Hello, I am considering attending ASU on the National Merit scholarship. Does anyone know the key differences between the different Barrett campuses (Tempe, Downtown, Polytechnic, West)? Are any of them particularly better than the other, or is it purely personal preference? Also, what is Barrett like? I have Rice and UT Honors Health Science as my two main options, but the data for ASU Barrett is insane (many students go to awesome grad schools) and really appeals to me considering I want to go to medical school.
@JoseAMendez. 83% of the Barrett students live on the main campus. https://barretthonors.asu.edu/about/facts
I have not visited the other campuses, but the Barrett facilities on the main campus are incredible. If you are considering some kind of premed major, you will want to be on the main campus.
If you scroll down in this forum, you will see a ton of threads about the Barrett experience. There’s a good video on this page that features a freshman pre-med major: https://barretthonors.asu.edu/admissions/national-scholars/?links=false
As a National Scholar, I believe that Barrett still will pay your costs to fly in for a visit.
You should probably consider what you want to major in. The main Tempe campus has it all–it’s a big campus with a tremendous amount of resources, where Barrett students enjoy preference with campus research, jobs, access to labs. Polytechnic campus is a fascinating one imho: it was formerly a Williams air force base, I think, and the engineering programs are very hands-on. They’ve invested quite a bit there in new buildings and educational delivery, and the facilities are top-notch. They even have homes on the campus that are shared by students (which were the homes of former military officers). People tell me it is like a smaller campus environment, but you can always take classes at the main Tempe campus–it’s not far away. My Ss did summer robotics camps there, pretty cool collaborative labs.
West campus is also new, as is the cool Phoenix downtown campus. I’d check out the different foci of the majors you want to study, as each campus has slightly different specialties, instructional delivery methods and environments. Pretty cool set-up that no other honors college in the US has. That ASU innovative aspect is driving all of these alternative ways to maximize the Barrett honors college educational experience.