Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in St. Louis and St. Louis County, Missouri.

The university has students and faculty from all 50 US states and more than 125 nations. Twenty-two Nobel laureates have been associated with Washington University, nine doing the major part of their pioneering research at the university. Washington University is made up of seven graduate and undergraduate schools that encompass a broad range of academic fields. In the 2007 U.S. News & World Report rankings, its undergraduate program is ranked 12th overall (tied with Cornell University) and admissions selectivity is ranked 6th (tied with Columbia University). Highly-ranked schools include the School of Medicine, which is tied for 4th, architecture, which is ranked 5th, and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, ranked 2nd. Rankings from blank">Washington University School Rankings The Medical School and Social Work rankings are from U.S. News & World Report, while the architecture ranking is from Design Intelligence.

The school was originally incorporated as Washington University, and popular nicknames for the university include Wash. U. and WUSTL, derived from the initials of the university's name. To prevent confusion over its location, the Board of Trustees added the phrase "in St. Louis" in 1976.

The university has an endowment of $5.66 billion. The current chancellor is _Mark S. Wrighton, who has led the university since 1995. He is among the highest paid university heads in the United States.