Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona | Admissions Phone: 480-965-7788
E-mail: admissions@asu.edu | Website: www.asu.edu
ADMISSION
Admission Rate: 85%
Admission Rate - Men: 83%
Admission Rate - Women: 87%
EA Admission Rate: Not Offered
ED Admission Rate: Not Offered
Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): +5%
ED Admission Rate (5-Year Trend): Not Offered
% of Admits Attending (Yield): 39%
Transfer Admission Rate: 84%
# Offered Wait List: Not Offered
# Accepted Wait List: Not Offered
# Admitted Wait List: Not Offered
SAT Reading/Writing (Middle 50%): 570-670
SAT Math (Middle 50%): 560-690
ACT Composite (Middle 50%): 22-29
Testing Policy: ACT/SAT Required
SAT Superscore: No
ACT Superscore: No
% Graduated in Top 10% of HS Class: 33%
% Graduated in Top 25% of HS Class: 62%
% Graduated in Top 50% of HS Class: 89%
ENROLLMENT
Total Undergraduate Enrollment: 42,844
% Part-Time: 8%
% Male: 56%
% Female: 44%
% Out-of-State: 26%
% Fraternity: 10%
% Sorority: 16%
% On-Campus (Freshman): 76%
% On-Campus (All Undergraduate): 26%
% African-American: 4%
% Asian: 8%
% Hispanic: 21%
% White: 50%
% Other: 4%
% Race or Ethnicity Unknown: 0%
% International: 11%
% Low-Income: 29%
ACADEMICS
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 20:1
% of Classes Under 20: 38%
% of Classes Under 40: 76%
% Full-Time Faculty: 79%
% Full-Time Faculty w/ Terminal Degree: 89%
Top Programs
Art
Business
Communication
Computer Science
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Earth and Space Exploration
Engineering
Psychology
Retention Rate: 88%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 52%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 69%
Curricular Flexibility: Somewhat Flexible
Academic Rating: 
FINANCIAL
Institutional Type: Public
In-State Tuition: $10,104
Out-of-State Tuition: $27,618
Room & Board: $12,648
Required Fees: $718
Books & Supplies: $1,148
Avg. Need-Based Aid: $13,663
Avg. % of Need Met: 71%
Avg. Merit-Based Aid: $9,299
% Receiving Merit-Based Aid: 43%
Avg. Cumulative Debt: $23,731
% of Students Borrowing: 45%
CAREER
Who Recruits
1. Amazon
2. Aetna
3. ExxonMobil
4. Ticketmaster
5. General Motors
Notable Internships
1. Intel
2. Geico
3. Phoenix Suns
Top Industries
1. Business
2. Operations
3. Education
4. Sales
5. Engineering
Top Employers
1. Intel
2. Wells Fargo
3. Amazon
4. American Express
5. Apple
Where Alumni Work
1. Phoenix
2. Los Angeles
3. San Francisco
4. New York City
5. Seattle
Median Earnings
College Scorecard (Early Career): $47,700
EOP (Early Career): $46,300
PayScale (Mid-Career): $100,900
RANKINGS
Forbes: 186
Money: 247
U.S. News: 117, National Universities
Wall Street Journal/THE: 224 (T)
Washington Monthly: 46, National Universities
Inside the Classroom
It may be surprising to see one of the largest universities in the country—one which sports an 85 percent acceptance rate—included in this guidebook. Yet, Arizona State University has flourished across its five desert locations (including the ASU Colleges at Lake Havasu City), enhancing its offerings and academic quality in recent years. Serving over 42,000 students at its Tempe campus alone and close to 60,000 undergraduates overall, ASU offers a staggering 350 academic majors. The renowned Barrett Honors College enrolls an incredible 7,200 students compared to the average honors college size of 1,200. Barrett attracts a talented bunch, enrolling more National Merit Scholars than Duke, Stanford, or MIT.
All students must complete a minimum of twenty-nine credits in General Studies courses. Courses can be used to meet more than one requirement at a time but, ultimately, boxes must be checked in the areas of literacy and critical inquiry; mathematical studies; humanities, arts and design; social-behavioral sciences; and the natural sciences. Three “awareness areas” also must be satisfied: Cultural Diversity in the United States, Global Awareness, and Historical Awareness.
The faculty-to-student ratio is a fairly high 20:1, but not all classes call for stadium seating. In fact, 38 percent of course sections seat fewer than twenty students. You’ll find classes of over fifty students 18 percent of the time, not unreasonable for a university of this unmatched size. There are plenty of opportunities for experiential learning as 60 percent of students engage in research, land an internship, or have a practicum experience as part of their academic program. The school also has above-average study abroad rates, ranking in the top ten in the nation by sending approximately 2,500 students to 250 programs in sixty-five countries each year.
Business is the concentration in which over one-quarter (27 percent) of total bachelor’s degrees are conferred. Engineering (13 percent), the social sciences (9 percent), and biology (8 percent) are the next three most popular. The WP Carey School of Business offers many highly ranked programs as does the Fulton Schools of Engineering. In the last decade, the number of Sun Devils winning competitive national fellowships has skyrocketed. ASU produced an outstanding twenty-one Fulbright Scholars in 2019. It also is becoming a regular producer of Marshall, Gates-Cambridge, Truman, Goldwater, Udall, and Boren Scholarships. Over the past five years 117 graduates have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.
Outside the Classroom
Young people don’t typically come to ASU to live a hermetic existence. While the university has begun to shed its “party school” label in recent years, it remains a vibrant, extremely connected campus. Athletics are popular with ten NCCA Division I men’s teams and fourteen women’s teams. Sun Devil football stadium plays host to 71,000 raucous fans on game days. In addition, ASU fields forty club teams and at least 6,000 additional students take place in competitive intramural sports leagues. Greek life attracts 10 percent of men and 16 percent of women, giving it substantial influence on the social scene. There are more than 1,000 clubs operating across the five campuses with the ASU Outdoors Club and the school’s seven identity-based student coalitions drawing large memberships. Interestingly, only 26 percent of the undergraduate student body lives on campus—however, 76 percent of freshmen do opt for that experience. Due to large numbers of students renting apartments/houses in surrounding neighborhoods, ASU hosts an Off-Campus Housing Fair and provides free advice to undergrads seeking a place to reside. In addition to living in the surrounding communities, Sun Devils like to get involved in volunteer work. Collectively, the student body contributes 1.8 million hours of community service each year. There is plenty to do in the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, and Scottsdale, all a short drive from one another.
Career Services
ASU’s Career and Professional Development Services (CPDS) has offices on its Tempe, Downtown, Polytechnic, and West locations. When you boast 59,000 undergraduate students across your four metropolitan campuses, things can only be so personalized, but ASU does a solid job making services available on a mass scale. Amazingly, it claims 95,000+ annual interactions with students through job fairs, workshops, and networking events.
Nearly 60,000 jobs are posted each year on Handshake, and the school has been selected as a top choice for recruiting talent by more than one hundred companies including Marriot International, Microsoft, General Mills, Charles Schwab, Geico, Ford, FedEx, and Yelp. For such a behemoth of an institution, ASU has a fairly impressive level of internship participation. Around 50 percent of undergraduates have at least one internship, and 44 percent of those are paid opportunities. In total, more than 13,000 internships are posted each year. Having an alumni base of over half a million Sun Devils is great for networking. It is an active and proud bunch that presently has over 100,000 members who donate annually to the university. Thanks to this strong alumni base, wealth of employer partnerships, and strong internship participation rate, the CPDS succeeds in helping the great majority of its graduates swiftly arrive at their next destination soon after receiving diplomas.
Professional Outcomes
A healthy 92 percent of 2018 ASU graduates were employed or in graduate school within six months of earning their degrees. As you would expect from a large school offering 350 majors, the most prolific employers of Sun Devils represent a broad array of corporations and nonprofit entities. Among the school’s top fifty employers are Amazon, Apple, Intel, The Vanguard Group, Walt Disney Company, a number of local school districts, and Arizona-based government organizations. In total, the five industries most frequently entered by alumni are banking and finance, technology and engineering, health care, and public and human services. Arizona also ranks thirteenth in the nation among large universities for graduates entering the Peace Corps. The average salary for a member of the Class of 2018 was $50,529. The majority (55 percent) of newly minted grads were working in Arizona with California (14 percent) next in popularity.
Approximately one-fifth of recent grads enrolled in graduate school. Similar to employment, the size and scope of the university leads to many graduate pathways. Many grads continue at ASU itself, but some continue at various prestigious institutions. For example, Yale Law School typically claims at least one ASU alum in its IL class. From 2010-14, ASU sent 375 graduates to medical school; today, over 350 apply each year. The school’s Mayo Medical Scholars program exclusively offered to Barrett Honors College students can open doors for future doctors. While the majority of ASU grads continuing their education do not enter prestigious graduate or professional programs, getting strong grades at ASU absolutely puts them in a position to be strong applicants at any university in the country, including the elites.
Admission
While ASU’s reputation for academics has been climbing in recent years, the school is still only slightly selective, accepting 85 percent of those who apply. Considering that friendly acceptance rate, the academic profile of the typical Sun Devil may surprise you. The average freshman possessed a 1216 SAT score, a 3.54 GPA, and ranked within the top 23 percent of their high school class. One-third of Class of 2022 freshmen ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school class while 62 percent were in the top quartile, and 89 percent were in the top half. Among the students presently enrolled in the superb Barrett Honors College, the average SAT score was 1343 and the average GPA was a touch under 3.8. Only a decade ago, the 75th percentile SAT score was 1210, meaning that despite the high acceptance rate, ASU is attracting a more academically superior crop than in the past.
As you might expect at one of the nation’s largest universities, admissions officers will not be agonizing over every detail of your application, carefully weighing the merits of your essay, recommendations, and extracurricular resume. In fact, none of those factors are even considered at ASU. Grades, class rank, and test scores are considered “most important,” and the rigor of your secondary school record is “important.” Conveniently for those entering the admissions process now, the university began accepting the Common Application in 2018. Getting into Arizona State is a straightforward proposition; those who bring a solid transcript and test scores to the table will be invited to join this thriving institution. Admission into the Honors College requires another level of achievement.
Worth Your Money?
Competitively priced for both in-state and out-of-state students, it’s no wonder students from around the globe flock to Arizona State. Those from the Grand Canyon State pay less than $27,000 per year cost of attendance while nonresidents cough up $44,000, not that much more than the in-state rate for many public schools on the East Coast. Further, ASU awards merit aid to 43 percent of undergraduates; the average amount is $9k. Need-based aid is granted to 55 percent of full-time students with an average grant of $14k. Thanks to those extremely reasonable prices (we don’t utter that phrase often without major qualifiers), this university produces graduates that carry a below-average debt load relative to their peers. Whether you’re a local majoring in American Indian Studies or an out-of-stater learning cybersecurity, your tuition dollar goes far at ASU.