<p>Hello, I am a senior in high school. I have decent grades, good enough that I got accepted to Notre Dame and a few other prestigious undergrad schools. However, I simply cannot afford them without going deep into debt, which isn't an option.</p>
<p>Right now, it looks like my choices are Arizona State University, or University of Arizona (I get in state tuition at these.) I have a full ride scholarship to ASU, and I will have to pay about $1,000/year at U of A, which isn't a big deal.</p>
<p>My parents hate ASU and think it's the worst school in the country. I think otherwise, but what's your opinion? I am going to double major in physics and mathematics, and I intend to go to graduate school afterwards, hopefully at a more prestigious University. Is U of A that much better then ASU?</p>
<p>Edit: I failed to mention that I was accepted into the honors college at both schools.</p>
<p>Arizona has four things going for it that ASU doesn’t:</p>
<p>1) your parents don’t hate it
2) it is smaller, and smaller is generally better than larger beyond a certain point
3) it is higher ranked than ASU
4) it has better sports programs overall and extreme school spirit</p>
<p>On the other hand, ASU has the Barrett Honors College. While UofA has an Honors College as well, I don’t know much about it.</p>
<p>Your answer lies in which Honors College fits you best.</p>
<p>IMO, UofA physics has a substantially better reputation than ASU physics. If you are at all interested in astrophysics or atmospheric physics, UofA would be as good as anywhere. If you end up applying to grad schools in those areas, you might well hope to end up at UofA.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the new Barrett Honors campus at ASU is supposed to be gorgeous.</p>
<p>Isn’t the Barrett Honors college considered one of the premier honors colleges in the nation? I undestand the dorms rock, too! Definitely worth looking into, I’d say. You may want to let your parents know about Barrett’s reputation, if they don’t know already.</p>
<p>We are in a similar situation to yours. DS really wants to go to a private Catholic college – either Ave Maria or Franciscan / Steubenville. He has been admitted at both, but they both have crummy financial aid. We simply cannot afford to go the private-college route. </p>
<p>DS has been accepted at several state schools (we live in NC): University of Alabama (hoping for NMSF scholarship); Western Carolina (school itself is not very selective, but DS was accepted into Honors Scholars program, which requires minimum 1300 CR & M SATs; also has gorgeous new honors dorms in spectacular Blue Ridge setting); and UNC Asheville (where I personally hope he ends up). Will hear in January from UNC Chapel Hill and Appalachian State (applied for full-ride scholarship). I worry that DS will not have Catholic fellowship / positive peer reinforcement at a public institution, but there <em>are</em> strong Catholic student groups at all of these schools – and, well, we just can’t afford a private school, and that’s that. It’s out of the question. There really seems to be no good alternative to a public. Private college tuition is outrageous, even for not-so-great schools.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to hijack your thread – sorry about that! Just want to say I feel your pain.</p>
<p>At least you already know about all your merit aid!! We’re still in holding position, waiting to learn all the particulars.</p>
<p>geez Informative, once again you make pronouncements out of your a#*l cavity. How old are you?</p>
<p>Aren’t you the genius who wrote a couple od days ago that Berkeley doesn’t have many Ph.D. programs ranked in the top 5? That’s got to be the biggest open-mouth-insert-foot comment ever made on this forum. And I write that as a Berkeley hating Stanford and UCLA guy.</p>
<p>I do mean well. As to the Berkeley quote, I was just saying that it isn’t HYP which someone on that thread was trying to claim. Let’s not hijack this thread though.</p>
<p>That Arizona being a red state is hated by the liberal writers of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live - re, the youtube link to a 30 Rock scene by informative and its companion video putdown of ASU by SNL. </p>
<p>Much of this is because of the tough immigration stance by the people of ths state and reelecting Senator McCain. </p>
<p>ASU has a lot of good qualities: Bus Admin major, among other things. And it is improving its standards.</p>
<p>Between the two u’s, ASU also has the location advantage over UofA. UofA is in Tucson and is a smaller “one-horse town,” as someone described it. The city’s growing, but it won’t be as metropolitan as Tempe, which is a suburb of Phoenix.</p>
<p>I like ASU better despite the ranking-istas on this board.</p>
Definitely worth looking into, I’d say. You may want to let your parents know about Barrett’s reputation, if they don’t know already.</p>