The pros/cons of attending APU depend on a few things, such as:
What sort of school are you looking for?
What major(s) are you interested in?
What can you afford?
Like other posters have mentioned, APU does have a strict student conduct policy. It’s all laid out on their website. For example, you might want to look at http://www.apu.edu/judicialaffairs/conduct/policies/. Here are some highlights from that:
a. no alcohol
b. habitual traffic offender or parking sanctions = you’ve violated the Student Standards of Conduct
c. jaywalking violates the Student Standards of Conduct. This means that you can be brought in front of a disciplinary board at the university for crossing the street without using a crosswalk, thus risking getting kicked out of school.
d. breaking the law on or off campus is a violation as well
e. pranks - also a violation
f. inappropriate, lewd, indecent, or obscene behavior or language - also a violation.
g. same-sex relationships are prohibited
h. can’t live with or spend an overnight with anyone of the opposite sex.
i. “Students may not engage in unmarried sexual behavior.”
j. hosting disruptive gatherings
k. serving alcohol or drugs at a party
l. attending a disruptive gathering whether or not there’s drugs or alcohol there
m. being on campus while drunk
n. providing alcohol to anyone under age 21
o. no smoking
p. no gambling
q. no inappropriate computer usage.
r. can’t play any music that refers to sex acts or innuendo, refers to graphic violence or physical abuse, “no references that glorify alcohol/drug use,” no slurs of any kind, no swearing.
So if you’re ok with all of the above, then yes - you should look at what the school has to offer and you should consider applying.
An impressive level of effort has gone into the APU “Dance Policy”. I counted five primary headings, eleven secondary headings, and 40 numbered points.
If a school has unusually strict rules about student conduct, then it is not “unfair” to point out that such rules exist, and it is not “an attack” to describe them. In the interests of fairness, my previous post (#22 above) included a direct link to APU’s own website, where the detailed regulations on dancing are posted for all to see.
The whole point of the College Confidential forum is to help students figure out which schools may or may not be good “fits”. In the case of APU, the tightly regulated social environment will appeal to some, but is not for everyone. I suspect that most members of the APU community would acknowledge this point.
Schools like APU, Biola, Liberty, etc; are unreasonably strict schools. Very few CC posters would attack a school simply for being religious such as Boston College, Villanova, USD, St. Marys of CA. Students come to CC because they might not know how to effectively evaluate a school’s pros and cons, and an extremely religious college is not a fit for most students.
Who on earth would ever want to attend a school that was that strict? They treat you like babies. Might as well just stay home and continue living with your parents.
I did not post a link to the student conduct policies at APU in order to be inflammatory or anything. I think that when choosing a college, it’s important for a student to make an informed decision. The OP is pretty wise to ask whether or not APU is a good school. In addition to the quality of the education that one would get at any particular school, it’s also important to know whether or not there are any unique rules or requirements that the school has of its students.
Again…not passing judgement here at all on any side of the argument. Just make sure that you make an informed decision and you pick a school that is a good fit for you & your unique situation, major, interests, needs, etc.
This is the first time I’ve been on a thread where it seems like multiple people made profiles (or one person made multiple profiles) just to defend it.