Repost from search forum: Oregon Publics??

Parents Forum
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<p>Can OR residents or anyone else with an informed POV please share w/ me their perceptions of the following OR publics. DS wants football. He is (or maybe I mean "I am") in the preliminary research stage. I think he will end up with a GPA between 3.0 and 3.4. We don't know about test scores yet but based on his strengths/ weaknesses and California State testing, I assume he will score over 600 CR and not break 500 on math. We live in CA and he will apply to CSUs too but I don't know much about the following:</p>

<p>OSU
U of O
WOU
SOU
PSU</p>

<p>WOU looks promising but confused me as it is called a third tier but in at least two sources USNWR and I think collegeboard.com they said they only accepeted 45% of their applicants last year. Those two things seemed to conflict, plus their admitted student stats don't seem to jibe with selectivity.</p>

<p>I would be very happy to get any advice or input. Thank you in advance.</p>

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<p>Hi cinniesmom - you might want to start with basic research of reviewing each of these colleges websites. If the main goal is football, you have a very wide list. U of O is ranked very highly in D1 nationally, while some of the other schools you list are small and not highly skilled in football. PSU is an urban campus, quite large student body, with lots of adult students. U of O and OSU are mid-size student bodies (less than 20K) - U of O quite athletically oriented, and good programs in business, journalism, psychology, and several other fields. OSU has a good engineering program, agriculture, food sciences, and a few others. It has more of a small-town feel and is further from the ‘big city’ of Portland. SOU is a very small school in southern oregon near the California border, quite a liberal student body, and town, with the Oregon Shakespeare festival and tourism as central to the town of Ashland. WOU is also very small campus, 25 minutes out in the country from the capital city of Salem, and proudest of their education program (teacher training). WOU may be the most ethnically diverse campus, other than PSU - check their websites. 3.0 - 3.4 and football = Uof O only if he is a very good football player. 3.0 - 3.4 and football = WOU - likely no problem
Hope this helps. Again - review their websites and especially clarify what level of football your S is after. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Great job puma, except this part ;). Corvallis is about 90 minutes south of Portland and Eugene is 45 minutes south of Corvallis.</p>

<p>Does DS want to play or watch football?? Either way, a big difference between UO and OSU which are Pac 10 teams and the rest.</p>

<p>One other thought, since you’re from CA, all are WUE schools except OSU:</p>

<p><a href=“http://wue.wiche.edu/[/url]”>http://wue.wiche.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>When you say you son wants football, do you mean as a player or a spectator? As a spectator your best bets are UO and OSU. As a player, it depends on his ability of course.</p>

<p>I am quite familiar with UO and SOU. Both terrific schools, but very different in size, setting, etc. As a Californian it may be useful to know that SOU has a WUE agreement with CA, but UO does not.</p>

<p>WOU <em>definitely</em> accepts way more than 45% of its applicants. If that was true it would be FAR more selective than UO, which is the college with the highest admissions standards. In fact that would make it one of the most selective schools in the state, just behind Reed. Uh…not!</p>

<p>Does your son have a preference in terms of major departments? Size of school? Town or city? Weather?</p>

<p>I think looking at Oregon schools is a good idea right now for Californians. The education system has been hit here like everywhere else with the economic downturn, but nothing near as bad as in CA.</p>

<p>(Entomom, UO is WICHE/WUE college, but not for Californians. It has something to do with reciprocal agreements with peer schools or something like that.)</p>

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<p>Thanks 'rent! I was actually looking at the UO website the other day for a friend and was wondering why it didn’t list CA, since the WUE site did. I told my friend to check it out, but she hadn’t gotten back to me yet. Her kids attend a top private in CA and many of the students apparently use UO as a safety, I’d assumed that had to do with the WUE agreement, guess they could just afford the full OOS tuition!</p>

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<p>cinniesmom - I saw from other posts by you that your son’s football interest is as a spectator. It’ll be important to understand the difference between football in Div. 1-A (UO, OSU) and in lower divisions. Football in Div. 1-A is a whole-day or weekend festival. It begins with tailgate parties Saturday afternoon where the marching band stops by to play pre-game shows. At the stadium there are extensive pre-game festivities while the 50-foot tall video screen lays highlights and leads the crowd in cheers. The halftime is a gala, tens of thousands of students participate shoulder-to-shoulder in traditional cheers, and after the game there are more parties and students might hop from one to another. Recent alumni return and see old friends. It’s a group event unlike any other in America.</p>

<p>At WOU, SOU, and PSU, a few hundred students will come in a few minutes before kickoff to watch a sparsely-attended football game and then head home afterwards.</p>

<p>I’d guess that your son wants the OU or OSU football extravaganza more than he just wants to watch his college play football games.</p>

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<p>gadad is right he wants to attend a school with spirit and excitement when it comes to football. He does play now but we have no illusions about him being able to continue to play in college. Thank you for describing the difference between the feeling of attending a game at OSU or U of O vs the other three. I guess we ought to visit during football season and try to catch a home game so he can get a taste of that.</p>

<p>I am still curious about the local perception or reputation of the three lesser known Oregon Publics I listed. Are they the sorts of schools where you find Oregon’s 3.0-3.3 student without a lot of APs and with combined SAT CR/M of 1000 to 1100 find a place. Are they commuter schools or suitcase schools. That sort of thing.</p>

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<p>From the WUE website: .[WICHE</a> - Student Exchange Programs](<a href=“http://wue.wiche.edu/profile.jsp?id=107]WICHE”>http://wue.wiche.edu/profile.jsp?id=107)
Enrollment Information
Eligible candidates are automatically considered based on application information:<br>
First-time freshman entering UO in the fall from eligible WICHE states (except California). Transfer and current non-WUE UO students are not eligible to receive an award.
Academic eligibility
Eligible candidates must meet one of three academic minimums:
* 3.5 grade point average or above (on a 4.0 scale).
* 1200 SAT score (critical reading and math only).
* 27 ACT composite score.</p>

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<p>thank you leslie. I knew that CA didn’t have an agreement with U of A or OSU one of the reasons I was curious about the others. Good information though and thank you very much.</p>

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<p>PSU has expanded greatly recently, but it still has no real “campus” to speak of, just a lot of buildings in downtown Portland. There are more young entering students this year, but also still many adults returning to school. There has always been a higher percentage of foreign students at PSU than the others you mention, primarily middle eastern and asian. This all seems to result in a feeling of serious people, taking the classes they need to finish a degree, not thinking much about going to the game on Saturday. If S is looking for a ‘team spirit’ type school, PSU is not the school I would recommend.</p>

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<p>I agree with merryecho. I visited PSU this summer and it’s plunked right in the middle of downtown with a very small campus. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not what your son is looking for, it sounds like.</p>

<p>I also visited OSU. Nice campus, large, I think they had a big sports presence. (I’m not interested in sports so wasn’t paying close attention.) The town it’s in, Corvallis, is small and doesn’t have any malls or big box stores. I think it’s a little sunnier in Corvallis than in Portland.</p>

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<p>Natural sciences are very strong at Oregon State University. Biology program and ecology.</p>

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<p>"Academic eligibility
Eligible candidates must meet one of three academic minimums:

  • 3.5 grade point average or above (on a 4.0 scale).
  • 1200 SAT score (critical reading and math only).
  • 27 ACT composite score."</p>

<p>I don’t believe these academic requirements apply outside of UO. At least they are not mentioned on the other schools’ websites.</p>

<p>Cinniesmom, I can tell you a little about SOU. It’s a very pretty campus in a very pretty small town. The college and the town itself has a lot of music, art, theater. It is a nice blend of very bright kids who chose it for its specific high level programs (esp. in art, theater, creative writing, nursing and the teaching/counseling fields, and business) and also mid-level students who are exploring their options across a wide range of interests.</p>

<p>It isn’t so much a suitcase school, as it’s in an area of the state that doesn’t have large cities or metro areas. Mostly freshman live on campus unless they’re locals, although more upperclassmen are doing so with some great new upperclass housing that has been built. A lot of students live in town, off-campus but close to it. It is a regional school, though, so of course a relatively high percentage of students have roots in southern Oregon.</p>

<p>The football team is not doing very well unfortunately! SOU has very successful programs in running and women’s volleyball. The wrestling team also consistently does well. I’m not sure about other sports. I wouldn’t say it’s a big “spirit” school. Although there is certainly some of that.</p>

<p>It’s hard to assess “spirit” at the smaller regional colleges fairly because UO and OSU are just behemoths in that respect. They kind of suck up into their maw all the college spirit energy in the state.</p>

<p>This is a program you might find interesting. It’s a new partnership program between SOU and UO.</p>

<p>[Southern</a> Oregon University: Press Releases: SOU and UO agree to dual institution program](<a href=“http://www.sou.edu/news/news017.html]Southern”>http://www.sou.edu/news/news017.html)</p>

<p>One thing that SOU can provide freshmen than UO cannot, is meeting those lower division general education requirements in smaller classes taught by full professors. I would say that from a purely academic point-of-view doing those first couple years at SOU would be infinitely preferable to doing them at UO. Now, that’s just the academic piece, but I know there are other pieces that have to work too.</p>

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<p>hi rent of 2: Thank you for your input on SOU. Our local high school has sent a few kids there and all seem happy. DS like outdoor activities too so the access to the river would also b a plus for him. The link is interesting and is another thing to consider. I like the idea of have an option of transfering to the bigger better known school after all of the GEs and such have been completed in the smaller more transitionary environment.</p>

<p>merryecho and Naturally. Thanks so much for telling me more about Portland State. That was valuable information.</p>

<p>Does anyone have anything to say about Western Oregon?</p>