D19 and I are back from our “Discover NAU” tour of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. NAU is part of the Western Undergraduate Exchange so if you live in one of the WUE states you can get a significant tuition break at NAU. Non-residents (including WUE applicants) are also eligible for merit scholarships based on GPA and test scores. NAU also pledges not to raise your tuition over the course of four years (eight continuous semesters not counting summer). https://nau.edu/admissions/tuition-and-cost/tuition-expenses/
We drove up to Flagstaff from Phoenix on Friday night, had dinner at a restaurant on the edge of campus and stayed at a nearby hotel. The Discover NAU tour is one of their longer tours and runs from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, and is only offered on designated Saturdays. I would estimate there were 300+ students and parents at the program. I’ve done a fair number of college tours and this one was very nicely done, well organized and presented the school very well. There was a large contingent of student ambassadors on duty (about 40) and they all seemed enthusiastic and helpful, and like they knew their assignments well.
Here are some of my random notes from the visit.
- Flagstaff is located about 144 miles (2.5 hours) north of Phoenix, at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, with a dramatic view of Mt. Humphreys
- Flagstaff is home to the Lowell Observatory and a “Dark Sky City” that regulates lighting and building height and location to preserve dark skies.
- The population of Flagstaff is about 70,000 not counting the NAU students.
- NAU is surrounded by the largest ponderosa pine forest in North America.
- Flagstaff is at an elevation of 7000 feet, gets 288 days of sun per year and averages 100 inches of snow. The campus sidewalks are heated in the winter. Snowbowl Ski Resort is 15 miles from NAU and students get discounted lift tickets.
- NAU recently became a tobacco free campus.
- 90% of freshmen live on campus.
- We were given a pass for lunch at the Hot Spot, the main dining hall in the University Union. I give my lunch a thumbs up. 9, The student body is 65% from AZ. Outside AZ the states that send the most students are California and Hawaii.
- The campus is in the shape of a rectangle, running 1.5 miles from North to South, and 0.5 miles wide East to West. There is a shuttle than runs through the campus and into the area just north of campus (historic downtown Flagstaff). Students can also ride some city bus routes for free.
- Arizona Shuttle, a private shuttle company, runs shuttles 13 times per day from NAU to Phoenix (the airport and one other stop).
- NAU has an honors program and is building a new Honors dormitory complex that will open in the Fall of 2018.
- Flagstaff is very proud of their Urban Trails System, a city-wide network of non-motorized, shared-use pathways that are used by bicyclists, walkers, hikers, runners, and other users for both recreation and transportation.
One funny thing they did at the welcome reception at the auditorium was to single out parents who were wearing shirts or hats with the logos of other colleges (especially ASU and the U of AZ) and hand those parents NAU ball caps. When we did our departmental tour, D19 turned out to be the only student who opted for the Chemistry tour (huge crowd went with the Biology tour). So we got our own private tour of the Chemistry Department with a professor and a student chem major. The professor remarked that NAU has very few grad students, and that makes it easier for undergrads to get research positions in the Chemistry department (kind of like the LAC pitch).
D19 definitely came away with a positive impression of NAU. It’s certainly one of our most affordable options between in state tuition and merit aid. Flagstaff is actually a nice town. I remember 15-20 years ago I thought of it as having not much besides chain restaurants and chain hotels, but it’s really evolved quite a bit into a decent college town. https://www.aier.org/cdi-2017/flagstaff-ariz