<p>Has anyone visited? Know anything about the school?</p>
<p>Woooo!!! Go COUGS!!! </p>
<p>Ha ha just kidding. WSU (or Wazoo as it’s known to the natives) is a great school. It has one of the top hotel management programs. But you should make sure you/your kid is willing to go to school in a very small town. And they should want a football school because the Cougars are a big deal over there. It’s not that far from Spokane, but it’s waaaaay far from Seattle if that’s what you’re thinking when you think “washington state”. It’s in Eastern Washington, which is essentially a big, beautiful desert country, with lots and lots of fields created by irrigation, and now a booming wine industry. So don’t think green trees and rain. And be ready for a school with a big football culture and all that goes along with that.</p>
<p>It would be for the hotel management program. It would be as a transfer student, definitely not into football also not into drinking as the social life.
How hard is it to get to? Best airport to fly into? Would an older student be comfortable (23)? We are thinking it is a big enough school to attract all kinds of people. She is not looking for a traditional college experience. Been there, done that and found it was not for her.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people that go to Wazzu and really like it. Pullman,WA (PUW) is the nearest airport with flights to Seattle, but Spokane (GEG) is a 60-90 minute drive if you want a bigger selection of flights and airlines. The nearest Wal-Mart is 7 miles away in Moscow, Idaho (home to the University of Idaho). </p>
<p>There is a traditional campus culture, but as an older transfer student, your D has plenty of opportunities to go beyond that. I don’t know your residency, but WSU is getting harder to get into, but it’s certainly possible. WSU does attract all kinds of people, but not always the same demographic as U Washington. Each school attracts a different type of student. I have heard good things about the hotel management program, but don’t know any current students majoring in it. If your D doesn’t want the traditional college experience, I do caution against more rural schools, but visiting campus does help.</p>
<p>The WSU Common Data Set shows the average age of full-time students is 22 and the average age of full- and part-time students is 23. It is definitely known for its drinking culture, but I’ve read of attempts to rein that in. I imagine the student in question would find her peer group of young adults, though, and be able to craft her own life there. Cougs are very passionate about their school. U of Idaho is very close, also. I know one person in the hotel program who will graduate this spring and has had her first job lined up for weeks now.</p>
<p>If she’s not into drinking or football culture, she might feel kind of isolated. Not that absolutely everyone does it, and yes, they’re trying to rein it in, but Pullman is sort of out in the middle of nowhere (okay, it’s close to Idaho, but I count that part of Idaho as the middle of nowhere), and I honestly think that a lot of the drinking comes from lack of other outlets. The university has a lot going on, but it’s not in an urban center (or really that close to an urban center) so there won’t be a lot of places to go to get away if she finds campus life not to her liking. Finding a social group that she likes, especially if she’s not interested in the mainstream culture, is going to be made more difficult by the fact that she’s a transfer as well (not because WSU is hostile to transfers in any way, just because as a transfer, you have to work harder anywhere to find a niche, particularly if you want to carve your own). </p>
<p>Has she ever lived in a rural area? Will she have a car? That will help a lot. Especially if she wants to get to Seattle or Spokane. Still, she will be an hour each way from a Spokane, and in the winter those roads get really snowy and hard to drive on. She should just be prepared for that. </p>
<p>The hotel program is definitely top notch, although not surprisingly there aren’t a bunch of first class hotels located in Pullman, so for internships she’d have to travel farther afield. And if she’s not a resident of Washington State that will make it harder to get in and more expensive to attend. </p>
<p>But WSU grads have a lot of school spirit, coming back year after year for football games, donating generously. They’ve built a great university there, with great programs, but the social life thing might be a hurdle. Has she looked at other hotel programs? UNLV has an excellent one and is in a much more urban area (you don’t have to live on “the strip” to go there, Nevada has a lot to offer besides gambling and most UNLV students live off campus and drive in so she can choose her environment), also Cornell’s got probably the most prestigious program.</p>
<p>I have a number of friends who attend WSU, and they love it. Pullman is literally nothing but the university, so she would need to like rural, college-town environments. Drinking is big but there are enough people to find a niche.</p>
<p>There are Horizon flights from Pullman to Seattle.</p>
<p>+1 for UNLV’s hotel program, although Nevada is a budgetary disaster area.</p>
<p>She is already in. I think Washington State is part of the Western Tuition Exchange but she would have to look into that. Due to the location it is not her first choice but not a bad choice.She has a car. She is applying I think to 10 schools and WSU is the first that she has heard back from. It is odd that several of the top ranked hotel programs are not located in large cities with many hotels. She has absolutely no interest in living in Las Vegas. She is applying to Cornell. Biggest drawback to most of the programs is that she hates to be cold!
She wishes the hotel program was at Western Wash or Univ of Washington. Much more her style.</p>
<p>Weather? Obviously winter is cold. What about number of days of snow?</p>
<p>Last winter was VERY snowy and rather cold, this winter-no snow at all, and the temps are in the high low 40s. We get about a month of cold weather in winter and about a month of hot weather in the summer.</p>
<p>According to the website for WICHE, WSU does do the Western Undergraduate Exchange, but it is restricted to incoming freshmen only [WICHE</a> - Student Exchange Programs](<a href=“http://wue.wiche.edu/profile.jsp?id=126]WICHE”>http://wue.wiche.edu/profile.jsp?id=126) .</p>
<p>mom60: my wife was a grad student at WSU and was a TA while she was a grad student. She lived in grad student apt and I commuted frequently between Seattle and Pullman through all kinds of weather and road conditions. Can’t comment much on life of an undergrad student living in dorms, but can tell you a bit about Pullman. Small, moderately hilly town. There is barely any shopping in town because Idaho border is only 8 miles away and boasts much lower sales tax, so all the mega stores (walmart etc) are out there. Pullman’s airport is tiny with limited flights. Spokane is about 90 minutes to the north, but expect less than pleasant driving conditions in the winter. Seattle is 287 miles to the west and takes at least 5 hours in summer for someone not so familiar with the roads. In the winter it takes a bit longer as you are bound to encounter fog, rain, snow, and ice at some point between Pullman and Seattle because road/weather conditions vary quite a bit as you travel across the state. In other words, don’t count on an easy getaway from Pullman/Moscow to escape a tough winter evening or weekend. Spring, summer, and fall are beautiful and much easier on travel and outing.</p>
<p>Cold and snowy in the winter, hot (HOT!) and windy in the summer, with cooler nights. </p>
<p>The big problem in the winter too is you have to think about pass closures. If conditions are really bad or there is danger of avalanche (a real danger) they will close the pass for a few hours or sometimes a few days and that means no overland travel to western washington, though you can still go to Spokane. If she has a car she plans to use to get around in the winter, it should have four wheel drive and she should learn to put on chains. </p>
<p>It’s too bad she didn’t look at UNLV. Like I said, just because the school is in Vegas, you’re not “living in Las Vegas” like one might think. Las Vegas has a whole other side that’s not sleazy or crazy drunk or about the strip, but just a city like any other, where people live and work and go to school. My friend graduated from there and loved it. Plus the weather is way better.</p>
<p>If you a student at WSU, plan on being on campus for most winter weekends because of the weather. Conditions in the Palouse might be fine, but eventually you’ll run into problems at the mountain pass on your way to Seattle.</p>
<p>That aside, WSU is a very good university. It definitely attracts a different crowd from the undergrads at UW in Seattle. Pullman wouldn’t exist without WSU.</p>
<p>This is one where it is absolutely worth the dollars and time to do a campus visit. She’ll know. Either it appeals immensely or the kid goes “get me out of here.” We have lots of teens that choose WSU — and have known many that fled right after the campus tour. </p>
<p>Doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. Sort of like mustard or pickles on your burger. Yep or Nope is pretty definite.</p>
<p>Thanks this is all great information that I will pass on to her.
Olymom- She would definitely visit before making a decision. Time is going to be the issue with visiting. She is planning on summer session at her present school and she has only 1 week between spring and summer and the schools she has applied to are all over the map. She has a week at spring which might be a good time to do some visits if she has heard from a few schools. Unfortunately WSU is on the opposite end of the country from where she is at now.</p>
<p>D had better be part mountain goat too- it seems like everything at that school is uphill. This was the agricultural college in the old days, so you still get some of that ‘country’ flavor- which can be either a plus or a big minus, depending on D.</p>
<p>In many ways it still is an agricultural college. They still have a great agricultural sciences program and a lot of the kids you meet there grew up on farms or in areas where farming was the main industry. Eastern Washington is really where the bulk of Washington state’s agricultural bounty is located, the fields are amazing things to see. </p>
<p>They also grow great engineers at WSU. My grandpa was the first in his family to go to college and he went to WSU and studied engineering during the Depression under a New Deal work study program and he went on to be an engineer on the Grand Coulee Dam, one of the great national construction projects.</p>