The Association of American Universities is a highly selective non-profit organization of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. Membership in the AAU is by invitation only, and all members focus on issues such as research policy, research funding, and both graduate and undergraduate education.
More than half of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States come from members of the Association of American Universities. While the primary focus of the AAU is graduate study and research, these universities do offer benefits for undergraduates. The perks of a research-centered institution include:
- opportunities to assist graduate students and professors with research (hands-on work is a great resume builder)
- a faculty that is well-connected in the academic and corporate world (this has obvious benefits when looking for jobs and internships)
- strong institutional name recognition in key research areas
- Indiana University
- Iowa State University
- Michigan State University
- The Ohio State University
- The Pennsylvania State University
- Purdue University
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
- Stony Brook University-State University of New York
- Texas A&M University
- University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
- The University of Arizona
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Davis
- University of California, Irvine
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of California, San Diego
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- University of Colorado at Boulder
- University of Florida
- University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
- The University of Iowa
- The University of Kansas
- University of Maryland at College Park
- University of Michigan
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- University of Missouri-Columbia
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of Oregon
- University of Pittsburgh
- The University of Texas at Austin
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison


