The “New Kid” in Town is One of the Best . . .
Brandeis is a highly selective and outstanding national university. It is unique among its peers on any list of America’s top 50 universities. While most of those schools are at least one hundred years old and some are two or three hundred years old, Brandeis wasn’t founded until 1948!
It began with only 107 students and 13 faculty members. Just 13 years later Brandeis had earned Phi Beta Kappa accreditation. No other college has ever earned this honor as quickly. This example is a microcosm of the amazing growth and success Brandeis has earned in a very short time.
Brandeis was founded at a time when discrimination against qualified Jewish students was still commonplace at many of America’s premier institutions. It’s commitment to educating Jewish students was at the core of the school’s initial mission. While that commitment remains to this day, Brandeis has evolved well beyond the stereotype of a “Jewish college”.
A few years ago a political battle developed between members of the Brandeis community looking to lessen the school’s “Jewish” nature and those who sought to reaffirm it. Eventually those looking to stress the school’s Jewish character prevailed. The hidden agenda of this battle may have been the fear of losing funding from alumni and major donors.
While reaffirming its Jewish character, Brandeis is hardly a “Jewish school” in the sense of Yeshiva University where 93% of the students are Jewish. At Brandeis, at least one of every three students is not Jewish. The student body is estimated to be 62% Jewish. As a point of reference, Ivy League icons Harvard and UPenn feature a student body estimated to be 30% Jewish while 17% of the “Gators” at the University of Florida are Jewish.
Located in a suburb of Boston, Brandeis benefits from the remarkable number of peer institutions nearby. There is no other major city in America with as many colleges and universities.
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