ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

The University of Washington (commonly referred to as UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university located in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, it is the flagship institution of the six public universities in Washington and one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the United States.

Established in downtown Seattle a decade after the city's founding, the university was created to aid in the economic development and urbanization of Seattle. Its two other campuses are located in Tacoma and Bothell. Overall, UW encompasses 500 buildings and over 20 million gross square footage of space, including one of the largest library systems in the world with over 26 university libraries, the UW Tower office building, art centers, museums, lecture halls, laboratories, sport stadiums and conference centers. The University offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees through its 140 departments, organized into various colleges and schools. With a total student enrollment of about 46,000, UW is the second largest university in the Western United States.

Situated in Seattle's University District above the Montlake Cut, UW's 703-acre main campus is in the urban Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest. The university functions on a quarter system, operating year-round on four ten-week academic terms. UW is known for its research in medicine and science and its competitive computer science and engineering programs. Its 22 varsity sports teams compete as the Huskies in the Pac-12 Conference conference of the NCAA Division I.

UW is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified as a R1 Doctoral Research University under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which denotes the highest research activity. It is frequently listed as one of the top public universities in the United States and is consistently included among the highest-ranked universities in the world by several international rankings.[6] It has also been cited as a leading world university for scientific performance and research output by the CWTS Leiden Ranking and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In the 2015 fiscal year, UW received nearly $1.2 billion dollars in research funding, ranking 3rd overall among universities in the United States.