The Institute of International Education has ranked ASU the #1 public university in the US for international students for three consecutive years (2015-17) FOUNDED IN 1886, ARIZONA STATE University (ASU) is a top-ranked public research varsity spread across five campuses in Phoenix, the administrative capital of this southern state of USA. The U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks ASU among the Top 120 universities of America and has ranked it the country’s most ‘innovative school’ for three years in a row (2016-2018). Moreover, it ranks 40 of ASU’s study programmes — including engineering, business, science, public affairs, law and education — among the Top 25 nationwide. More pertinently, America’s Institute of International Education has ranked ASU the #1 public university for international students for three consecutive years (2015-17), and Times Higher Education ranks it among the Top 10 in the US for graduate employability. Currently, the 3,400-strong ASU faculty includes five Nobel laureates, three MacArthur Fellows, six Pulitzer prize winners and 163 Fulbright scholars. A research-intensive varsity, ASU’s $528 million research expenditure in 2017 was greater than of Caltech, Carnegie Mellon and Princeton universities. In 2017, ASU joined an elite group of universities — Harvard, Stanford and Chicago — whose students were awarded Rhodes, Marshall and Churchill scholarships. Founded as the Territorial Normal School, Arizona’s first higher education institution, ASU began operations with 33 students in a four-classrooms building in Tempe. Currently, it offers over 250 undergraduate and 100-plus graduate programmes to 72,000 students on its five campuses. Phoenix. Arizona’s most populous and vibrant city (pop.1.6 million), Phoenix, aka Valley of the Sun because it receives more sunshine than any other metro countrywide, is defined by its sleek, ultramodern office buildings, a thriving jobs market, relatively low cost of living and cultural attractions that have earned it a spot in U.S. News and World Report’s list of Top 50 places to live in the US. Major industries include real estate, manufacturing, health and financial services. City landmarks include the Pueblo Grande Museum, Archaeological Park and the Arizona Science Center. Sports stadiums, museums, shopping complexes and restaurants offer numerous entertainment and dining options. Greater Phoenix also offers great hiking and biking trails, making it a haven for outdoor leisure and fitness enthusiasts. Phoenix has a hot desert climate, with long, hot summers (average temperature 30oC) and mild to warm winters (17oC). Rainfall is scant. Campus facilities. ASU is spread across five campuses in the Phoenix metropolitan area — Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic, Tempe, Lake Havasu and West. The historic 661-acre Tempe campus hosts the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and School of Sustainability. Approximately 40 km south-east of Tempe is the Polytechnic campus which offers study programmes in interdisciplinary sciences, engineering, business management, technology and education. This modern campus provides advanced laboratory spaces with hi-tech equipment such as flight simulators, centres for semiconductor fabrication and on-demand digital manufacturing. The campus also incorporates a major regional…
