UFSM

Federal University of Santa Maria

Universidade Federal de Santa Maria
Other names	UFSM
Motto	Sedes Sapientiæ "Seat of Wisdom"
Type	Public
Established	1960-12-14
Endowment	R$ 1.15 bilion (2015)
Rector	Prof. Paulo Afonso Burmann
Academic staff	1,847
Administrative staff	4,780
Students	28,307 (2016)
Undergraduates	20,834
Postgraduates	5,064
Other students	2,409
Location	Santa Maria, RS, Brazil
Campus	Santa Maria, RS Frederico Westphalen, RS Palmeira das Missões, RS Silveira Martins, RS
Website	http://www.ufsm.br

The Federal University of Santa Maria (Portuguese: Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, UFSM) is a Brazilian public university located in Santa Maria, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, funded by the federal government of Brazil. It was founded in 1960, by Professor José Mariano da Rocha Filho. Its campuses spawn over 1,837.72 ha, with a total of 386,968 m² of buildings and 28,307 students.

UFSM's presence in the municipality of Santa Maria is one of the reasons why the city is sometimes called "university city" or "culture city". It is located in western Rio Grande do Sul, approximately 290 km far from the capital city of the state, Porto Alegre, thus being set in the heart of the pampas of Brazil.

As a public university, students do not pay tuition fees. It is the oldest federal university not located in a Brazilian state capital city, and the largest in number of undergraduate courses offered in Rio Grande do Sul state. As for 2015, the university was ranked at position 15 at national ranking from MEC.

Like most other Brazilian higher education institutions, the admission for undergraduate courses in UFSM is mainly based on an annual open test called vestibular. The only request to be filled in order to apply for it is to have completed a high school course. UFSM's vestibular comprises a multiple-choice exam and a written essay and lasts for 3 mornings and 1 afternoon. The multiple-choice exam contains 15 questions on each of the following subjects: Portuguese Language, Brazilian Literature, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Geography, History, Biology, Philosophy and Foreign Language (the applicant may choose one among English, Spanish, French, German and Italian). The written essay is usually an argumentative text on a theme.