Brigham Young University-Provo

This private research-led university is another institution that is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and home to more than 32,000 students.

Founded in 1875, the institution operated as an academy for several decades until 1903 when Brigham Young University (BYU) and Brigham Young High School were established in place of the dissolved Brigham Young Academy.

Today the university is located in Provo, Utah, on a 560-acre campus near the Wasatch mountain range. There are more than 300 campus buildings, including the Harold B. Lee Library, which has around 98 miles of shelving containing more than six million items. The BYU campus is also home to the 22,000-seat Marriott Center, one of the largest on-campus arenas in the United States. There are also several museums, housing complexes, cafeterias and convenience stores.

Every Sunday BYU conducts church services for students, although attendance is often so high that students regularly opt to go to off-campus services in the city of Provo.

BYU offers degree courses in a vast number of study fields at both graduate and undergraduate level. Student teams won both the 2007 and 2008 L’Oréal National Brandstorm Competition, and the Adobe Photoshop ‘Magnetic Lasso’ algorithm was developed at BYU.

The university sports teams, known as the Cougars, compete is a range of sports and the BYU basketball team has included standout players such as Jimmer Fredette, 2011 NCAA basketball player of the year, and Tyler Haws, who scored the most points in the nation in the 2014-15 season.