Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI is a private university in Troy, NY. It was made in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer because he wanted there to be schools that taught science and engineering. It is the oldest engineering school in America. Lots of students from RPI get jobs that pay a lot of money after they leave RPI. Some people who went to RPI have started big companies like NVIDIA, John Wiley and Sons, and Texas Instruments. George Low, an American who helped get spaceships into space, went to RPI.
What RPI focuses on has changed a lot since it was first made. There still is a lot of engineering at the school, but now there is growing arts and social studies teaching at the school. A big concert hall called EMPAC was opened in 2008 at RPI.
Most of RPI's sports teams play in NCAA Division III, which does not allow athletic scholarships. The men's and women's ice hockey teams play as Division I teams in ECAC Hockey. The hockey teams are can award scholarships because of a special NCAA rule.