Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) is a public land-grant research university in Blacksburg, Virginia, founded in 1872 as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. It remains a senior military college through its Corps of Cadets while operating as a large civilian research university. The main campus covers more than 2,600 acres in a college town in the New River Valley, with additional sites in Roanoke, Arlington, and elsewhere in the state.

Colleges include Engineering, Science, Agriculture and Life Sciences, Architecture, Arts, and Design, the Pamplin College of Business, Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Natural Resources and Environment, and the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Engineering, computer science, agriculture, and architecture are the graduate fields most closely identified with the university. The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke extend biomedical graduate training off the Blacksburg campus.

Enrollment is about 38,000, including more than 7,000 graduate students. International students are a marked share of graduate enrollment in engineering and science and come from more than 100 countries. Faculty number more than 2,000. Alumni include NASA flight director Christopher Kraft, Craigslist chief executive Jim Buckmaster, and novelist Sharyn McCrumb.

Graduate study is built around the PhD, research and professional master's, the DVM, and, in Roanoke, the MD. Doctoral supervision is laboratory- and group-based, especially in engineering. The calendar is two semesters. Graduate assistantships and sponsored research are the main PhD funding routes. Blacksburg is a small mountain town in which campus and graduate apartments define daily life; Roanoke and Northern Virginia sites serve medical and policy students.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Virginia Tech lists 191 graduate programs across 42 subjects: 100 master's programs and 89 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in education, biology and operations research & management science. Virginia Tech holds rank 98 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.