A first-ply failure and buckling failure of laminated composite plates with and without centrally located cutout having random material properties are presented under uniaxial compressive loading. In both cases, an accurate pre-buckled stress analysis is needed. A layerwise plate model is used to solve both pre-buckling and buckling problems. The stochastic failure analysis is carried out using mean centered first order perturbation technique based stochastic finite element method. Micromechanics based approach is used to see the effect of variation in microlevel constituents, like fiber phase, matrix phase and volume fraction of each phase, on the effective macrolevel properties like the elastic moduli. Consequently the effect of uncertainty in these material properties on the first-ply failure load and buckling strength of the laminated plates is studied. The mean buckling strength of composite plates is validated with results available in literature. The validation of stochastic analysis is done with analytical result based on Kirchhoff-Love plate theory in conjunction with first-order perturbation technique. Parametric studies are also done to see the effect of lay-ups and boundary conditions on the mean and variance of buckling strength of plates. Copyright © 2006 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.