American University
Located in a residential neighborhood of Washington DC, AU is a 15 minute Metro ride away from the city center. A free campus shuttle runs every 10 minutes from the campus to the metro station, which is about a mile away.
A medium size university with 7000 undergraduates and 4000 graduate students, AU has a College of Arts and Sciences as well as separate Schools for Business, Communication and International Service. When applying you can come in undecided into the College of Arts and Sciences if you don’t know which of these Schools is right for you. After trying different courses in your first two years you can shift schools if you declare a major outside the Arts and Sciences.
AU offers exciting opportunities such as a Center for Innovation which funds student led venture start-ups, support to undergraduates to get their research published and job and internship fairs every semester - where firms and non-profits from all over the world show up to scout for talent. To help fund students who have unpaid internships in the DC area, AU gives students a UPass – which offers unlimited free rides on the DC Metro and Buses.
AU guarantees housing only for the first two years. After that they follow a lottery system so most juniors and seniors live off campus.
Though AU has graduate students they don’t teach the undergrads as is common in large universities. The faculty has weekly office hours to support students and if students still need extra help they can go to the graduate teaching assistants.
AU has several honors and scholars programs, which you need to apply to separately if you are looking for merit scholarships. They also offer IB/AP credits for up to 1 year of courses so you could finish your degree in 3 years if you have strong scores. AU is SAT optional but they look for very good school marks, strong resumes and students who can show they are active learners, involved community members and engaged contributors. So if this fits your profile and you are looking for a city college with a campus feeling, AU is a great fit for you.
