Today, Hunter is the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system with around 21,000 students. Students come from 60 different countries. More than half of Hunter students are the first in their family to attend college. In part because Hunter was a teacher training institute, the college operated schools for gifted children where their students could practice teaching. The elementary and high schools, the Hunter College Campus Schools, are still in operation.
Many students choose Hunter College in part because of its location. The main campus is extremely close to Central Park, the Frick, the Asia Society Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The main campus houses the School of Education, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the CUNY doctoral studies program. The buildings are connected by skywalks.
There are two satellite campuses: the Brookdale Campus on East 25th Street and 1st Avenue is home to the Brookdale Center on Aging, the School of Health Sciences, the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, and a dormitory for 600 students. The second satellite campus is the School of Social Work is located on East 79th Street.
History
Hunter College was founded in 1870, making it one of the oldest public institutions of higher learning in the country. The school was created by the New York State Legislature as a women’s college for teacher training. Unlike nearly all schools at the time, Hunter was open to all qualified applicants regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity. This proud tradition of impartial admissions is still part of the Hunter ethos today.
Located in the middle of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the school grew beyond a teaching college to confer bachelor’s degrees in 1888. Early in the 20th century Hunter established branches in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, although the Brooklyn campus quickly developed into the independent institution of Brooklyn College. In the 1930s Hunter also built a campus in the Bronx. In the 1950s men were admitted to the Bronx campus, which eventually spun off to become Lehman College. In 1964 the original Hunter College went coed, ending its reign as the pre-eminent women’s college in New York. The majority of Hunter College students (about 75%) are still female.
In 1970, the City University of New York instituted an open admissions policy to guarantee college education to any New York City high school graduate who wanted it. To accommodate the resulting influx of students, Hunter opened new buildings in Manhattan and the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, or the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. In 2006 Hunter opened the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute to run programs for women.
CUNY Hunter College
Academics
Hunter has 70 bachelor’s programs, 10 join BA/MA programs, and 75 graduate programs. All in all, Hunter offers degrees in over a hundred fields of study. Schools within Hunter College include the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the Roosevelt Public Policy Institute School of Nursing, the School of Social Work, and the School of Health Sciences. In 2011 Hunter is opening a School of Public Health, which will include the first-ever Ph.D. program at Hunter. Other learning facilities on the Hunter campus include a number of biomedical and other science labs, the Dolciana Mathematics Learning Center, the Physical Sciences Learning Center, and the Leona and Marcy Chanin Language Center. Hunter College hosts several research centers, including the Brookdale Center on Aging, the Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function, and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO).
There are a number of honors programs at Hunter, including the Honors College, which is common to all the CUNYs. Hunter also hosts the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, the Honors Research Training Program, Pi Beta Kappa, the Macaulay Honors College, and University Scholars.
According to The Princeton Review, Hunter is one of the best colleges in the nation and the 5th choice for best value for a public college. It is 3rd in the United States for number of students awarded Fulbright grants. Hunter is also in the top 1% of schools whose graduates go on to earn doctorates. Hunter’s creative writing program is one of the most lucrative in the country for graduating published authors.
Most Popular Fields of Study
The top 5 fields of study completed at CUNY Hunter College.
Hunter encourages all prospective students to meet with a pre-admissions counselor. Candidates are judged based on the overall strength of their academic performance, grades in individual subjects, SAT or ACT scores, and grade point average (GPA). It is recommended that high school students take four years of English, four years of social studies, three years of mathematics, two years of foreign language, two years of laboratory science, and one year of performing or visual arts in preparation for an academic career at Hunter College.
Financial Aid
Hunter College offers a wide variety of financial aid, including grants, loans, and dozens of unique scholarships and other opportunities. Students who are designated as University Scholars receive early registration, personalized advising, and many other advantages, including the choice of either free housing or a yearly stipend.
Student Financial Aid Details
How many students use Financial Aid, and how much do they use?
CUNY Hunter College 3533rd for the average student loan amount.
Secrets to getting the best New York scholarships and financial aid
There are roughly 150 student clubs and organizations at Hunter. Hunter College has an especially close relationship with the international Model United Nations Conference. The college’s model UN team have been recognized as one of the best in the world, and take part in debates at Oxford, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and other prestigious institutions. Some students leverage their model United Nations experience into careers at the U.N. after graduation. There are no residential fraternities or sororities at Hunter, although there are chapters of each which meet for community work and social purposes.
Publications and Stations
Publications at Hunter College include literature and art magazine The Olivetree Review, humorous publication Spoof, psychology newsletter Psych News, Spanish language publications SABOR and Revista De La Academia, Jewish publication Hakol, political science magazine Political Paradigm, African American publication The Shield, The Islamic Ties, the yearbook the Wistarion, and the main campus newspaper The Envoy, which publishes biweekly. The campus radio station, WHCS, broadcasts online.
Cultural Opportunities
Hunter not only has access to the rich cultural opportunities around it; the college also creates their own. The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, one of several theater spaces on the Hunter campus, is home to more than 200 theatrical productions a year, while the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery hosts a continually changing roster of exhibits for the students and the public.
Life after Hunter
According to the CUNY alumni survey, a year after graduation, 86% of Hunter alumni were employed, and mostly in positions related to their major. Of those not working in their major field, most were in graduate school, instead—roughly 20% of Hunter alumni enroll in a graduate program within a year of leaving Hunter, and another 15% do so within the first three years after graduation. Major employers of Hunter alumni include the National Institute for People with Disabilities, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, the New York City Board of Education, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Price Waterhouse Cooper, the United States Census Bureau, and the New York City Department of Health.
Student Enrollment Demographics
How many students are enrolled at CUNY Hunter College?
Hunter competes in division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 20 sports. The college belongs to the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) and competes in the City University of New York Athletic Conference.
One of the most interesting features of Hunter College is the large, modern, and entirely underground Sportsplex. The Sportsplex contains several gyms, a weight room, a training room, racquetball courts, and many other sports facilities. The Sportsplex is the deepest building in New York City.
Alumni
There are too many renowned alumni from Hunter College to name, but a selection of some of the stars includes photographer Robert Altman, painter Jules de Balincourt, opera singer Martina Arroyo, actress Ellen Barkin, actor Edward Buns, musician Bobby Darin, actor Vin Diesel, actor Jake Hurwitz, actress Rhea Perlman, actress Esther Rolle, The Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi, congresswoman Bella Abzug, philosopher Glen T. Martin, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, Pittsburgh mayor Thomas J. Murphy Jr., Pulitzer prize winner Ada Louise Huxtable, poet Audre Lorde, writer Grace Paley, neurobiologist Erich Jarvis, and Nobel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow.
Faculty
There are 1,700 full- and part-time faculty members at Hunter. English professor Michael Thomas won the Dublin Literary Award for his novel Man Gone Down. History professor Nancy Siraisi was named the 2010 Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecturer for her research on the history of science and medicine from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Other well-known faculty at Hunter include poet Meena Alexander, Booker Prize-winning novelist Peter Carey, artist Helen Frankenthaler, novelist Nathan Englander, poet Jan Heller Levi, artist Paul Ramirez Jonas, sculptor Tony Smith, and novelist Colum McCann.
Feel free to add comments or additional information regarding CUNY Hunter College, or discuss this school in the University Discussion Forum
about 3 years agoAaron Wooten aaronrwooten ((at)) yahoo dot com
I attended Hunter College as a transfer student from 1999 to 2002 in the Film Production program. Over a period of two years I was told to wait for Film courses that would never become available. In the meantime it was suggested that I take courses that had nothing to do with film in order to maintain my financial aid. Finally in 2002 I was able to get into the much overcrowded film production 1 & 2 sequence when it was told I wouldn't be working on a project due to camera shortages. I left the program with very little, if any, film training. My ability to receive work with this degree has been a horrific experience.
The faculty is over-optimistic and provide much unneeded false hope. They are not helpful or truthful and you slowly begin to get the feeling that you've been conned or someone is out there just to get your buck (even though the school is relatively cheap). I entered the program as an energetic and willing student. I left with a bitter taste. I have complained for the last five years and they have done nothing. I have no plans to pay back the program and I recommend that anyone who is considering going to this program that they think otherwise.
Aaron Wooten
This website and associated pages are not associated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by CUNY Hunter College. StateUniversity.com has no official or unofficial affiliation with CUNY Hunter College.
aaronrwooten ((at)) yahoo dot com
I attended Hunter College as a transfer student from 1999 to 2002 in the Film Production program. Over a period of two years I was told to wait for Film courses that would never become available. In the meantime it was suggested that I take courses that had nothing to do with film in order to maintain my financial aid. Finally in 2002 I was able to get into the much overcrowded film production 1 & 2 sequence when it was told I wouldn't be working on a project due to camera shortages. I left the program with very little, if any, film training. My ability to receive work with this degree has been a horrific experience. The faculty is over-optimistic and provide much unneeded false hope. They are not helpful or truthful and you slowly begin to get the feeling that you've been conned or someone is out there just to get your buck (even though the school is relatively cheap). I entered the program as an energetic and willing student. I left with a bitter taste. I have complained for the last five years and they have done nothing. I have no plans to pay back the program and I recommend that anyone who is considering going to this program that they think otherwise. Aaron Wooten