Hunter College

Hunter College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY), located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Originally known as the Normal College, Hunter was founded in 1870 by Irish immigrant and social reformer Thomas Hunter as a teacher-training school for young women. Today, Hunter is a coeducational liberal arts and sciences college that offers undergraduate and graduate programs in more than 100 fields. The college is organized into four schools: The School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the School of the Health Professions, and the School of Social Work. Since 2001, Hunter has been led by President Jennifer Raab, former chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. According to the "Best Value Colleges for 2010," a ranking published by the Princeton Review and U.S.A. Today, Hunter is the nation's number 2 "Best Value" in public colleges . The Princeton Review's 2010 edition of the "Best 371 Colleges" includes Hunter as one of the best colleges or universities in the United States. Hunter also was cited among the Best Northeastern Colleges, one of five regional guides published by the Princeton Review. The 2010 edition of "America's Best Colleges," published by U.S. News & World Report, places the college 10th among public universities in the north in the "Best Universities-Master's" category, and among the 574 public and private institutions in this category, Hunter is in the first tier with a rank of 45. Hunter is 3rd in the nation among master's institutions in the number of students awarded Fulbright grants, according to the October 2009 ranking compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2009, Hunter—along with the U.S. Military academy—was among only seven universities nationwide to receive the highest ranking out of 130 colleges and universities evaluated by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). The ACTA report, "What Will They Learn? A Report on General Education Requirements at 100 of the Nation's Leading Colleges and Universities," ranks colleges in the first category (or a letter grade of A) if the college requires all students to take courses in six of seven academic areas: composition, literature, foreign languages, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and natural or physical sciences. Additionally, out of 442 nationally ranked colleges and universities, Hunter is No. 2 in the number of women graduates who pursue Phds and No. 9 in the number of minority graduates who pursue Phds. In a separate study conducted by the National Science Foundation for the period 1999-2003, out of 604 institutions of higher education evaluated, Hunter was No. 6 in the total number of doctorate recipients earned by undergraduates.