<p>Absolutely. I think there are different types of kids when it comes to handling an environment where not everyone is smart / motivated. Some kids are able to find their niche and it really doesn’t matter to them that other kids are party-in-the-sun-and-attend-an-occasional-class-too, as long as they have found their niche. Others are much more “weighted down” / unhappy in such an environment. Speaking only for myself, I can say that I would not do well in such an environment, and therefore a strong concentration of smart / academically minded kids was a necessity for me to really bloom. Other people, however, are fine with that. Only the OP knows how his son will react.</p>
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Scum Devils?</p>
<p>They do have an interesting linebacker. He scares me. Played them last year and he had about three serious personal fouls.</p>
<p>Some kids are able to find their niche and it really doesn’t matter to them that other kids are party-in-the-sun-and-attend-an-occasional-class-too, as long as they have found their niche.</p>
<p>I can understand that concern if this student weren’t pursuing a serious major. I just don’t think that many “party in the sun” kids are choosing STEM majors (or at least not for long 
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<p>I think the misunderstanding is that people think the smart/serious kids and the party-hardy kids are all spread across the same majors; they aren’t. The party kids are found in the lighter/easier “no classes on Fridays” majors and the academically-minded ones are in the serious STEM, more challenging Liberal Arts (yikes, The Classics!), etc, majors.</p>
<p>Who cares that some kids in easier majors waaaaay across campus have time to party? Those kids won’t be in your classes if you’re in a serious major.</p>
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<p>As always, this must vary from school to school. I do not think that one can make such easy distinction. There are very challenging programs that most definitely have a large share of “play hard/ party hard” students. The “No classes on Friday and no classes before 11am” are not the exclusive domains of the slackers. </p>
<p>What happens on a campus such as Harvey Mudd on a study night versus a party night might provide a vastly different point of view. :)</p>
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<p>Because if there is a significant portion of not-academically-directed kids who are just there for the parties and the fun in the sun, I do think that affects the feel of campus life - the social acceptability of spending hours in the library, saying no to a social engagement because you have to study, how easy it will to be find friends with similar interests, how quiet the dorms will be, how much Greek life, football life, will dominate campus, etc.</p>
<p>CJane:</p>
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<p>No, but I would imagine that public flagships are less vulnerable than other types of institutions in an economic downturn because their state won’t allow them to die or be absorbed by another institution, and they typically aren’t as endowment-dependent as privates. Barrett has made some interesting financial moves such as having American Campus Communities build them a new campus with their own funds in return for the long-term housing rentals generated through a two-year residency requirement. They also have their own $1,000 annual surcharge that generates over $3M a year in operating revenue. They gave our S a $13,000 / year scholarship which would bring the OOS cost of attendance down to $26,000 this year. I wonder how sustainable that program may be, but as of now, the merit scholarship offer is in writing for 8 semesters.</p>
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<p>We didn’t really look into Career Services. The ASU PR office likes to tout a NY Times article that says they’re one of the five most popular campuses for recruiters, but you’ve got to put that in perspective - the largest campus out there will clearly generate a lot of prospective employees, so of course the recruiters will have it on their radar.</p>
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<p>Huge at Barrett. Their strategy for building their reputation seems to be built around coaching up the students for big-name scholarships and internships.</p>
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<p>Just that - Barrett students need to complete at least 36 honors credits out of 120 to earn the honors diploma, though many do more - at least one student earned 80 honors hours. Those honors courses can be in Barrett with one of their 19 dedicated Honors faculty, they can be honors-only sections by the faculty member(s) in each department who liaison with Barrett, or they can be regular departmental courses to which extra honors components are added. The balance of the coursework would be regular ASU classes. It’s in a sun and fun destination so it attracts a certain proportion of slackers, some of whom will party their way out while others take advantage of the academic opportunity. Either the slackers will slow the classroom dynamics down or they won’t since they’ll be out at the pool (which, BTW, is open 12 months a year :)).</p>
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<p>All the students we met - and that would be dozens - were nice, bright, friendly, genuine, and very appealing folks. They were not into prestige or fashion, and the one Greek student we got to know said that she was originally not into sororities but was impressed by the academic rep of the group she pledged. There’s a hall called SHAB - Sustainability House at Barrett - which seems to attract a fairly countercultural crowd. I was told that Barrett dominates the ASU Student Government, and I saw that this year’s Homecoming Queen was from Barrett. Barrett’s Dean (the head of the school) was formerly the Associate Provost at Swarthmore and used to worry that too many Swat students needed to get a life. He used to muse about how great it would be if he could drop Swat on the Penn State campus so that students could take advantage of the major university, then retreat into a liberal arts haven. Then he was offered the Barrett job and kept that dynamic in mind while designing the new campus. Accordingly, Barrett’s probably not a place for the slacker or the single-minded academic.</p>
<p>Barrons, the diploma does indeed say ASU (as well as Barrett Honors). For an extra $120,000 we could make it say Northwestern; we just don’t happen to have an extra $120,000.</p>
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<p>ASU is one of the few schools with some career survey information (by major, specific to that school, rather than just pointing to generic NACE numbers or giving entire school results only).</p>
<p><a href=“https://students.asu.edu/career/gradstats[/url]”>https://students.asu.edu/career/gradstats</a></p>
<p>Still, some other schools, like Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, and Virginia Tech, go into much more detail by major.</p>
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<p>This is exactly how ASU is perceived in my neck of the woods (half way across the country from PG).</p>
<p>This goes back in time, but my experience at a Big Ten school was similar to what some others are saying. I actually was a top academic out of stater and chose the school for it’s No. 1 rated music school (which I didn’t stay in…). I was absolutely shocked at the low academic level of many of the students in my dorm and those I met socially. Many of them didn’t last past freshman year, and once I got solidly in the business school it got better, but that first year…wow. Not impressive. The fact is- you WILL be interacting with the bottom half on many occasions- honors or not. This might not matter and may be a quick passage for an engineering kid, but it’s something to note.</p>
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<p>Out of curiosity, how would the various California State Universities be perceived in your neck of the woods? Obviously, we all know how instate students view the differences between their flagship(s)* and the less prestigious colleges that have to carry the State label as opposed to the University of XXX.</p>
<p>Fwiw, and again out of curiosity, if a school such as ASU is perceived as a slacker for partying sun-worshippers, should we not REALLY start to worry about the couple of institutions of higher learning that are not ranked in the top 100 by Morse and his stable of geniuses? After all, where do the hordes of academic underachievers go our K-12 produces year after year? </p>
<p>*The bracketed (s) is in reference to a superbly “intelligent” debate that is taking place in a separate thread. :)</p>
<p>Thanks so much, gadad for the detailed responses. Much appreciated.</p>
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<p>“Less prestigious” isn’t the issue - it’s the extent to which the larger campus culture / student body values academics and works hard at them. Based on the students I’ve known (including 3 extended family members, so I’m dissing my tribe here) who have gone there, they were specifically attracted because a) they couldn’t get into anyplace better and b) they didn’t want to work hard, at all. That feels qualitatively different to me than most other flagship state universities which are attracting earnest kids, even if they aren’t geniuses.</p>
<p>I know I’m now sounding like I’m raining on gadad’s parade, and I don’t mean to. It’s just that I don’t think ASU is like an “average state flagship” in terms of the composition of the rest of the student body (outside the honors college).</p>
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<p>CalPoly SLO has a very good reputation. SDSU is getting better. Other than that, everything I have heard (and note I am speaking only of myself) is that the other CSUs are still one step above the ccs, which means that those who choose a CSU either: 1) are one step above ccs academically, 2) chose the college for its athletics (i.e. Long Beach State), or 3) couldn’t afford to go away to a UC, so attend the local CSU.</p>
<p>PG, I start to understand your position now, even if does not reflect my own experience regarding friends who attended ASU. i guess that is the beauty of anecdotes.</p>
<p>OH, by the way, I believe that it would extremely easy to show that the OVERWHELMING majority of students at flagship schools did NOT have a better or more prestigious option. And yes, this includes Michigan and Cal, aka everyone’s favorite for best flagship. In so many words, an incredibly small percentage of students enrolled at the flagship with a BETTER option in hand. </p>
<p>Students do usually attend the higher ranked school that accepted them. Contrary to what some would like us to believe.</p>
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<p>Wait, was this a back-handed insult that I missed? Am I part of the intelligencia participating in that other “separate” thread? Which one is it? </p>
<p>xiggi, sometimes your posts are so hard to decipher.</p>
<p>Maybe the majority did not care and felt their state flagship was perfectly fine.</p>
<p>Bay, No backhand insult. I try to be direct when hurling a salvo. The thread about the multiple flagships is just below or above this one. I assumed you had seen it. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1234107-why-wouldnt-you-go-your-state-flagship-state-your-arguments-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1234107-why-wouldnt-you-go-your-state-flagship-state-your-arguments-2.html</a></p>
<p>I have gone to grad school at Iowa and ASU. Worked with and taught 1000’s of undergrad students at ASU and University of Iowa over the past 23 years. Overall, I would say that the quality of student at Iowa is slightly better but not enough to make any difference from a teaching perspective. I would take the college of business at ASU in a heartbeat over Iowa’s.</p>
<p>“Maybe the majority did not care and felt their state flagship was perfectly fine.”</p>
<p>Exactly! And why there is no difference whatsoever between ASU and other large public research universities in that regard. None!</p>