| ASU is still trying to overcome its "party school" reputation from 10 - 15 years ago, when Playboy Magazine put it on its top 10 list. And it is true that in those days, the brightest students staying in-state automatically headed to Tucson.
Things are very different at ASU now -- but that old reputation is proving hard to shake off. President Michael Crow has really put lots of emphasis on upgrading the academics at ASU and building new research facilities to help attract outstanding professors. He has also given lots of attention to upgrading the honors college (and the $10 million from the Barretts certainly helped there!)
If you compare the student profiles (GPAs, class rank, test scores) for both schools now, you'll see that they are pretty much the same. In some fields (engineering, music, architecture/design, and business), ASU has better undergraduate programs than UA. However, to be fair, UA is definitely still the better school for astronomy, physics, and life sciences. |