My mom wants me to apply here but idk anything about it really. What are the pros/cons? Thanks (:
It’s a conservative evangelical college with a strict creed and code of conduct, dedicated to helping students grow in their faith.
If your faith doesn’t match that level of intensity, it’s the wrong choice.
If it does, it’s a solid choice, similar academically to Grove City, Houghton, Hope , but located in California.
It’s a nice school and popular with southern Calif EV students. It’s very popular with teachers getting masters degrees, since I think they have an online offering.
However, depending on your career path, I would be hesitant to go there. A friend of mine’s DD graduated from there and then tried to get into med school. I don’t know if med schools don’t like that school (I think it teaches Creationism and the world is only about 10,000 years old), but only after the DD completed more science classes from a more traditional school was she accepted.
This is just anecdotal, but if your goal is to go to a medical professional school after college, I probably wouldn’t advise going to a school like that.
@MYOS1634 @mom2collegekids - is the education good there? Idk, it seems kinda mediocre/average. I’m thinking of pursuing a career in law, would APU be good for that?
Well, there are lots of better schools.
If your priority is your faith, then it’s good.
If it isn’t, look a bit more - St Mary’s of California, Whittier, LMU-LA, Chapman, Redlands… plus CSU’s (SDSU, Pomona Hutchins) and the UCs.
@MYOS1634 - my faith isn’t THAT big of a priority. Is it, like, SUPER religious?
err, what about “college for students want to grow in their faith” " a creed to sign with strict code of conduct", “intense”, doesn’t mean “SUPER religious” to you?
Yes it is. It’s a college dedicated to students who want to grow in their faith. That’s the priority.
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St Mary’s of California, Whittier, LMU-LA, Chapman, Redlands… plus CSU’s (SDSU, Pomona Hutchins) and the UCs.
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these are all good choices…adding USF, USD, and some OOS.
How much will your family pay each year?
What are your stats?
@MYOS1634 - ok. sorry. just asking…
@mom2collegekids - i’m guessing my family will pay for all 4 years although idk. my stats are - 1890 sat, 25 on act, passed 2 ap tests so far last year (ap lang & apush), 4.0 throughout hs so far, nhs, all a’s/b’s, ap & honors this year
Don’t worry about it. 
I know you wanted confirmation just to be sure before you talk to your mom.
Regarding price and costs; Don’t guess, ask. This is REALLY important. Each year there are sad stories of students (and/or parents) who “assumed” and hoped. It never ends well.
Run the Net Price calculator on UCSC, St Mary’s of California, Redlands, Chapman, CSU Sonoma (for the Hutchins program). Bring the result of each of these 5 to your parents and ask whether they can pay for those off income and savings.
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i'm guessing my family will pay for all 4 years although idk.
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oh gosh!! Don’t guess. ASK your parents. Every year we see posts from SAD students who thought that their parents would pay most/all costs, and then they later find out that the parents wrongly thought that the student would get a lot of merit or FA…but didn’t.
Go ask your parents how much they’ll pay EACH year for college. Get a dollar amount.
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my stats are - 1890 sat, 25 on act, passed 2 ap tests so far last year (ap lang & apush), 4.0 throughout hs so far, nhs, all a’s/b’s, ap & honors this year
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?? How do you have a 4.0 throughout HS if you have A’s and B’s??
@MYOS1634 - i’ll talk to them about it! i know that apu is pretty expensive, so idk lol. i don’t really know why my mom wants me to apply here so bad haha
@mom2collegekids - i’m definitely gonna ask, lol. i have a 4.0 because of honors/ap classes
Please come back with your parents’ answer to how much they’ll pay.
Ah…you have a weighted GPA of 4.0.
There is no harm in applying while you investigate the school, your finances and your other options - just apply elsewhere so you have viable options in the Spring. Of course, the CSU and UC windows are now closed.
Where else have you applied?
As a parent of a student who graduated from APU with a degree in Molecular Biology, I need to say that my daughter found APU to be an amazing school. Their science program is strong, and well prepared my daughter for one of the top MD-Phd programs in the country. Her peers were accepted at medical schools of their choice. If you’re a strong academic student you have more than enough opportunities to conduct research, and participate in medical service trips in Mexico and abroad .I’ve never heard of a student needing to attend another University to strengthen their science classes – APU’s science program is not easy and tends to weed out the weaker students by the first or second year. The school is a Christian University that centers on Christ, community, scholarship and service. Its a great University, and one of the top Christian Universities.
If you read post #2 then this is false and you have heard of that happening.
Also worth noting that this is your first and only post on the site and the site has seen similar behavior in the past–new users who sign up just to defend a school, tutor, or prep program–and in some cases those users have been employees/marketers/proxies for the institution being discussed. I’m not saying you’re shady, but readers have little reason to trust your (unsupported) claims. Heck, it’s happened [before with APU](Good Pre-med colleges? - #6 by apu_guy - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums), even…
This site has APU ranked #33 for medical studies in California, which isn’t particularly distinguished. How many of you could even name 32 other CA colleges?
http://med-colleges.com/azusa-pacific-university
I’m betting your mother wants you to go there because she thinks you’ll be more pure at a conservative christian university. When a school puts that much emphasis on code of conduct and faith I worry it’ll make some of the best years of your life less fun than they could be. There’s plenty of schools (like USD for example) where there’s a large christian presence on campus but the education will be better and more respected.
In response to the above post from marvin100; I am a parent of an APU graduate, and not an employee or marketer for the school. In my experience with my daughter, over the four years of her education at APU, and attending science related events (research presentations, science and honors presentations and such), I knew of no APU student who needed to take additional classes in order to be accepted by a medical school. I would think that possibly such a student didn’t pass a class at APU, and then chose to take the class elsewhere. Again, APU is strong in science.Consequently, students must study to be successful academcially at APU and on the MCAT .I can only speak from personal experience and not hearsay. You say my claims are unsupported, however I think my experience supports my claims about the school .And yes, I’m new to the site and have made only two posts. ( versus your 8,050). College is a personal decision that each student should make such a decision by college visits, and through examination of the school’s opportunities and academics.I only posted to offer a personal experience about this school to any prospective student --I’m not interested in being insulted or defending APU’s rankings. My daughter was happy with this school and is now to attend a top MD-PhD program. That speaks for itself.
Hello all -
While I understand the all-too real danger of being seen as “shady” (lol at that! lookin’ at you, marvin100) for this being my only post on the site, hopefully this note is data-driven enough to be useful.
Ok, let’s be systematic here:
- Post number two is … well, misguided (I don’t care how many posts you’ve contributed on a crowdsourced website such as this. Your post number may be correlated with credibility, but it’s clearly not causal). APU does NOT teach Creationism in its science courses … in fact, that claim is laughable. I mean, have you ever had ANY contact with the university? I HIGHLY doubt it, based on that dubious claim. Most, if not all, of the faculty in the science department subscribe to the position that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life on earth; however, they’ll maintain that an intelligence (e.g. God) guided this evolution. Poster # 2 seems to have an agenda that isn’t fact-based. That’s never good.
Secondly, if a student went through APU and couldn’t get into medical school … Um, well, it’s because they weren’t a good student. If you’re an exceptional student, the prestige of your undergraduate institution doesn’t matter too much. (OP, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.)
- Marvin’s comment of see this post: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/4786931/#Comment_4786931 is also humorous. That list is actually accurate.
I’ve been a student at APU for six years (graduate and undergraduate). I will gladly supply the names and contact information of a variety of faculty in the science department that can verify or confirm my information here.
Usually I don’t bother engaging people in internet forums. There’s too much of an antagonistic atmosphere, there’s too much snobbery coming from people too far removed from the actual contexts of universities to ACTUALLY know what they are talking about.
But this was too much blatant falsehood to pass up!
OP: Go ahead and apply! 
You’ll be accepted, no doubt, and with your stats/grades, you’ll be likely to get a decently-sized scholarship. If you’re interested in a certain department, I’d be happy to give you names of individuals you might want to contact. It’s a wonderful place - good community; stellar honors program/college; good extracurricular activities. If you’re planning on going to graduate school afterwards, don’t worry too much about UG prestige. As someone who’s living it, trust me - it doesn’t matter nearly as much as all the crazies on here would like you to think. If you’re a good student, you’ll be successful. End of story.