<p>@australianjunior it is very interesting how people in a certain geographic area can have many preconceptions about what is prestigious and what is not. They may base opinions on what they have seen and what they know in their area alone. Or think that colleges are similar to what parents experienced maybe 20 - 30 years ago. </p>
<p>Sometimes too there are delays in perception changes because it takes a while for people to realize a college has improved in certain areas, or not picking up on regional/state changes important for them to see to believe.</p>
<p>UA has one of the top 10 beautiful campuses in the US. Many OOS scholarship families come to UA Scholars Day because they want to evaluate personally and thoroughly.</p>
<p>I know a family that will not visit UA because eng major son only interested in ‘the north’ or Stanford. If he doesn’t get OOS waived to his ‘first choice OOS public school’, he may be paying over $30K a year more for his degree - and they don’t have that kind of money to throw around. IMHO his stats are not high enough for admission to Stanford, and I think her realizes this is a big reach both for admission and affordability.</p>