Imperial College London

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON






Imperial College London (officially Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a British university in London. Imperial's teaching and research have traditionally focused on science, engineering and medicine, although more recently its faculties in these areas have been complemented by the Tanaka Business School and a humanities department.

Imperial's main campus is located in South Kensington in central London, on the boundary between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster, with its front entrance on Exhibition Road. Formerly a constituent college of the University of London, Imperial became independent of the university on 8 July 2007, the 100th anniversary of its founding.

History

Imperial College was founded in 1907, with the merger of the City and Guilds College, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science (all of which had been founded between 1845 and 1878) with these entities continuing to exist as "constituent colleges". The College was granted a Royal Charter by Edward VII in July 1907 and was integrated into the University of London.

In later years, St Mary's Hospital Medical school (1988), the National Heart and Lung institute (1995), and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (1997) merged into the Imperial College School of Medicine, the fourth constituent college. The size of the Medical School was increased in 1997 with the merger with the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and again in 2000 with a merger with the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology.

Also in 2000, Imperial merged with Wye College, the University of London's agricultural college in Wye, Kent. It has been claimed that the merger might have been motivated by Imperial's interest in acquiring land owned by Wye College, rather than for academic reasons; Wye College accepted the merger because it was in financial difficulties. In December 2005, the college announced a science park programme at the Wye campus; however, this was abandoned in September 2006 following local environmental complaints that this program would have a negative impact on the surrounding countryside. Wye College will now be run by the University of Kent from September 2007 in association with Imperial College London and Wye College, graduates will receive a degree from the University of Kent and an Imperial Associateship of Wye College.



In 2002, the constituent colleges were abolished in favour of a new faculty structure. A merger with University College London was proposed in October that year, but was called off a month later after protests from staff and students of both colleges.

In 2003, the College was granted degree-awarding powers in its own right by the Privy Council. Exercising this power would be incompatible with remaining in the federal University of London, and on 9 December 2005 Imperial announced that it was beginning negotiations to withdraw from the University.The college became independent in July 2007 and the first students to register for an Imperial College degree will be postgraduates beginning their course in October 2007, with the first undergraduates enrolling for an Imperial degree in October 2008. The first group of students to be awarded the Imperial College degree by default will commence their studies in 2008, but all non-final current students were offered the option of choosing to be awarded a London degree or an Imperial degree.

Academics

Faculty of Engineering
Aeronautics
Bioengineering
Chemical Engineering & Chemical Technology
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Computing
Earth Science & Engineering
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Materials
Mechanical Engineering

Faculty of Medicine
Clinical Sciences Division
Epidemiology, Public Health & Primary Care
Investigative Science
Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology
Medicine
National Heart & Lung Institute
Neuroscience & Mental Health
Surgery, Oncology, Reproductive Biology & Anaesthetics
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Faculty of Natural Sciences
Chemistry
Mathematics
Physics
Life Sciences:
(Biology
Cell & Molecular Biology
Molecular Biosciences)
Centre for Environmental Policy

Imperial College Business School
Research Groups
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Organisation and Management
Finance and Accounting
Healthcare Management

Cross Faculty
Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Grantham Institute for Climate Change
Institute for Mathematical Sciences
Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology
Porter Institute
Energy Futures Lab

Research Centres
Entrepreneurship Hub
Innovation Studies Centre
Centre for Health Management
Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Risk Management Laboratory

Other
Drug Discovery Centre
Graduate School of Engineering & Physical Sciences
Graduate School of Life Science & Medicine
Humanities
CHOSTM

Imperial College is a member of the Russell Group of Universities, AMBA, and the IDEA League. It is also considered a member of the "Golden Triangle". The College's official title is Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, which it used in public relations up to 2002.

Imperial College London ranked 5th in the THES-QS 2007 World University Ranking

Imperial College London ranked 6th in the THES-QS 2008 World University Ranking

Imperial College London ranked 5th in the THES-QS 2009 World University Ranking

Imperial College London ranked 7th in the QS 2010 World University Ranking

Imperial College London ranked 6th in the QS 2011 World University Ranking

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA (UC)

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA



The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges system.

The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States).Its first campus, UC Berkeley, was founded in 1868, while its tenth and newest campus, UC Merced, opened in the fall of 2005. All campuses enroll both undergraduate and graduate students, with two exceptions: the University of California, San Francisco campus enrolls only graduate and professional students in the medical and health sciences, and the independently administered Hastings College of the Law (also located in San Francisco) enrolls only graduate students. Six of its undergraduate campuses are ranked among the top 50 universities by both the U.S. News and World Report and the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

The University of California's campuses boast large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every field. The University is considered a model for public institutions across the United States, although as of the 2005-06 fiscal year, only 29% of its total budget comes from the State.



Academics

UC researchers and faculty are responsible for 5,505 inventions and 2,497 patents. UC researchers create 3 new inventions per day. At 32 million items, the University of California library system contains the third largest collection in the world, after the Library of Congress and the British Library.

Collectively, the system counts among its faculty (as of 2002):
389 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences
5 Fields Medal recipients
19 Fulbright Scholars
25 MacArthur Fellows
254 members of the National Academy of Sciences
91 members of the National Academy of Engineering
13 National Medal of Science Laureates
32 Nobel laureates. Nobel laureates are present at all campuses except Davis, Merced, Riverside, and Santa Cruz.
106 members of the Institute of Medicine

 
AAU and AASCU

The University of California and most of its campuses are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), while the California State University and several of its campuses are members of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).

 
Governance




The University of California is governed by the Regents of the University of California, as required by the current Constitution of the State of California. Eighteen regents are appointed by the governor for 12-year terms. One member is a student appointed for a one-year term. There are also 7 ex officio members — the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the Assembly, Superintendent of Public Instruction, president and vice president of the Alumni Associations of UC, and the UC President.

The Academic Senate, made up of faculty members, is empowered by the Regents to set academic policies. In addition, the systemwide faculty chair and vice-chair sit on the Board of Regents as non-voting members.

Originally the President ran only the first campus, Berkeley. Now, the Regents appoint a president to run the entire system. The UC Office of the President is located in downtown Oakland and effectively serves as the system headquarters. Individual campuses are managed by Chancellors, who are given a great degree of autonomy.

Admissions

Each UC school handles admissions separately, but a student wishing to apply for undergraduate admission uses one application for all UCs. If it is not already in electronic form, the application is then scanned into a computer and distributed to the individual campus undergraduate admission offices. Graduate and professional school admissions are handled directly by each department or program to which one applies.

Prior to 1986, students who wished to apply to a UC for undergraduate study could only apply to one campus. If the student was rejected at that campus, but otherwise met the UC minimum eligibility requirements, he or she would be redirected to another campus with available space. For students who did not wish to be redirected, the application fee was returned. In 1986, that system was changed to the current "multiple filing" system, in which a student can apply to as many or as few UC campuses as he or she wants on one application, paying a fee for each campus. This system significantly increased the numbers of applications to the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, since students could choose which campus they wanted to attend after they received acceptance letters, without the fear of being redirected to a campus they did not want to attend.

The University of California accepts fully eligible students from among the top eighth of California public high school graduates through regular statewide admission, or the top 4% of any given high school class through Eligibility in the Local Context (see below). All eligible California high school students who apply are accepted to the University, though not necessarily to the campus of choice. Eligible students who are not accepted to the campus(es) of their choice are placed in the "referral pool", where campuses with open space may offer admission to those students.

Undergraduate admissions are conducted on a two-phase basis. In the first phase, students are admitted based solely on academic achievement. This accounts for between 50 to 75% of the admissions. In the second phase, the university conducts a "comprehensive review" of the student's achievements, including extracurricular activities, essay, family history, and life challenges, to admit the remainder. Very rarely, students who do not qualify for regular admission are "admitted by exception." In 2002, 2% of these exceptions were granted.

The process for determining admissions varies. At some campuses, such as Davis, Santa Barbara, and San Diego, a point system is used to weight grade point average, SAT Reasoning or ACT scores, and SAT Subject scores, while at Berkeley, Irvine, and Los Angeles, academic achievement is examined in the context of the school and the surrounding community.

Race, sex, national origin, and ethnicity have not been used as UC admission criteria since the passing of Proposition 209. However, this information is collected for statistical purposes.