My son is a very talented student who will be a senior this year. Last week we took a long road trip to look at some schools he's interested in . Honestly, Arkansas was kind of an "also ran" for him, a safety school if anything. It was "on the way" to a couple of other schools we are looking at....

Following our tour of the campus, I would say it's probably in the top three of ten. Whether he ends up there or not will depend a lot on the financial incentives offered but we were very impressed- understand, I've done about 7 Major University campus tours now-so that's the perspective. The people- ALL of them were extremely nice and well organized. The school video presentation was excellent. We got a meeting with a professor- in his proposed field of study, Arkansas was the ONLY school that did that for us. Every school talks about how great their cafeterias are. Arkansas gave us free lunch passes and told us to "go have lunch"....it was very good. The campus was beautiful and modern....

Fayetteville seems like a really nice town and is a good size- everything you need and not a lot of "big city" issues I would guess. We stayed in Ponca for a couple of days. Boys had a blast swimming in the river, hiking etc.....We ate at Low Gap and The Ozark Cafe in Jasper a couple times. Went zip lining.....

Again, my son was very much impressed and the visit moved Arkansas significantly up the list of schools.

Great school. Glad you enjoyed it!

Do you mind sharing what that field of study is?  I'd guess someone here could offer an analysis of good/bad for that.

UofA really is a jewel but they have their problems, too.  I was told that a few years ago, UA housing contracts were not renewed for students above freshman level which forced upper level students out into off-campus housing. It was rumored that the space was needed for incoming freshmen. Perhaps it was a pay-off to Pres Clinton's advisor Bruce Lindsey who held a LOT of the local off-campus housing?  I'd guess MOST upper level students would PREFER to live off campus so that might not have been such a big deal but I know a few families that were scrounging for suitable housing at the last minute.

I've been told of bureaucratic nonsense like requiring complete shot records for older students coming back for another class FOR 100% ONLINE CLASSES!

Over the years, UA has grown substantially in number of students but the campus footprint has remained about the same. I'm not sure what that has done for class sizes but classes with more than 100 students were common for some classes (chemisty, cough cough).  I remember that in some departments classes were typically taught by fresh grad students, not an assoc professor or full prof.  It'll make a difference if you really need help from an instructor outside of class.

Finally, a pet peeve:  I dare you to determine the exact amount (or even a close dollar figure) of how much his first semester is going to cost ahead of time.  There are tuition fees, lab fees, health fees, student government fees, old buildings fees, parking fees, and on and on and on. You might think you have it nailed down but until those first couple of weeks of class are behind you, you cannot be certain that you really got in the class you signed up for or that one wasn't dropped at the last minute, or maybe filled up with seniors who'll bump you off the list until YOU are a senior.

We met with a History professor, nice guy, asked that we call him any time if we had further questions etc.....My son will be in Honors Classes, maximum course size of 15- in his field of study. There will be a few "survey" courses that are larger of course but you're not going to get away from that anywhere. As an honors student he gets preferential course enrollment, so not much worry about not getting a course he needs....

They are building quite a bit it looked like to me- but of course most schools schedule their construction projects for summer when the students are not around. Unfortunately, even with a 90% waiver of out of state tuition the cost is fairly high. I can send him to UT or A&M for a base of $22k and Arkansas will run $26k. If they can offer some scholarships etc.....it's a contender...though they won't beat Alabama in that regard....Nobody can....

Yow, out of state tuition is tough.  I had two guys in my pledge class from the DFW area and apparently chose the U of A because,they both got scholarships that offset the out of state part of the tuition.

It's gotten rediculous though.  My first semester up there (1995) my tuition bill was $1200 for 18 hours.  I took off for a couple of years and then went back in 2000 and finished in 2002.  Tuition my last semster was $1800 for 12 hours.  If one wants to break that down by the credit hour, tuition OVER DOUBLED in 7 years.

By the time my kids are of college age I'll probably tell them to skip it unless they can get a full ride on scholarship.  They'll end up so far in debt that even a better paying job won't get them out of that debt hole.

He'll get a 90% break on the out of state tuition (which means it costs about $1,200- not enough to care about) but the BASE cost is "much" higher than the Texas schools...about 4k or so. Combined with the $1200 that means it's 20% higher or so.....I'm sure they will offer some scholarships to try and offset the difference.

Northwest Arkansas and the University are a hidden gem. Love it here.



I have an undergrad degree and a law degree from the UofA. Highly recommend it.



A lot of Texas people here as well.

I was there from 01-06 and picked up an engineering degree and an MBA. I loved the school and that part of the state, and I've often thought about moving up that way again.

glad you liked it, I hope I'm impressed this fall.

Another satisfied alumnus here '86-90 - BS  College of Engineering, '92-93 - MBA.  I would not hesitate to move back up to NWA if the right employment opportunity presented itself.

They said that HALF of their students are from Texas. This last years Freshman class was 60% Texan.

I believe it, we watched the Ice Hogs play a few times this year and if I remember correctly all but maybe 3 or 4 were from Texas.



 

That explains the ultra-high ratio of good looking women



Northwest Arkansas, literally the next best thing to living in Texas



 

except with trees, mountains, green grass........oh wait I'm in Panhandle right now.....lol

I started the MBA program in the spring of '92 and finished in August of '93.  That first semester I also taught Intro to Computers and worked in the computer lab in the business building.

So glad I finally got transferred out of the panhandle.  I miss it sometimes, but after 5 years out in that part of the world I was burned out.