Barrett Honors College vs. UGA Honors - your opinions?

Colleges & Universities Arizona State University
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<p>Earlier I posted this question in the College Search forum, but I’m going to repost it here in order to see if I get different opinions from CCers who are more familiar with Barrett.</p>

<p>Our son is wrestling with a decision between two programs that constitute an unusual choice. He’s finding it difficult to identify points of comparison from online sources, so I suggested we ask for input from CCers.</p>

<p>Since he’s an avid marching band snare drummer and we fall in the middle-class no-need-based aid zone, he chose to look at Honors programs with strong marching bands. It’s come down to these two. Here are their main selling points:</p>

<p>Barrett is a separate college of ASU with its own campus on the main Tempe campus. It has 3,000 students, seven dorms, its own dining hall and student center, its own advising staff and a faculty of 19 Barrett-only faculty + Honors liaison faculty in every department. One of their prime selling points is an Office of National Scholarship Advisement that works individually with their students to prepare and coach them for Truman, Rhodes, Marshall, Udall, Goldwater, NSEP and Fulbright scholarships. Their walls are covered with hundreds of pictures of their scholarship recipients.</p>

<p>UGA Honors is a more traditional Honors program with 2,000 students, a mostly-freshman Honors dorm, and a lounge in the Honors building. Its program is centered more on the in-class experience, though the quality of campus life at UGA is highly-rated by students, so I doubt that many Honors students would want much separation from the larger student body.</p>

<p>Both offer priority registration and smaller class sizes in Honors sections.</p>

<p>The mean SATs at Barrett are 1320 / 1600 with a quarter of the students out-of-state and a more diverse student population than what we have in Georgia. UGA’s Honors SATs average 1460 / 1600. Being 70 miles from our home, the student body would be similar to what we know in our town, and perhaps not expose our son to as many different perspectives.</p>

<p>Both marching bands are excellent. The drumline may be slightly more accessible at UGA than ASU, partially due to the relative sizes of the schools.</p>

<p>UGA as a whole is generally higher-ranked academically FWIW, though ASU’s evaluations are often colored by an admissions policy for the larger institution that is intentionally less-selective.</p>

<p>Tuition would be free at UGA - he’d pay for room, board, some fees and incidentals. At ASU, tuition over four years would be about $70,000 after the scholarship he’s been offered. We’ve put away $ for college and can afford the $70,000, but we are not so affluent as to be price-insensitive, and the 70K could also help fund grad school.</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

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<p>Hmmm . . . over 300 views and no one advocating for Barrett. Maybe there’s a message there.</p>

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<p>I’m dealing with the same issue. Many people think ASU is poor when it comes to acedemics because they are a very, very large University and therefore are less selective than UGA. I’m not sure if you mentioned what he plans on majoring in, but that can be a game-changer.</p>

<p>I plan on going to business school and they are actually ranked above UGA in that department. That said, the tuition cost is also pretty significant. If he does well in undergraduate school, you are going to want to have plenty saved for him if he gets into a highly prestigious graduate school that costs a significant amount of money. Because, at the end of the day, his graduate degree is what is going to be the most important.</p>

<p>Honestly, I think UGA would be his best bet, but I highly disagree with everyone who is saying ASU is educationally inadequate.</p>

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<p>I’m a Barrett student right now and I love it here. What sold me was Barrett’s smaller community on a big campus; I wanted to have the big school feel with D1 sports and hundreds of student organizations, but it was good to know that I was going to be living with honors students all driven to succeed. Plus, the Barrett complex is only a few years old and amazing; we have the best dining hall and dorms on campus, and it is seriously the best place to live on campus. As a business student (supply chain management major, if you’re interested), I can attest that Barrett and ASU’s WP Carey School of Business provide a vast array of opportunities. Barrett as a whole offer tons of honors-only clubs, classes, and events, but Barrett students are in no way ostracized from the rest of the ASU student population. Talking to my friends back home majoring in business concentrations at UCLA and Cal, I definitely feel like I’ve gotten a lot more out of my freshman year here than they have. The faculty here is amazing and I’ve learned so much from them already.</p>

<p>Honestly though, the money difference is huge. My scholarship made Barrett cost about as much as going in-state to a UC school, and I am really glad that I decided to come here. I’ve had an amazing freshman year here and the rest of my years here look to be even more enlightening. I definitely think you should look into it, but a full-ride to UGA is something that would be hard to turn down in my mind. I would strongly encourage you to give Barrett a visit if you can, so you can really get a feel for how life at our honors college is.</p>

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<p>Nothing against Barrett/ASU but per your post, it sounds that UGA would be better fit for you/your son. Why pay $70K if UGA is a better fit?</p>

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<p>I think that this boils down to his major. ASU has some incredibly strong programs and some that are just so-so. I can answer any questions you have about the SDMB though, I’m sure your son would absolutely love it. I don’t know about UGA’s band, but what is totally awesome about the SDMB is that it’s a close group of people, which is something that a lot of students who come to ASU don’t get to experience. I’m sure UGA’s band is that way too, but at a school as large as ASU, being in the SDMB has surely made a difference in my college experience.</p>

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<p>I went to barrett and loved it, but 70k is a big price tag to swallow when your child has other good options.</p>

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<p>Is your son any type of Merit Scholar on the PSAT? If so, has he considered University of Arizona? They have a great merit scholarship, a highly ranked honors college, and they are a D1 school. Hurry and apply if your son meets the qualifications for scholarship.</p>

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<p>The special appeal of Barrett is that it’s not an honors program per se, but a separate college within ASU with its own campus, halls, etc. It would provide something more akin to a small college experience compared to a program such as UGA’s or UA’s.</p>