<p>I have been accepted into both school for the Fall 2014. I am planning on majoring in Psychology, not planning on attending the honors college. </p>
<p>I can’t decide between the two schools. I have visited them both and liked them both. Can someone tell me the difference between the two, pros and cons of each? Is UofA’s academic reputation better than ASU’s? How do the dorms compare? What are the best dorms? Thank you for any help.</p>
<p>If you are not attending the honors college, I’d recommend UofA in terms of academic reputation. But that is only if nothing else is put into consideration.</p>
<p>But plug in all variables, and ASU might not be that bad at all. Some I would consider: tuition, location, school atmosphere and culture, sports, etc…</p>
<p>Since I’ll be going to ASU, I’ll also share what I know of it so far: ASU’s high acceptance rate and low graduation rate isn’t because it has poor facility, faculty and such, but because of its philosophy, that all students deserve chance at higher education at lesser cost (although $10 a year isn’t necessarily “lesser”). My physics teacher tells me that ASU has great science programs, and its business school and engineering school compete against top schools around the nation.</p>
<p>Now considering that psychology is a popular major, I doubt you’d get the hands-on, one-on-one experience some other majors receive, but same probably goes at UofA. </p>
<p>And about dorms… I have no idea. Sorry.</p>
<p>I may have been biased toward the school I plan to go. I hope I helped a little, but don’t be too quick to make your decision yet. Hear out some Wildcats, and perhaps you’ll deviate. You still got some time until the decision.</p>
<p>Conclusively: go to where it fits your preferences, needs and such. Both schools offer great academic program.</p>
<p>Honestly, probably doesn’t make a difference. U of A’s “better” academic reputation is completely unfounded, it’s no better than ASU in general. They’re basically the same, with UofA better at certain things and ASU better at others. No idea which is better for your major. Weird thing that I feel is a strike against UofA is not having dining halls…but that’s a personal thing. Do you like Tucson or Phoenix better? Probably should just pick based on that.</p>
<p>I’m not in AZ but I know quite a few people there and from what I understand it’s similar to the UC vs CSU systems in California…</p>
<p>The UC people get UC hoodies, the CSU people get jobs. OK, maybe not that clear-cut, but when you look at the salary statistics and see that Cal Poly SLO & Pomona (CSU) grads make the most money and half of the UCs are below national averages, the reputation of the “research universities” starts to seem kind of like a marketing trap.</p>
<p>GO TO THE SCHOOL THAT HAS THE EXACT PROGRAM YOU WANT, no matter which one it is.</p>
<p>If you just try to squeeze into the “best school that will take you” and make academic compromises to get there, you will regret it for the rest of your life. </p>
<p>Seriously, I know too many people who turned down a science or engineering degree at CSU/ASU/etc., squeezed into some random “increases my odds of admission” major at a “big name” school and are broke/jobless 5 years after graduating. </p>
<p>Nobody really cares about your school’s name unless its Harvard and you’re gunning for a job as Ben Bernanke’s shoeshiner. He only takes Harvard boys.</p>
<p>discoinferno… you can compare SLO to the UC’s but there is no way you can compare the other Cal state schools to the UCs. Not to mention you can only take 13 credits/semester at Cal State schools which means it takes 5-6 years for the average student to graduate</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t know anything about CA schools, but I don’t think UofA vs ASU is really similar. They’re not two different systems or anything, there are only three public universities in Arizona, and they all just have different names. I think if you like everything else the same, go to the one with the better program. That isn’t automatically UofA, though that seems to be a weird AZ perception. Off the top of my head, I can tell you ASU def is better in engineering and business, for example. For psychology I have no idea. Flip a coin, honestly, if you really have no preference. I think ASU has being in Phoenix, the bigger city, to it’s advantage, and I personally think it has the prettier campus, but overall I don’t think they’re that different.</p>
<p>I think the two are so close academically, especially because neither are really known for their psych programs, that that aspect is pretty much negligible. I live in an honors dorm at ASU but have seen non-honors dorms at both campuses and don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. </p>
<p>However, ASU does have dining halls, which may be something you want. I believe almost all the dorms are co-ed and are suite-style (private bathrooms). I don’t think psych majors have their own residential community, so it’s hard to say how nice your dorm would be. If you can get into Manzy, that’s a dorm that just got remodeled at ASU and has one of the best dining on campus. Otherwise, your dorm probably isn’t going to be that great if you aren’t doing honors, but tbh I don’t think it’ll be any better at UA.</p>
<p>Interesting, I’ll add my comments since I believe I am objective and have been on an ASU Board of Advisors for some years and have also a son at UofA.</p>
<p>Barrett is in indeed a nice honors hall with good dining they attract good students but the cut off for students on SAT scores is surprisingly low, you should also consider after the first year in the Barrett dorms, where next for 3 years, many students I know move home, since ASU is a commuter school, this does not lead to a campus oriented college experience. We live 20 mins from ASU.</p>
<p>UofA have brand new (newer than Barrett dorms) Arbol de la vita and the old Yuma (Charming) honors dorm, UofA does not have the dining hall like Barrett, since UofA have more an a la carte dining offering at the student union, I have to say living at the UofA Honors dorm would be preferable to Barrett to me or my son, since he had a choice and elected UofA over Barrett @ASU.</p>
<p>On considering ‘Prestige’ that’s a rather personal call, but again I am in somewhat objective, I do consider UofA a cut above ASU in prestige for several reasons.
ASU accepts anyone, I have not heard of anyone locally not being accepted to ASU and equally my son and most his school peers were accepted to Barrett @ASU, but most of the ‘stronger’ students attend UofA.</p>
<p>ASU has a lower 4 year graduation rate than UofA, not much but UofA rate is better, they also have a lower acceptance rate, especially for the Honors college.</p>
<p>UofA attacts better students since it is the only Med School/Pre-Med University and attracts strong students who are keen to Pre=Med or STEM, ASU attracts STEM students, but UofA is the only Pre-med/Medical School and thus attracts better scoring Med School students, that’s just a fact, Med Students tend to be higher scoring students (stronger student body).</p>
<p>The business school at ASU is good, I know professors there, I took Ex-Ed there (also at Eller @ UofA), and they have a very strong benefactor in W.P. Carey. However Eller at UofA is, I believe stronger but lesser funded, However Economics and Entrepreneurship at UofA are very strong and the Careers office for Business students is excellent. From experience students from my sons High School do well at both, but I have to say (my son is not business) that UofA students find better Grad schools for MBA and graduate into often stronger 1st jobs, I have been very impressed with UofA students in general. Also the Pharmacy program at UofA is very good and leads to good Pharmacy Grad options.</p>
<p>Finally you should consider where you will be after 4 years, Uof A provides in my opinion, the quintessential ‘American College Experience’ with a strong student body and very campus centric organisations, Greek life is excellent and provides great options, ASU does not provide the same.</p>
<p>Overall ASU is good but I have to say after my experiences UofA is better, with a stronger Honors Program, Excellent Grad rate to Grad school, strong faculty, wonderful campus life and wholesome Greek Life, Your Choice! Tucson is very good college town, light rail also to downtown and through campus in 2014.</p>
<p>Happy to relay more on both and answer questions, oh and UofA FinAid is better!</p>
<p>My D is an out-of-state freshman in Barrett and her perspective is that the Barrett dining hall is actually one of the most important features. She can go to the dining hall by herself and, because it is small and full of other Barrett students, she can almost always find someone that she knows to sit with. Not sure you could do that at a school that doesn’t even have dining halls. She also thoroughly enjoys her classes, has joined a couple of on-campus groups, has applied for and received a Fulton undergraduate research grant for second semester, has no trouble finding things to do or people to do them with on a weekend, and is definitely having what she considers a great “American College Experience.” My D also much prefers being on an urban campus in Tempe to Tucson.</p>
<p>Englishman and his DS clearly have a preference for the University of Arizona, based mostly on experiences with students at his DS’s Phoenix area high school. But this is a personal preference based on a very limited set of personal experiences and is not evidence that UofA is somehow a better school. The facts below are gleaned from the most recent Common Data Sets and the websites of both ASU and UofA:</p>
<p>1) The Barrett website clearly states that Barrett students are required to live in Barrett housing the first TWO years, not just as freshmen. I’m sure there are a few who get special permission upon request from the Barrett office, but I am also sure these are not anywhere close to the majority of Barrett 1st and 2nd year students. Also the Common Data Sets for the two schools indicate nearly identical percentages of both freshman and total undergraduates who live on or off campus. ASU is no more a commuter school than UofA.</p>
<p>2) Both schools have admissions based on the same Core Competencies established by the Arizona Board of Regents. They also both allow students who do not meet these to apply for an acceptance based on a holistic review. ASU may admit more of these latter types of students but what students are accepted or rejected is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT (see point 3).</p>
<p>3) The relevant statistic to any student attending either school is the competency of the ATTENDING students. These are the only students that any student who matriculates to the school will ever see. The Common Data Set shows the exact same 25th and 75th percentile scores for the ACT Composite and remarkably similar 25th and 75th percentile scores for the SAT CR and Math for ENROLLED students at both schools. Clearly UofA does not attract any better student than ASU.</p>
<p>4) UofA does have a slightly higher 61% 6 year graduation rate compared to 58% for ASU. Personally, I don’t see the numerical significance of those two numbers either.</p>
<p>5) It is true that ASU has approximately 59,000 undergraduates but these are spread across 4 campuses. From the numbers I could find on the ASU website, I estimate that about 37000 of these undergraduates are on the Tempe campus. UofA has approximately 32000 undergraduates. Some people will consider that difference significant but the fact is that they are both large state universities. More importantly, a prospective student should check how large the classes in his/her likely major may be from the online class schedules. Also, any student looking at ASU needs to be aware of which campus his/her prospective major is offered as the campuses are very different in atmosphere.</p>
<p>These facts do not support the opinion that either school is better than the other in general. As a parent from a near-by state, I think it is ludicrous to say that either school is more prestigious than the other. (This is not to say that some majors may be more well-known at one school than the other.) We have top students from both private and public high schools attending both schools. Students who are considering these schools need to check out the strengths/weaknesses in the majors/minors in which they are interested by doing due diligence in researching the schools’ websites, visiting the schools to talk to faculty and sit in on both non-honors and honors classes, and finally (and maybe most importantly) getting a feel for the atmosphere and their own fit with the school.</p>
<p>STEMfamily makes excellent points,but with all due respect, I think STEM’s perspective is similar to mine, formed through experience. STEM’s through having a freshman at Barrett from out of state, mine from having DS apply, be accepted but decide to enrol at UofA Honors, we live in Tempe,AZ!. </p>
<p>We are all due an opinion, mine has similarly been formed by a couple of other experiences:</p>
<p>-Some of my staff attend/attended ASU W.P Carey for Grad school for MBA’s after undergrad at UofA and ASU
-I am on the Advisory Board for one of the departments at ASU
-My company is a major benefactor to ASU in past years
-I guest lecture at ASU
-I have spoken to and attended many Regents meetings and spoke at ASU Foundation events</p>
<p>I do not refute anything STEMfamily notes, quite correctly, its really about In-State students from High Schools in Phoenix/Tempe where a majority of graduating seniors ‘seem’ to prefer UofA to attending ASU. I asked 4 such students last night …Why? their responses included:
<p>I thought their responses both valid and I concur. But in the end its all about where you went to College in 4+ years time and what you did there and so long as we are all happy with the choices made, we are all good.</p>
<p>Oh, StemFamily, I see you are correct. U of A also has about 70% of freshmen on campus just like ASU. I hadn’t thought to check them as I wasn’t thinking so much about U of A vs ASU, instead from Tyden’s thread thinking of ASU vs other big city state schools.</p>
<p>To clarify a point here with regard to "campus life’, ASU and the University of Arizona both fill their dorms with Freshman, both can just accomodate all their Freshies, UofA built two new dorms Arbol & Likins in 2012 and two new private apartment buildings on the western edge of campus (one complete and full, one mid construction). My point is rather that after Freshman year most always Tucson UofA students live in rented apartments and small homes on the fringe of campus, thus building campus life culture, supporting Greek Life and on campus clubs and sports. ASU does not have the same close to campus housing, there are apartments on University to the east, but to an earlier point, alot of students since they come from the Metro-Phoenix area return to live at home and commute to ASU by car or light-rail, this is just the norm, whereas in Tucson few students return home since only a small proportion of UofA students come from Tucson, this leads to a campus/college centric culture which I just don’t feel ASU has or can generate, but each to their own. </p>
<p>My earlier observations still standing, ASU is a commuter school and there is nothing wrong in that, it works for many students but it does impact campus life.</p>
<p>Englishman, can you please point me to the U of A data on county of origin of AZ resident students? I can find it for ASU but not for U of A. Since you state that not many U of A students are from Tuscon area, I assume you have a data source for your info. Thanks.</p>
<p>Hey! I’m actually transferring from U of A to ASU, so I can tell you what UA is like. The pro’s of UA are the campus housing (there are many options and they’re quite flexible), and that certain kinds of learners do very well here. The cons are that the university is pretty much all there is in Tucson, not many people stay here after graduation because of lack of jobs/crime/overall bad city. There is a lot of school spirit at UA. However, I am transferring because a lot of the major programs are weak and I just don’t seem to mesh well with this school or atmosphere. If you like to party, you’ll do very well here because that’s what it is pretty much focused on. “bear down, drink up” is a pretty popular motto here. I’d go ASU.</p>
<p>I think you should transfer Olivia, you’ll do better and hopefully be happier in Tempe, I hope you gave it a good attempt?, but to say you spend most weekends in your dorms (my son was in Likins and was never in his dorm, like ever), suggests perhaps you might need to get out more and get involved. But hopefully ASU will work for you, you will have 74,000 other students to engage with!</p>
<p>As a psych major i must say that ASU is better for the undergrad psych. Now if you at any point during your college experience want to: not be arrested, be left alone for the most part, get cheap drugs, and be able to escape society on a moments notice, then ASU is not for you.</p>