Why Choose LSU?

• LSU was founded by the Louisiana General Assembly in 1853 under the name Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy and was located near Pineville, La., with the first session beginning Jan. 2, 1860.
• LSU is one of only 30 universities nationwide designated as a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution.
• LSU is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctoral, and professional degrees.
• LSU includes 10 senior colleges and schools, in addition to specialized centers, divisions, institutes, and offices.
• As of the spring 2012, LSU’s enrollment is more than 29,000 students, including more than 1,500 international students and over 5,000 graduate students.
• LSU has more than 1,500 faculty members and a staff of more than 5,000.
• LSU Libraries contain more than 4.2 million volumes.
• The School of the Coast and Environment (formerly CCEER) was designated as the first Coastal Marine Institute by the Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

1. National Prominence LSU is ranked in the TOP TIER of “Best National Universities” by a prestigious US News & World Report publication
2. Academic Excellence LSU offers more than 235 academic fields of study through 10 senior colleges and schools, in addition to specialized centers, divisions, institutes, and offices
3. Affordability LSU continuously stands as the most affordable university amongst its peers
4. Vibrant Social Life LSU is home to over 250 student organizations–there is something to suit everyone’s interests!
5. Research Leadership LSU is the flagship institution of the state of Louisiana and is one of only 21 universities nationwide holding land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant status
6. Student Fellowship LSU is one of the country’s most popular universities among high school students, according to U.S. News & World Report. In the publication’s recently released list of Most Popular Colleges: National Universities, LSU was ranked 16th, based on the percentage of applicants accepted by a university who end up enrolling at that institution
7. Beautiful Surroundings LSU campus, with approximately 250 principal buildings and 50 species of trees, was named one of the most beautiful campuses in America in Thomas Gaines’ The Campus as a Work of Art
8. Cultural Location LSU in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, is in the center of Cajun and Creole culture, close to New Orleans, the birthplace of American Jazz, Mardi Gras, and the French Quarter, and within driving distance to Florida beaches and Houston, Texas.
9. Diversity LSU is home to students representing every state in the USA as well as over 120 different countries
10. Athletics LSU has one of the most successful athletic programs in the nation, and annually competes for conference, regional and national championships in most varsity sports. Since the beginning of LSU Athletics in 1893, Tiger sports teams have won 43 national championships in nine different sports

• LSU Robert S. Reich School of Landscape Architecture is consistently ranked among the top schools in the nation by DesignIntelligence, the leading journal of the design professions.
• According to the results of the 2008 survey, LSU has the number two ranked undergraduate and graduate programs in landscape architecture in the United States.
• According to The Princeton Review and Campus Compact‘s 2005 Colleges with a Conscience, LSU is one of the nation’s best colleges for fostering social responsibility and social service.
• LSU’s Information Technology Residential College, or ITRC, was selected by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, or NASPA, as the Gold Award winner in the housing/residence life category of the NASPA Excellence Awards.
• LSU has produced a number of distinguished undergraduates, including four Marshall Scholars, 24 Goldwater Scholars, 14 Rhodes Scholars, four Truman Scholars, and more than 25 Fulbright Scholars.
• LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine is one of only 28 in the United States.
• The LSU Honors College’s Modern Chinese Business and Culture program is one of the first in the nation to offer study abroad programs to pre-freshmen.
• Each year, the Laboratory for Creative Arts & Technologies at LSU’s Center for Computation & Technology hosts the Red Stick International Animation Festival. Activities of the festival include film screenings, workshops and lectures from leading animators in the entertainment industry.
• The Chancellor’s Future Leaders in Research Program, one of the many research opportunities available at LSU, offers competitive freshman the opportunity to be a direct participant in the research of a faculty member for four years.
• The geography program at LSU is one of the top 20 in the nation according to the National Research Council.
• LSU’s Center for Internal Auditing, or CIA, program has been the international leader in internal audit education since 1985. The LSU Department of Biological Sciences directs the foremost graduate program in museum-based ornithology in the world.
• The LSU Museum of Natural Science is currently one of the nation’s largest natural history museums, with holdings of over 2.5 million specimens and is the only comprehensive research museum in the south-central United States.
• Entrepreneur magazine ranked the E. J. Ourso College of Business’s Entrepreneurship Institute among the nation’s top 50 comprehensive entrepreneurship programs in the nation.

LSU is focused on maximizing our impact on the intellectual, economic and social development of Louisiana, our nation and our world. To create a better environment that promotes advanced research, creative scholarship, and economic development our office recently underwent reorganization. Formerly the Office of Research & Graduate Studies, we are now the Office of Research & Economic Development. We have renewed focus on our intellectual property development and commercialization activities producing a greater, more lasting impact on the economic development of Louisiana and beyond—an aim of the University’s National Flagship Agenda.

At any given time, there are more than 2,000 sponsored research projects being conducted by the more than 6,000 faculty and graduate students at LSU. With support from national sources like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Department of Homeland Security and NASA, LSU is forging new frontiers in hurricane response and preparedness, bioscience, national security, technology, literature, coastal sciences, and genetics.

Visit the LSU Office of Research and Economic Development