jyazwa

I need help with finding a highly selective college/univ in the state of Arizona. Does anyone know of good ones, other than U of A?

noimagination

Why does it need to be "highly selective"?

Arizona is not exactly filled with exclusive institutions, but UA is probably the closest you will get. It has some good programs too...

ASU's Barrett Honors College is selective, so you might want to check that out.

Unless you really need an ego boost, you might want to worry a bit less about selectivity and more about other factors.

hmom5

Maybe the OP prefers really smart peers and it's not about his ego. Not a bad way to select a college in my opinion, your peers are a tremendous part of your college experience.

Arizona is not home to any highly selective colleges.

noimagination

UA has 313 National Merit Scholars and ASU has 539. Sounds like plenty of smart peers to me...

IBclass06

Arizona and ASU have certain strengths, but an intelligent and highly motivated undergraduate student body is not one of them.

Arizona
SAT CR 480-600
SAT M 500-620
81% admitted
33% graduate in 4 years

Arizona State
SAT CR 470-600
SAT M 480-610
90% admitted
28% graduate in 4 years

Course difficulty is aimed at the average (B/C) student. Bluntly put, courses at UA and ASU would typically not be as challenging as those at more selective colleges. I say this as a TA who's bitter about having to dumb down his standards for the undergraduates at his public.

Yurtle

Uh....not really. xDDDD

ASU
U Of A
NAU

Grand Canyon
U of Phoenix

Prescott College isn't selective either:

"SAT Critical Reading: 460 - 660 65%
SAT Math: 430 - 600 65%
SAT Writing: 470 - 610 65%
ACT Composite: 18 - 27 26% "

w/ 77% acceptance rate.

You'll do what all the other Smart Arizona kids do:

1.) You'll go to Barrett Honors at ASU. That's the 'best' thing we have, and its been named as a great school. By reader's digest, but still.
2.) You'll just go to state flagship and work harder.

Or you try to do what I'm doing and:

3.) Flee.

Most of the highly intelligent kids I know will go to Barrett b/c it's affordable and/or leave because the fact of the matter is, we want something more academically intense.

If it's about peers, and it HAS to be in AZ, go Barrett. If you just want a good College, go somewhere else. (I maintain that Prescott is probably one of the better schools on there for it's big focus on the environment, though. Plus, Prescott is BEAUTIFUL.)

If you live here, and having been paying attention though, our schools are pretty low even in the k-12 areas. ASU has an economic recovery fee in their tuition, it's that bad. Classes are being cut, and tuition is being raised, and depending upon your major/school your tuition will change as well.

People wonder why I'm so adverse to staying home for my college degree- esp. when it's relatively affordable.

If you need to state in State:
U of A for medical/dance. They have a teaching hospital.
ASU for business, law, or engineering and journalism. [Or education, ironically.]
NAU for....snow.
Prescott for the environment.
U of Phoenix for night classes and online classes
Grand Canyon for....something.

___

Yeah but how much BIGGER is ASU and UofA compared to other schools?

539/53,298 that's .01% of the population according to my calculator. (And frankly, ASU is probably much bigger than collegeboard says)

313/29,719 also .01%

There are smart kids, but there are smart kids anywhere.

jyazwa

Wow! Thank you for all the input... I appreciate the time you took!