<p>NoCover, no problem at all, I’ll help the best I can.</p>
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<li><p>Fayetteville is a pretty liberal minded city, but I’ve always enjoyed the overall open atmosphere around here. I’m a pretty moderate person but always enjoyed the debates, rallies, and parades in the area about issues that might not be welcome in a more traditional environment. I have always told my friends that it’s a great place for ideas and debate and a very welcoming social atmosphere, and I really believe that people from any background, viewpoint, lifestyle, or opinion would not feel a bias or discrimination against them here on campus or in Fayetteville. I’ve unfortunately never had the opportunity to go the Chapel Hill, and have only been through Athens in passing, so I’m probably not qualified to compare them. I like that Fayetteville is a very environmentally minded city with a progressive attitude about it, and can say I’ve never lived anywhere like it- but I don’t know if that answers your question or not.</p></li>
<li><p>Fayetteville has a very good trail network. Currently there are 16 miles of non-road (that is, not share the road programs, they are independent trails) paved bike and walking trails within the city limits, 14 miles of nature (non -paved) trails, and 100 miles of planned future trails. We have a separate trail crew here that oversees maintenance and expansion of the network. I can bike from my apartment up to Lake Fayetteville (and the mall area, several miles up) and then back to the University without ever leaving the trail network. They’re adding another 2-3 miles of trail this year that will go out to the UA research farm and I’m pretty excited about it. There are bike rental services on the square at at the UofA fitness center, as well as a bike-sharing program on campus if you don’t have a bike of your own. With the trail network and the Razorback Transit bus system (a fare-free bus system with 10 routes that runs throughout campus and the entire city of Fayetteville; most apartment complexes and large neighborhoods have their own bus stops which made it easy to get to and from campus without worrying about parking.) you wouldn’t have to drive on a daily basis unless you wanted to. The Razorback Transit bus system gets about 1.3 million riders a year and is complemented by Ozark Regional Transit, the Northwest Arkansas bus system connecting the 4 main cities together. </p></li>
<li><p>I think this is going to vary from major to major and class to class. I was a biology major (pre-med program as well) and all of my classes had student formed study groups that met weekly on top of the tutoring and supplemental instruction the university provides. I think the vast majority of students take their classes seriously and I think the University does a good job at providing tutoring and study resources to all it’s undergraduate students. I’m sure there are some people out there that goof off and don’t go to class, but I don’t know of any majors you can actually pass your classes and get a degree doing that, so I doubt they last long. That said, it is a mid-sized flagship public school, so you’re going to have a wide range of people and I can’t speak for all of them. On the ranking issue- I think there are a lot of reasons the UofA’s rankings on the US News and World report don’t necessarily reflect the quality of the school (and why we’re often ranked much higher in Kiplinger’s, Business Week, Design Intelligence, etc. on individual college levels). A lot of this is because the University has been changing, a lot, lately. When I started here there were fewer than 17,000 students, it had not been officially ranked as a top tier institution too long, had a relatively new honors college, and they’d just completed a $1.1 billion fundraising campaign. Now it has about 20,000 students, has been steadily increasing research spending, has completed three new academic buildings and two new residence hall complexes, and has the single best endowed ($200 million) Honors College in the nation. There’s new administration focused on development and student satisfaction, and the fund raising campaign of the late 90s/early 2000s was really focused on starting a new era for the UofA and bringing it to a more serious level of national respectability. I think they’ve been working very hard to be more than just another state flagship, and I’ve definitely seen a lot of improvements in the last five years. That said, peer assessment is a full quarter of the rank, and it takes decades to change mindsets, so the UofA might be suffering from older “pretty generic” opinions in that area. The freshman retention rate, a full fifth of the ranking, and student selectivity, 15% have been increasing over the last decade, but due to differences in state size and overall applicant pool, selectivity is unlikely to compare to the largest flagships for logical reasons. The increase in the endowment and overall resources of the University in the last 10-15 years have also helped on the faculty, research, and per-student spending side of things. I do think you’ll see a steady climb in the rankings for the UofA in the years to come, but like the economy and politics, it takes a long time to see the fruits of your labor and we’re just now starting to see results from programs they started in the late 90s.</p></li>
<li><p>Rec-Fitness center: The “HPER” (Health, Physical Education, and Recreation) building on campus is the main student fitness facility. It has the fitness center (really nice, they renovated it and bought all new equipment the year I came here), basketball courts, racquetball courts, indoor track, rock climbing, boulder climbing, free dance and fitness classes, pool, and outdoor connections center for campus inside it. They’re working on the planning process for a new facility (as the student body has grown, demand for a solely recreational facility has grown and we’re working on a place to put it), but I don’t know when it would be finished. The current one is pretty updated and quite large, the intramural sports and activities are based out of there, but it will eventually be used for more academic purposes as a new center is built. You can always tour it if you come to visit campus.</p></li>
<li><p>On campus apartments- The Duncan Avenue Apartments are the only true apartments on campus. They’re new, efficient, and really nice, but they’re not any cheaper than off campus apartments. If you want to live on campus and have your own kitchen and fitness center, etc then they’re a very nice solution, but as far as married housing or pure costs go, off-campus apartments on the bus route might be a better fit. Our off-campus housing center helps students find houses/apartments/condos in Fayetteville if they want to live off campus. You can do virtual tours of the apartments/dorms/suites online at [University</a> Housing, University of Arkansas](<a href=“http://housing.uark.edu%5DUniversity”>http://housing.uark.edu) </p></li>
<li><p>Food- I’ll start with on-campus. I always liked the on-campus dining halls. They are all a buffet-style set up (no points system, you swipe in and eat whatever you want) with cook-to-order stations if you don’t want what’s on the buffet. They normally have 3-4 “themed” meal offerings, the salad bar, bakery/desert bar, and then cook to order pasta, sub sandwich, grill, and vegan/organic offerings. I think the food is pretty good and the facilities themselves are nice, but it’s such a subjective issue I’m not sure how to answer it exactly. Is it as good as the Bear’s Den at WashU? (had a friend there, always ate there when visiting) Probably not. Is it better than the other state schools I visited friends at and ate there? Yes. However, there are hundreds of colleges I’ve not eaten at, so my opinion isn’t worth all that much!
Now for Fayetteville restaurants- there are a lot of local flavors right off campus on Dickson street and there are several little clusters of local restaurants around town that are very good. There are some great seafood, mexican, steakhouse, thai, and burger/grill restaurants on Dickson street and a couple good ones on the square (just off Dickson street) as well. Pizza places are plentiful, and you should be able to find whatever style you want in town and right off campus (I can recommend a few if you come visit). The restaurants on campus are all University owned or chain restaurants (Papa Johns, Quiznos, Starbucks, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A) so they’re safe bets but nothing exciting. Dickson street and the area right around Dickson/downtown have the best local flavors, but they’re all walking distance from campus so most palates will probably be satisfied.</p></li>
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<p>All right, I’m sure that’s way longer than what you wanted, but I hope it helps. If there’s anything I missed or didn’t go in-depth enough on, let me know. If you ever come to Fayetteville to visit campus, let me know and we can set up a meeting and I’ll make sure you get a visitors guide and some other info that isn’t included on the general Admissions presentation. In the meantime, [Experience</a> Fayetteville - The vacation, recreation and sport capitol of Northwest Arkansas](<a href=“http://www.experiencefayetteville.com/]Experience”>http://www.experiencefayetteville.com/) and [Future</a> Students | University of Arkansas](<a href=“http://www.uark.edu/home/future.php]Future”>http://www.uark.edu/home/future.php) may help you get a feel for things.</p>
<p>Thanks!
-Matt</p>