As a prior Wildcat fan in high school, and an engineering major, that also took a 3 year break after high school in the military, I can tell you why I switched opinions on which one I chose to attend after I got out of the Army. Growing up in Phoenix, I can say that the common stigma between ASU and U of A is that U of A students/fans consistently have to put down ASU’s academics, but neglect to mention any facts supporting their arguments. First off I am not here to put down U of A because U of A is an outstanding school, and so is ASU, in fact both schools have some of the best programs in the country.
First to debunk the acceptance rate argument. U of A has a 76.9% acceptance rate as of 2014, while ASU has an 80.2%. Not much for either school to brag about really. The argument U of A has is: “we accept slight less people than you, but still accept 15% more people than the national average”. The reason for this is because the state of Arizona requires its public universities to accept every student that is either in top 25% of their graduating class, has a 3.0 gpa, or has a 22 ACT. This does not apply to every major though, and leads to far more competitive admission into tougher programs at bother schools. In addition, I would like to point out that ASU has the higher test scores, and the higher average GPA for admitted students, probably because of the honors college though.
Now in terms of programs, U of A excels at some, and ASU excels at others. Business, Journalism, nursing, and Engineering at ASU are higher ranked than U of A’s programs. ASU’s business program is ranked 30 by US news, while U of A’s is at 56. Engineering at ASU is at 42, while U of A’s is 52. If you are interested in law, then look into ASU’s 22 ranked law school, one of the best public law schools in the country. Even U of A’s pride and joy medical field gets trumped in the nursing department, with ASU’s 24th ranked program, compared to U of A’s 38th ranked program. The honors college at ASU is also nationally know, and sends one of the highest percentages of students to graduate Ivy League schools over any other honors college in the country.
On the other hand, U of A has one of the best optical science programs in the country, gets awarded the most money for research by NASA over any university in the entire US, has an excellent astronomy program, has a world class telescope, has a medical school, is a better research university, has a slightly better computer science program, and over all is ranked higher by forbes by around 30 spots.
So don’t listen to people on what they think a prestigious university is. Neither school is really all that prestigious. I can tell you that University of Texas literally eats both alive in just about every ranking ever created, and even then is still not as prestigious as Cal Berkeley, or UCLA, or Michigan, or Georgia Tech, and those schools aren’t even as prestigious as the elite private colleges. Prestige of the school really doesn’t matter, the ranking of the program you are in, and what you do while in school matters far more. For example, a Mechanical Engineering degree from Georgia Tech, followed by a good internship, will look better than the same degree from Harvard and no internship to an employer looking for a mechanical engineer. Georgia Tech is a top 5 engineering school, and an internship is valuable experience, while Harvard is a top 30 engineering school.
So you can sit there and listen to U of A supporters brag about their 77% acceptance rate, or you can choose the school that actually is a better fit for you, and will give you more opportunity to succeed.