beat out by Ohio State Univ (43,058), U of Maryland-College Park (26,538), U of Georgia (26,259), and North Carolina State Univ at Raleigh (24,833).

Incidentally, all 5 are a land-grant institution.

beat Virginia Commonwealth Univ (23,661), U of South Carolina-Columbia (23,363), U of Cincinnati (23,096), and West Virginia Univ (22,827), and others, ending with Maple Springs Baptist Bible College and Seminary (74).

261 out of the other 556 colleges were ruled out due to missing, unknown, or not-applicable values for undergrads, e.g., American Public Univ System.

1. Information on numbers and ages of the undergrad and graduate student body is from the file enrollment by age, gender, attendance status, and level of student: Fall 2012 (Provisional release) as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds).
   
2. Distance calculations between two colleges use a mathematical formula for the distance on a sphere between two points.
   

Virginia Tech is in Blacksburg, VA, is public, is in the Atlantic Coast Conference, research intensive, a land-grant institution, a top-100 happiest school, grants medical degrees, offers on-campus housing, plays division I/FBS football, has a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, requires test scores for undergrad admissions, its top major is biology/biological sciences, is on the semester system, its top Masters major is business administration and management, its top Doctoral major is veterinary medicine, its top Associates major is agricultural production operations, and enrolls 20,000 or more students.

• Forbes Best Buy ranking (68th place)
• USNews MBA ranking (75th place)
• Webometrics world ranking (78th place)
• PayScale mid-career median salary ranking (87th place)
• ARWU world ranking (151st place)
• Times Higher Education world ranking (276th place)
• research spending ($231.2M)
• average full-time teaching salary ($91,409)
• out-of-state undergrad tuition & fees ($25,915)
• endowment per full-time student ($18,794)
• in-state undergrad tuition & fees ($10,923)
• average undergrad student loan ($7,369)
• research spending per student ($6,972)
• average grant aid to undergrads ($6,940)
• cost of a shared room ($4,448)
• non-resident tuition & fees surcharge (137.3%)
• full-time retention rate (92%)
• undergrads among full-time students (76.7%)
• undergrads who get financial aid (75%)
• in-state freshmen (70.4%)
• ratio of female full-time freshmen (44.6%)
• undergrads who receive student loans (42%)
• average teaching salary differential (men vs. women, 32.8%)
• grad students who are under 25 years old (28.1%)
• tuition & fees increase over three years (18.5%)
• minorities (15.6%)
• undergrads who get Pell grants (15%)
• foreign students (8%)
• Asians (7.2%)
• Blacks or African Americans (4.3%)
• Hispanics (3.9%)
• undergrads who are 25 years or older (2.8%)
• American Indians or Alaska Natives (0.2%)
• average teaching salary differential (women vs. men, -24.7%)
• 25th percentile SAT math score (570)
• 25th percentile SAT reading score (540)
• 25th percentile SAT writing score (540)
• 75th percentile SAT math score (680)
• 75th percentile SAT reading score (640)
• 75th percentile SAT writing score (640)
• alumni who played in the National Football League (127)
• average January temperature (31.5 degrees)
• dorm capacity (9,308)
• first-year applicants (20,191)
• foreign students (2,655)
• full-time grad students (4,897)
• full-time undergrads (23,366)
• grad students (7,228)
• members of the National Academy of Sciences (4)
• men's basketball Final Four appearances (0)
• Rhodes Scholar alumni (2)
• total 75th percentile SAT score (1,960)
• undergrads (23,859)
• yearly for-credit students (33,164)
• on-campus yearly property crimes per thousand students (1.14)
• students per faculty member (16)
• annual rainfall (40.9 inches)
• diversity and inclusion ratio (0.17)
• elevation (644 meters)

Sources