The University of Oklahoma is truly an extraordinary institution, known for its academic excellence and strong sense of community. Attracting top students from across the nation and more than 120 countries around the world, OU provides a major university experience in a private college atmosphere. For the second time in three years, OU has enrolled more freshman National Merit Scholars than any other institution in the country - the only public university ever to have done so. The current student body is both the largest and most highly ranked academically in the history of public institutions in Oklahoma. In 2012, OU added its 29th Rhodes Scholar. No other university in Oklahoma has had more than two. OU is the only university in the nation whose students have won Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Truman, Goldwater, and Fulbright scholarships in the same year. In 2016, the OU Honors College was named one of the top 25 programs at a public university, matching the University's best and brightest students with faculty in classrooms of 19 or fewer students. OU is one of the few public universities in the nation to cap the class size of first-year English composition courses at no more than 19. The University is at the top in the nation in international exchange agreements, allowing students to study in more than 79 countries and more than 220 cities on six continents around the world. OU is the only public university in the nation to be awarded the Davis Cup four consecutive years in recognition of its record-setting enrollment of United World College international freshmen. The number of endowed faculty positions has grown from fewer than 100 in 1994 to 578 today. In honor of OUs 125th anniversary, the University launched a $500 million private fundraising campaign, of which the largest component is to raise $100 million to provide scholarships and fellowships. During the past decade, research expenditures have more than doubled at OU, totaling more than $284 million in fiscal year 2014. In 2011, OU achieved the Carnegie Foundation's highest tier of research activity classification, making it the first time a public institution in Oklahoma has received this outstanding recognition. The Association of University Research Parks recently named OU's Research Campus the top research campus in the United States. Since 1995, more than $2 billion in construction projects have been completed or are underway on OUs three campuses - including a new school of biomedical engineering on the Norman main campus. OU is the only Big 12 university to be selected as having one of Americas 25 most beautiful campuses. The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is one of the two largest natural history museums in the world associated with a university, containing more than 10 million artifacts. The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art has more than doubled in size with an additional 18,000 square feet added on to allow for additional collections. OUs Bizzell Memorial Library features the largest history of science collection in the world, and is the only place in the United States where you can hold a book with Galileo's handwriting in your own hands. Opening in fall 2017, OU is among the first public universities in the country to build residential colleges for upperclassmen and women, patterned on those at Yale, Harvard, and Oxford. These communities will become the cornerstone of the undergraduate experience. OU established the Faculty-In-Residence program, which places faculty members and their families in each of our residence halls to foster faculty and student interaction and encourage intergenerational friendships. Further, a different professor adopts each floor of the residence halls as well as each fraternity and sorority, allowing students and faculty to build relationships outside of the classroom. This facilitates the academic vitality on campus and has encouraged one in every four of our students to study abroad during their time at OU.

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