University of Colorado at Boulder Admission
University of Colorado at Boulder Undergraduate Program
University of Colorado at Boulder Application

The Facts

The University of Colorado - Boulder is without a doubt the best public school in Colorado. However, with over 25,000 students and 2,500 courses in over 150 programs, it can be quite overwhelming for some students. Even though the student to faculty ratio is only 17 to 1, the requisite introductory classes can be enormous. It is also known as a mojor party school; as an aspect which is less than pleasing to students who wish to focus on academics. Apparently, students have to make a major effort to get to know their professors, who are notoriously inaccessible, even by email. Despite the difficulty, the school boasts many extremely accomplished professors including several recent Nobel Laureates in physics, a MacArthur Fellow in linguistics and computer science as well as several recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

CU is made up of five undergraduate schools including business, engineering and applied science, environmental design, music, and the arts and sciences. The school offers several excellent pre- professional programs, including business, engineering and hard sciences which help many students get a head start in their careers. Some of the most popular majors include psychology, pre-journalism and mass communication, moleular, cellular and developmental biology, English, and political science.

Admission to CU is increasingly competitive; last year over 21,000 students applied and around 16,800 were admitted, while only 5,592 actually matriculated. The Class of 2004 had an average combined SAT score ranging from 1080 to 1280 and an average cumulative ACT score ranging from 23 to 28. Over 57% of admitted students were ranked in the top 25% of their high school graduating class with an average GPA of around 3.52.

Student say that the workload can be tough, however, many students choose to take the easy road but pay for it when they graduate and are on the job-market. Students also say that many people only come to the school for the party atmosphere, and not enough students are academically focused.

The Social Scene

CU is a notorious party school situated on a beautiful 600 acre campus nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. On the weekends, many students choose to go skiing, snowboarding, hiking and camping, but more choose to stay on campus and party until the sun comes up. Over 23% of students belong to a fraternity or sorority, which tend to govern the party scence. Although the Greek houses are officially dry, it doesn’t seem to stop the kegs from flowing freely. Students at CU are remarkably liberal, and lean heavily to the left on political and social issues, and tend to let their opinions show by protests and other social action.

Expect to find members of the opposite sex knee-deep in beer and ready to have a wild time.

What's Good

“Everyone here is really laid-back and big into nature. Everyone really care about the environmental, expecially that of the Rockies.”

“There is always a great party somewhere. Everyone is just out to have an awesome time.”

“The science program is amazing. We have the only student run satellite in the world.”

What's Bad

“No one seems to really care about their studies, which is, after all, the entire reason you go to university. Right?”

“The Greeks dominate the social scence. If you are a non-Greek, you don’t matter to them a whole lot.”

“Teachers are impossible to access. Sometimes it seems like they could care less about the well-being of their students.”

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