High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The University of California, Irvine (UCI, UC Irvine, or Irvine), founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA. UCI is a Top Ten Public Research University recognized worldwide, that is considered as a Public Ivy and is ranked as a Tier 1 university according to the USNWR university rankings for its academic rigor. Member of the prestigious Association of American Universities, UCI is among the most popular campuses in the University of California system with nearly 28,000 students, 1,100 faculty members and 9,000 staff. Increasingly a first-choice campus for students, UCI ranks among the top U.S. universities, public and private, in the number of undergraduate applications and continues to admit freshmen with highly competitive academic profiles.