Location: Cullowhee, North Carolina, near the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge mountains, fifty-two miles west of Asheville.
Character: A coeducational residential public university within the University of North Carolina system.
Enrollment: 9,055 students from the United States and from Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Student body is 54% female and 46% male.
Academic Programs: More than 120 majors and concentrations for undergraduates in addition to over 30 graduate-level programs of study.
Campus: 600-acre campus (approximately).
Calendar: Two semesters (August to December and January to May) and multiple summer sessions.
Residence Halls: Twelve residence buildings -- including one for graduate students and one for married students. Special accommodations include an honors residence hall; The Village, home to WCU's residential Greek organizations; and a "Faculty in Residence" Program. Freshmen are required to live on campus. Find out more about residence buildings, and other residential living matters .
Library: Hunter Library, the largest in Western North Carolina, contains 702,000 books and bound periodicals, 1,513,000 microfilm units, 23,000 e-books, and 3,330 current serial subscriptions. Interlibrary loan and computer databases offer unlimited resources.
Costs: Costs of attending WCU are discussed on the tuition & fees page.
Financial Aid: 74% of students receive some form of financial aid, which includes grants, loans, scholarships, and student employment. Further information is available from the Office of Financial Aid.
Faculty: About 457 full-time faculty members; 73 percent hold doctoral or terminal degrees.
Honors College: WCU's residential Honors College provides an intellectually inviting atmosphere, offering greater academic challenge and enrichment for outstanding students. Over 1,400 students are currently enrolled in the college's programs.
Class Size: More than 78 percent of classes have fewer than 30 students; the average freshman class size is 23; the student/faculty ratio is 14 to 1.
Computers: 8,400 data ports on campus in residence hall rooms, electronic classrooms, and laboratories.
Accreditations: Western Carolina University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (http://www.sacscoc.org/) to award bachelor's, master's, education specialist, and doctor's degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Western Carolina University. Also, the university holds 21 special program accreditations and is a member of more than 30 state and national associations and organizations to which its professional programs are related. Please see the WCU Undergraduate Catalog for more specific information about accreditations, and associations and organizations.
Admissions Office: 1-877-WCU-4YOU
Admissions e-mail: admiss@wcu.edu
Admissions fax number: 828-227-7319