Villanova University
Villanova University is a private Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine in 1842 and named after Saint Thomas of Villanova. The university is the oldest Catholic university in Pennsylvania and one of two Augustinian institutions of higher learning in the United States.
The university traces its roots to the old Saint Augustine's Church, Philadelphia, which the Augustinian friars of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova founded in 1796, and to its parish school, Saint Augustine's Academy, which was established in 1811. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
History
In October 1841, two Irish Augustinian friars from Saint Augustine's Church in Philadelphia, with the intention of starting a school, purchased in Radnor Township. Known as "Belle Air", the estate belonged to the late John Rudolph, a merchant of Burlington, New Jersey and Philadelphia. The school, which was called the "Augustinian College of Villanova", opened in 1842. Besides the novitiate and college, the Augustinians had pastoral care of Catholics living within a fifteen-mile radius. Bishop Francis Kenrick dedicated the chapel in 1844. Parishes at Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, and Wayne developed from the Villanova mission.However, the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of 1844 that burned Saint Augustine's Church in Philadelphia caused financial difficulties for the Augustinians, and the college was closed in February 1845. The college reopened in 1846 and graduated its first class in 1847. In March 1848, the governor of Pennsylvania incorporated the school and gave it the power to grant degrees. In 1859, the first master's degree was conferred. In 1857, the school closed again as the demand for priests in Philadelphia prevented adequate staffing, and the crisis of the Panic of 1857 strained the school financially. The school remained closed throughout the Civil War and was used as a military hospital. It reopened in September 1865; since then it has operated continuously. Its prep school later moved to Malvern, a town along the Main Line. Today it is called Malvern Preparatory School and is still run by the order.
Villanova was all-male until 1918 when the college began evening classes to educate nuns to teach in parochial schools. In 1938, a laywoman received a Villanova degree for the first time. When the nursing school opened in 1953, women began attending Villanova full-time. In 1958, the College of Engineering admitted its first female student; other colleges admitted women only as commuters. Villanova University became fully coeducational in 1968.
During World War II, Villanova was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. It has since graduated 25 US Naval Admirals and Marine Corps Generals; only the Naval Academy in Annapolis has generated more.
After World War II, Villanova expanded, returning veterans swelling enrollments and the faculty growing fourfold. Additional facilities were built, and in 1953, the college of Nursing and the School of Law were established. Villanova achieved university status on November 18, 1953. Between 1954 and 1963, 10 new buildings were built or bought on land adjacent to the campus, including Bartley, Mendel, and Dougherty Halls.
Villanova and Cabrini University issued a joint statement on June 23, 2023, announcing that Cabrini would cease operations in 2024 and be incorporated into Villanova. In March 2025, leadership of Rosemont College and Villanova University announced that the two institutions would merge by 2027.
Campus
The university is within the Villanova census-designated place in Radnor Township.Villanova University, when including the new Cabrini and Rosemont campuses, sits on of land, situated from Center City Philadelphia. The campus has roughly 1,500 trees. The campus was formerly known as Arboretum Villanova, but its status as an official arboretum was revoked after the university failed to meet rules and standards such as planting enough new trees and offering tours.
Main campus
The most prominent campus feature is St. Thomas of Villanova Church, whose dual spires are the university's tallest structure. The cornerstone was laid in 1883, and construction ended in 1887.Alumni Hall dates back to 1848 and stands as one of the oldest structures on campus. It was used as a military hospital in wartime and for influenza patients after World War I.
St. Mary's Hall was built in 1962. Laid out with long corridors and over a thousand rooms, there is a large, recently deconsecrated chapel and many partial floors, basements and sub-basements to feed the legends of blocked-off wings. Falvey Library, the campus's main research library, houses over 1 million books, thousands of periodicals, and television production studios. It is named after the Augustinian monk and librarian Daniel Patrick Falvey, who worked here for many years.. The library is renowned for VuFind, its open-source discovery system which is now used by many other libraries worldwide.
Academics
According to the National Science Foundation, Villanova spent $26 million on research and development in 2022, ranking it 264th in the nation.Rankings
In a deliberate move to classify itself as a "national university", Villanova pushed in early 2010s to expand its doctoral programs to reach the Carnegie threshold of 20 PhDs per year. In September 2016, the university's Carnegie Classification was changed to classify Villanova among "R2: Doctoral Universities: High Research Activity". U.S. News & World Report, which relies on this classification to define which schools should be called "national universities", included Villanova in its "National Universities" rankings for the first time in fall 2016.For more than a decade, Villanova University had been ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report in the Best Masters Universities-category, Northern Region, a ranking for schools which offer undergraduate and masters programs but few doctoral programs. U.S. News & World Report in 2016 also ranked Villanova as second for "Best Value Schools" and fourth for "Best Undergraduate Teaching" in the Best Masters Universities-category, Northern Region, and ranked the engineering school No.11 among all national undergraduate engineering programs whose highest degree is a masters.
In 2025 U.S. News & World Report ranked Villanova as tied for the 58th best National University in the U.S. and the 69th Best Value School.
The Villanova School of Business was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in Bloomberg Businessweeks 2016 rankings of undergraduate business schools, but this led to controversy and challenge. As a result, Bloomberg no longer ranked undergraduate business schools after 2016. In 2007 Villanova was No. 29 in the Financial Times' ranking of top executive MBA programs. However, for the 2023 U.S. News & World Report Rankings of best business schools, Villanova was unranked.
Villanova University School of Law was ranked tied for 65th among all U.S. law schools by the 2019 edition of U.S. News & World Reports "Best Law Schools". The School of Law had previously suffered a drop in ranking in 2011, after it was determined that law school admissions staff had engaged in inflating reported LSAT scores for admitted students. According to the ABA, these infractions were enough to justify a removal of the school's accreditation, however the quick response to the issue by the university resulted only in a censure of the school.
Admissions
Admission to Villanova has been deemed "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report. The university offers three ways to apply: Early Decision, Early Action and Regular Decision.For fall 2023, Villanova received 23,721 freshmen applications; 4,870 were admitted for a class of 1700. The middle 50% GPA range: 4.20–4.58 on a weighted 4.00 scale. The middle 50% SAT scores of the recently admitted class: 1450–1520/1600, ACT: 33–35/36.
In 2019, Villanova announced new recruiting partnerships with The Posse Foundation, Philadelphia Futures and the Guadalupe Center.
Student life
Villanova's student organizations include standard club sports, cultural organizations, Greek-letter fraternities and sororities, and more. Villanova students participate in charitable and philanthropic activities and organizations, including the largest student-run Special Olympics in the world.Charity and community service organizations
Being a Catholic Augustinian school, the university has an active Campus Ministry.The annual Special Olympics Fall Festival at Villanova University is the largest and most successful student-run Special Olympics in the world. It draws more than 1,000 athletes and 400 coaches from 44 Pennsylvania counties. Athletes may advance through the festival to regional and international competition. Students apply to be a part of the 82-volunteer planning committee, which works for more than nine months alongside Special Olympics Pennsylvania, which oversees more than 300 events statewide.
Villanova University holds an annual NOVAdance year-long fundraising effort that culminates with a 12-hour dance marathon each Spring, raising money in support of the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation. NOVAdance began in 2014, and has since then become a yearly event.
The Villanova University community is noted for its participation in Habitat for Humanity In 2004, Villanova had more participants in the Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge than any other U.S. university.
Villanova's School of Engineering maintains a student chapter of Engineers Without Borders, a non-profit organization that focuses on helping to improve the living conditions of communities worldwide.
The chapter's inaugural project was to design and build a playground for a grade school in New Orleans following the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina. Villanova EWB was the only student organization to win an award from the regional Project Management Institute, receiving an Honorable Mention from PMI for project of the year. The most recent project involved designing and building a water treatment and distribution system which provided an orphanage and surrounding villages in northern Thailand with drinking water and irrigation for their crops.
The Blue Key Society consists of around 200 volunteer campus tour guides who work with the Admissions Office to give three tours each weekday, various special tours as needed and selected weekend tours throughout the school year.