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Home of the Blue Devils, Duke University has about 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students and a world-class faculty helping to expand the frontiers of knowledge. The university has a strong commitment to applying knowledge in service to society, both near its North Carolina campus and around the world.

HISTORY
Duke University was created in 1924 by James Buchanan Duke as a memorial to his father, Washington Duke. The Dukes, a Durham family that built a worldwide financial empire in the manufacture of tobacco products and developed electricity production in the Carolinas, long had been interested in Trinity College. Trinity traced its roots to 1838 in nearby Randolph County when local Methodist and Quaker communities opened Union Institute. The school, then named Trinity College, moved to Durham in 1892. In December 1924, the provisions of James B. Duke’s indenture created the family philanthropic foundation, The Duke Endowment, which provided for the expansion of Trinity College into Duke University.

As a result of the Duke gift, Trinity underwent both physical and academic expansion. The original Durham campus became known as East Campus when it was rebuilt in stately Georgian architecture. West Campus, Gothic in style and dominated by the soaring 210-foot tower of Duke Chapel, opened in 1930. East Campus served as home of the Woman’s College of Duke University until 1972, when the men’s and women’s undergraduate colleges merged. Both men and women undergraduates now enroll in either the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences or the Pratt School of Engineering. In 1995, East Campus became the home for all first-year students.

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For more than two centuries, the University of Pennsylvania has been committed to excellence in scholarship, research and service. From its highly regarded undergraduate, graduate and professional schools to its wide-ranging program of interdisciplinary research and scholarship, Penn takes pride in being a place where students and faculty can pursue knowledge without boundaries, a place where theory and practice combine to produce a better understanding of our world and ourselves.

Introduction to Penn

At the University of Pennsylvania, you’ll find a historic, Ivy League school with highly selective admissions and a history of innovation in interdisciplinary education and scholarship. You’ll also find a picturesque campus amidst a dynamic city and a world-class research institution.

Intellectual rigor and a practical outlook

Penn carries on the principles and spirit of its founder, Benjamin Franklin: entrepreneurship, innovation, invention, outreach, and a pragmatic love of knowledge. Franklin’s practical outlook has remained a driving force in the university’s development.

Top students

Today Penn is home to a diverse undergraduate student body of nearly 10,000, hailing from every state in the union and all around the globe. Admissions are among the most selective in the country and Penn consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Another 10,000 students are enrolled in Penn’s 12 graduate and professional schools, which are national leaders in their fields. The Wharton School is consistently one of the nation’s top three business schools. The School of Nursing is one of the two best in the U.S. The School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Education, Law School, School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and Annenberg School for Communication all rank among the top 10 schools in their fields.

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