University of Tulsa Top Questions

It's a nice small school. There is a decent amount of partying done by greeks and athletes. Football is big, classes are small, teachers are nice. There isn't much to do outside of campus and not much of a public transportation system to get to the few places that are worth going to. You will definitely get the college experience without having to deal with outrageously huge classes. Our financial aid office is pretty generous too. If I wasn't a Petroleum Engineering major, i probably wouldn't be here just because everyone is so conservative and this isn't the environment i'm used to as somefrom from a big and lively city like LA.

TU is a great school which offers an amazing education with small classes, as well as a great social life. The professors are amazing and most of them allow you to get involved in research or their department somehow. The school is just right in terms of size. I wouldn't want my classes any smaller or any bigger. When I tell people I go to TU, they are usually very happy and know that I will get the best education there and have a great time. TU's administration is great. They are very available to the students and really don't just want the paycheck--they want to help you succeed and be happy. ACAC is a big hangout, as well as the dorms and the Greek houses. However, I wasn't involved in anything Greek and I always had a safe, fun place to hang out. It's not really a "college town" but it's a great beautiful city. There is tons of school pride. One of the biggest examples of this is at Football games. I never ever thought I would like going to the games, but it's great just because of the people.

TU is a great school because it gives you the best of both worlds: you have a small, close-knit community and inviting atmosphere with professors who know who you are and actually give a crap about you, but ... you still have DI sports and there are enough people on campus that you can make new friends daily. One thing that blew me away when I started school here was how much the professors care about the students. Classes are small and many of mine were only 10 or 11 students seated around a circular table, like some sort of meeting. Every professor I have had has known my name and been readily available if I needed help outside of class. When I tell people in OKC that I go to TU, they say "... what's that, Texas?" There are some Okies here, but a good percentage of the students come from out of state. Oklahoma has a stereotype of being really hick and weird and crappy, but it's actually a nice place to live. People here are really friendly. There is plenty of stuff to do in Tulsa, and most bands worth seeing come through here rather than OKC. One experience I will always remember about TU is the entire week of Orientation that the school provides for incoming students. It's free, it's fun, and you meet tooooons of new people. Starting out college with that Orientation definitely improved what would have already been a great experience.

the best thing about TU is the size. it's big enough that i meet new people all the time, but small enough that i can also recognize someone just about everywhere i go on campus. i spend most of my free time hanging out in my apartment/dorm, which is true for most students. it seems to me that TU's school pride is growing year by year, which is encouraging. the biggest student complaint is PARKING. the school boasts about all the new housing on campus, but not only did they not provide enough space to accommodate the new resident's cars, they also hiked the rate for a parking permit waaay up. the administration will listen to you if you literally walk over to the administration building (i once walked into the president's office to make a complaint, and wasn't turned away), but they remain blissfully ignorant when any kind of email correspondence is attempted.

The best thing about TU is the student body. We have a diverse group of people from areas of the country (and abroad) that you wouldn't expect. The school size is a little small, but I enjoy the community feel of the campus. Most people are surprised that I go to TU when I'm from Saint Louis because they don't know much about the school and they assume Oklahoma is in the middle-of-no-where. I spend most of my time in my apartment or my friends' apartments. Tulsa isn't a college town, it's a medium-sized city with all of the normal conveniences. TU's administration is by far the biggest problem, and it's very upsetting. They try to present themselves as open and caring to students' needs, when actually it's quite the opposite. There are a lot of little problems that add up; I'll name a few for example: 1. Parking lots were destroyed in order to create student commons (giant fields), which created a parking shortage. The solution was to increase the price for parking permit, restrict everyone to a particular lot based on where you live, and increase security and fines for non-compliance. This resulted in one of my friends receiving a $100 fine because there were literally no parking spots in the lot he was assigned to park in. 2. New apartments were just built prior to my junior year, so I naturally picked one during the residence lottery. They are almost identical to the current apartments on-campus except for one glaring problem: energy. While my normal electricity bill was around $40-50/month during the summer and early fall months, I saw it jump to over $170 in December, and part of the month I wasn't even there because I was home for winter break. The administration cut cost corners for themselves by installing the most inefficient heaters at the students' costs.

TU puts students first. During multiple large scale construction projects, the university opened replacement computer labs and had a modified shuttle system to help students maneuver the construction. Tulsa is a great city with lots of live music venues, athletic teams (baseball, basketball, and hockey), festivals, and museums (two of which have partnerships with the university. There is a mall, an upscale shopping district, two movie theaters, and several other attractions close to campus. School pride is evident at campus athletic events, where students join together in the "Wear Blue" campaign. Athletic tickets, Springfest concert tickets, numerous t-shirts, and goodies ranging from lawn chairs to free plants are all free for students. TU offers an extremely high quality of life for students.

I love how TU is a community; you are never just a number to any teacher or student. Everyone seems to care about everyone. Even the greek system on TU's campus is involved without being exclusive to any one type of person or sterotype. TU is also not a college town, there are a lot of other things to do in Tulsa and you can get away when you need to, which you will. TU also just started the "wear blue" campaign and the turn out at many sporting events has improved 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} since I started there in 2003. It was the best years of my life, so far, and I would not change one bit of it!

I think TU is a good size, especially since Tulsa is not a very big city compared to Dallas. When I tell people I go to Tulsa, they either ask me why I chose that school or acted like they didn't know there was a University of Tulsa. Tulsa is not what I would call a college town, but it does have some minor league sports teams close to campus and good restaurants. All residents of Tulsa I have met like the school and have a positive opinion of its students. In my first year I didn't have a car and left campus less than twenty times through the course of the entire year. The campus had everything I needed and I only left five or so times for groceries, five or so times for restaurants, and the three times my family came to visit, plus the times I went to the airport to visit them. I spend most of my time in my dorm where a lot of my friends live. There is a lot of school pride. The biggest controversies included the stealing of bicycles and vandalism of cars and drug/alcohol-related sickness and death. It is a wet campus, which I think is better than dry because that way the fraternities can be on campus and no one drives home drunk from parties and no one smuggles booze onto campus since it is legal to have alcohol. I don't think a lot of drugs go on other than alcohol and cigarettes, but there is some, and one person died from an overdose this year. The cafeteria is by far the worst thing about TU. It is awful. Sodexho took over the dining services last year and the cafeteria did not improve and in some ways declined as I am told.

TU has a great small campus atmosphere. It is also really friendly. From the start at orientation week, freshmen are welcomed into the Tulsa community. One downside of Tulsa is it doesn't really knock anybody over when you tell them that you go there... mainly because our football and basketball teams aren't tier 1 (although they are making strides). However, Tulsa has some great programs, especially in Engineering and Business. Tulsa is definitely not a college town... and there's definitely not as much to do here as there are in a lot of other places. Every incoming group of freshmen brings in more school pride than the previous group... Tulsa is definitely on the rise, with major construction projects which should be completed by the end of the '08-'09 school year, an increasingly strong student body, and improving sports programs. We hang out on the "U" a lot, which is a grassy area surrounded by buildings. It's a great place to relax. Students complain about the cafeteria a lot, because it is a

I really appreciate the small class sizes at TU. The largest class I was ever in was a Geology lecture course, and that was about 50 people. All my other classes never exceeded 20 students, even the intro courses. I think our Greek system is pretty unique--it's very inclusive, and there's no alienation based on what house you're in or if you're not Greek.