<p>Here's a list of what I believe are the "flagship" state universities in each state. I'd love to hear corrections from people who better understand the situation in each state. I get the impression that the term "flagship" is supposed to indicate the state university that gets the most funding, is perhaps the most selective in admitting students, and is regarding as the top state university in each state. I suppose in some states it is debatable which university should be so designated, and maybe in some states there is more than one "flagship" university. I'll list links for some universities in some states I know. Please reply with additions or corrections based on your local knowledge. </p>
<p>California (CA) </p>
<p>University of California: Berkeley ("Cal" or "Berkeley") </p>
<p>There are more states than those listed above. I am puzzled by the situation in some states with multiple state universities. What's the "flagship" in your state?</p>
<p>Thanks for both of the replies. I see kyledavid80 is replying from California, and I wanted to check if Berkeley has distinct admission policies from the other UC universities.</p>
<p>I think "flagship" means the top of the line. It turns out that in most states, the flagship state school is also the oldest, but it isn't always the case.</p>
<p>Flagship state universities also usually have their name in form of "University of (state name)" rather than "(state name) State University."</p>
<p>Some other flagships:</p>
<p>Univ. of Texas (Austin)
Univ. of Oregon (Eugene)
Univ. of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Univ. of Florida (Gainesville)
Indiana University (Bloomington)
University of Hawaii (Manoa)</p>
<p>tokenadult: I'd say Berkeley has more distinct admission policies than the other UCs, in that it stresses a holistic approach -- GPA, rigor of course load, and essays are of utmost importance. I'd say it's easily the most selective UC (ranked #14 nationally in selectivity, according to US News).</p>
<p>Oregon & Indiana are not "true" flagships by any means. Those two states (along with Iowa, South Dakota, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and a few others) have basically chosen to divide their major universities into two "sections" if you will, with one university mainly focused on agriculture, engineering and similar practical programs, and the other dedicated to liberal arts and sciences. Calling Indiana a flagship over Purdue, or Oregon a flagship over Oregon State ignores the fact that Indiana and Oregon are severely lacking in certain fields. I would even contend that UNC-Chapel Hill is not really a flagship university in the true sense, despite the admissions standards.</p>
<p>You can see I've tried to list distinctive conversational names for the colleges when I know them. To say "U of M" is quite ambiguous--in this part of the country it could mean U of Minnesota or U of Michigan--and I'm not sure my own alma mater even has a distinctive name like that. I really like "U Dub" for the University of Washington.</p>
<p>The following would, I think, qualify as flagships as well:
University of Colorado (Boulder)
THE Ohio State University
University of Maryland
University of Connecticut
University of Kentucky
University of Tennessee
West Virginia University
University of Utah
Penn State
University of Illinois
University of Delaware
University of Wyoming (by default, ha ha)
Rutgers</p>
<p>I just saw post #8 after I posted post #9. I'm interested in this issue of states in which there are multiple state universities, which perhaps specialize by subject. I'd be happy to make this list broad, that is inclusive of colleges interesting to engineering majors as well as to English majors, and wonder how that would change the composition of the list.</p>
<p>'Flagship state universities also usually have their name in form of "University of (state name)" rather than "(state name) State University."'</p>
<p>Another characteristic of flagships is that they usually have the big state law school, medical school, business school, other professional schools, and other prestigious programs. By contrast the non-flagship state schools are often land grant universities and are typically specialists in more work-a-day things like agriculture, teaching, engineering, etc.</p>
<p>you need to add UCLA to the California list since it's nearly as selective as Cal. [btw: The state tries to fund all UC campuses somewhat equally.]</p>
<p>^wemel, my apologies, it does indeed. At least now its spelled out explicitly in the thread for those like myself who didnt initially take time to read the article.</p>