Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a private technological research university in Troy, New York, founded in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer to apply science to the common purposes of life. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world. From a local school of civil engineering and natural science it grew into a hillside campus of about 275 acres above the Hudson River, with a graduate campus in Hartford, Connecticut.

Instruction is organized through five schools: Engineering; Science; Architecture; Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; and the Lally School of Management. Graduate work concentrates in engineering, computer and physical sciences, and architecture. Research training uses the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, and nuclear and computing laboratories on the Troy campus.

The institute enrolls about 7,000 students, including roughly 1,200 graduate students; international students make up a large share of the graduate body. Faculty number in the hundreds. Alumni include Washington Roebling, who completed the Brooklyn Bridge; George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., designer of the Ferris wheel; and Marcian "Ted" Hoff, a principal inventor of the microprocessor.

Graduate degrees are chiefly the M.S., M.Eng., M.Arch., M.B.A., and Ph.D., combining coursework with laboratory, studio, or dissertation research under a faculty adviser. The year follows a semester calendar. Many doctoral students hold research or teaching assistantships. Troy is a small industrial city in New York's Capital District; students work in campus labs and with Albany-area employers.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lists 72 graduate programs across 26 subjects: 43 master's programs and 29 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in architecture, biology and electrical & computer engineering.