Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching profile, UT has been nicknamed "The Mother University [of Iran]" (Persian: دانشگاه مادر).

Admission to the university's undergraduate and graduate programs is limited to the top one percent of students who pass the national entrance examination administered yearly by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.

[8] Isa Sedigh regarded the letter as an invitation to outline a comprehensive scheme for the establishment of a new university.

Thus allocating an initial budget of 250,000 Tomans, the Ministry of Education was authorized to find a suitable land for the establishment of the university and take necessary measures to construct the building as soon as possible.

Ali Asghar Hekmat in collaboration and consultation with André Godard, a French architect – who was serving the Ministry of Education as an engineer, began looking for a location for the university grounds.

This garden was founded in the early 1900s during the final years of Nasir ad- Din Shah, by the order of Prince Jalal ad-dawlah.

The Amir-abad (North Karegar) campus was added in 1945 after American troops left the property as World War II was coming to an end.

University curricula, staff, and student intake were subject to major revisions in the early 1980s, as part of Iran's Cultural Revolution.

University of Tehran is appointed as the Center of Excellence (قطب علمی) by Iran's Ministry of Science and Technology in the fields of "Evaluation and improvement of irrigation networks", "Breeding and Biotechnology of trees", "Farming, Grading and Biotechnology", "Applied Electromagnetic Systems", "Land Logistics", "Sustainable Urban Planning and Development", "Architectural Technology", "Biological Control of Pests and Plant Diseases", "Rural Studies and Planning", "High-Performance Materials", "Control and Intelligent Processing", "Sustainable Management of Watershed", "Applied Management of Fast Growing Wood Species", "Surveying and Disaster Management", "Engineering and Infrastructure Management", "Oil and Gas".

[16] The emblem of the University of Tehran is based on an image which can be found in the stucco relief and seals of the Sasanid period.

University of Tehran's central place in Iranian elite circles has made it the setting for many political events and cultural works.

It was in front of the gates of this school that The Shah's army opened fire on dissident students, killing many and further triggering the 1979 revolution of Iran.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the main campus of the university and its surrounding streets have been the site for Tehran's Friday prayers.

Many of the most important figures in Iranian political, academic, and social life have been associated with the University of Tehran.

Academics include Lotfi A. Zadeh the inventor of fuzzy logic, Fields Medal winner Caucher Birkar, Ali Javan who invented the gas laser and is ranked number 12 on the list of the top 100 living geniuses, intellectual and former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and biophysicist Mohammad-Nabi Sarbolouki.

Art figures include filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi, actor Khosrow Shakibai and poet Mohammad-Taqi Bahar.

Other notable figures include Human Rights Lawyer Shirin Ebadi who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, pioneering architect Heydar Ghiai, prominent philosopher Hossein Nasr, reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, environmental activist Mahlagha Mallah.

Alumni from the University of Tehran's predecessor institutions the Dar ul-Funun and the Tehran School of Political Sciences include linguist Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Baháʼí scholar Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl and former Prime Ministers Mohammad-Ali Foroughi and Ali Amini.

He was a candidate in the 2013 presidential election but withdrew his candidacy in order to give the reformist camp a better chance to win.

Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh: is an internationally recognized inventor (for his contributions to the field of ingestible sensors) and a Distinguished Professor at the University of New South Wales.

Kaveh Pahlavan: is a professor of ECE and CS at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he is renowned for his pioneering research in Wi-Fi Technology and wireless Indoor-Geolocation.

Yahya Rahmat-Samii: is Professor and holder of the Northrop Grumman Chair in Electromagnetics at Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches and conducts research on microwave transmission and radio antennas.

Mashaghi is well known for single-molecule analysis of biomolecules, discovery of the mechanism of Von Willebrand disease, the development of circuit topology, and the use of statistical physics for medical diagnostics.

Alireza Nasiri is a technocrat and businessman who created Iran's first online degree program at University of Tehran in 2003.

Zadeh, in his theory of fuzzy sets, proposed using a membership function (with a range covering the interval [0,1]) operating on the domain of all possible values.

She was admitted to the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965 and in 1969, upon graduation, passed the qualification exams to become a judge.

After getting his master from University of Tehran, faculty of fine arts in 1962, he then moved to Paris and received his PhD in architecture from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1969.

Mosaddegh received his Licence en Droit as well as his Doctor of law from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

Mosaddegh also taught at the University of Tehran at the start of World War I before beginning his long political career.

Mohammad Beheshti: was an scholar, writer, jurist, and one of the main architects of the constitution of the Islamic Republic in Iran.