΦΖ and ΘΦΒ). Five multicultural organizations maintain membership in the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC), including two fraternities and three sororities. All three of the aforementioned boards are managed under the auspices of the Inter-Greek Council.[233]
Greek organizations have historical significance at NYU.Delta Phi Epsilon,Zeta Psi,Alpha Epsilon Pi,Tau Delta Phi,[234]Alpha Kappa Psi andDelta Sigma Pi were founded at NYU. Zeta Psi was chartered in 1847,[231] Delta Sigma Pi in 1907,[235] Alpha Epsilon Pi in 1913[236] Delta Phi Epsilon was founded in 1917.[237] The NYU Gamma chapter ofDelta Phi, founded in 1841, is the longest continuously active fraternity chapter in the world, having never gone inactive since its establishment. Delta Phi is also the oldest continuously active fraternity in the United States, being the only organization in the original Union Triad to remain active since its institute.[238] The NYU Gamma chapter ofZeta Beta Tau is the oldest active ΖΒΤ chapter in the country.[239]
Secret societies
During the University Heights era, an apparent rift evolved with some organizations distancing themselves from students from the downtown schools. The exclusivePhilomathean Society operated from 1832 to 1888 (formally giving way in 1907 and reconstituted into theAndiron Club). Included among the Andiron's regulations was "Rule No.11: Have no relations save the most casual and informal kind with the downtown schools."[240]The Eucleian Society, rival to the Philomathean Society, was founded in 1832. TheKnights of the Lamp was a social organization founded in 1914 at the School of Commerce. This organization met every full moon and had a glowworm as its mascot.[241] TheRed Dragon Society, founded in 1898, is thought to be the most selective society at NYU.
In addition, NYU's firstyearbook was formed by fraternities and "secret societies" at the university.[242] There have been several attempts to restart old societies by both former and incoming undergraduate classes.
ROTC
NYU does not have an ROTC program on campus. However, NYU students may participate in theU.S. Army ROTC program through NYC Army ROTC (Yankee Battalion), headquartered atFordham University.[243][244] Students may also participate in the U.S. Air Force ROTC program through AFROTC Detachment 560 headquartered at Manhattan College.[245]
NYU's sports teams are referred to as theNYU Violets, the colors being the trademarked hue "NYU Violet" and white. Since 1981, the schoolmascot has been a bobcat, whose origin can be traced back to the abbreviation then being used by the Bobst Library computerized catalog—short: Bobcat.[246] NYU's sports teams include baseball, men's and women's varsity basketball, cross country, fencing, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling.[247] Most of NYU's sports teams participate in theNCAA'sDivision III and theUniversity Athletic Association, while fencing and ice hockey participate inDivision I.[248][249][250] While NYU has hadAll-American football players, the school has not had a varsityfootball team since 1952.[251]
NYU students also compete in club and intramural sports, includingbadminton,baseball,basketball,crew,cycling,equestrianism,ice hockey,lacrosse,martial arts,rugby,softball,squash,tennis,triathlon, andultimate. The Palladium Athletic Facility[252] serves as the home base of NYU's Varsity and Club intercollegiate athletic teams, while NYU's 404 and Brooklyn athletic facilities offer additional space for the NYU fitness community. Many of NYU's varsity teams play their games at various facilities and fields throughout Manhattan because of the scarcity of space for playing fields near campus. NYU is currently in the process of building a new billion dollar flagship athletic facility known as 181 Mercer Street.[253] When complete, the new home of NYU Athletics will host a six-lane swimming pool, four full basketball courts, a complete in-door running track and other sports related offerings.
^As of August 31, 2024[update]."NYU Endowment Fact Sheet"(PDF). New York University. August 31, 2024.Archived(PDF) from the original on December 14, 2024. RetrievedDecember 13, 2024.
^NYU Web Communications."Fiscal 2021 Budget".Archived from the original on January 29, 2022. RetrievedDecember 30, 2017.
^"Common Data Set 2012–2013"(PDF).Institutional Research and Program Evaluation. New York University.Archived(PDF) from the original on November 2, 2013. RetrievedOctober 31, 2013.
^The total number of administration staff listed here refers to the total number of employees in office and administrative support occupations at the Washington Square and School of Medicine campuses only.
^"The Campaign for NYU". NYU Office for University Development & Alumni Relations. Archived fromthe original on August 22, 2007. RetrievedSeptember 4, 2007.
^"About CAS".NYU College of Arts & Science. New York University, Arts and Science. Archived fromthe original on September 22, 2013. RetrievedAugust 30, 2013.
^"Club Directory".Center for Student Activities, Leadership & Service. New York University.Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. RetrievedOctober 31, 2013.
^Cross Examination Debate Association (April 2021)."CEDA Points for 2020-2021".Tabroom. Cross Examination Debate Association.Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. RetrievedJune 30, 2021.
^Cross Examination Debate Association (April 4, 2021)."2021 CEDA Final Rankings".Cross Examination Debate Association Newsletter. Cross Examination Debate Association.Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. RetrievedJune 25, 2021.
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