Butler University

Because my parents are not financing any of my college costs, financial aid is my number one. Location is important because I want to get away from home. I was just curious about other high school students' reasons for their college choice.

I know I'm no longer a high school student but I did choose Butler for very distinct reasons, so this may help.

Butler had the exact major I was looking for- Creative Writing, lots of other places have it as a minor or a club, but it was a real major at Butler. This same situation happens at lots of other institutions with other disciplines.

 I loved the location. Not only is Butler in the 12th largest city in the nation, but the campus is in a nice residential neighborhood. Which keeps us a lot safer than other college campuses.

Butler has a great size. With around 4,000 undergrad students you can be familar with a large population, but still have plenty of strangers to meet. As a freshman, whenever I went to a caferteria I knew some of the people already there. I din't have to call a friend and rendevous; but I was still unfamilair to half the caffeteria, so we don't have that whole small town "everybody knows everybody's business" feeling.

Butler has over 135 clubs and organizations to be involved in. I loved to be busy and I love to be involved so this was important to me.

I felt comfortable here. My hometown is around 8 hours away. I knew that if I was going to come this far I needed to be attending a place that could support and foster me. I needed to feel included and totally in my element.

 I that helps!

On the Financial aid side, I have to say that Butler does do a lot to help get scholarships to the students that deserve them. But I want all high school seniors to be aware that they should always look for scholarships in more areas than just school. Tons of businesses hold essay contests and scholarship competitons just so that they can give money away. It helps the community and doesn't make them look to bad either. Money is out there, you just have to look!

Like Joe, I am no longer a high school student either.... but I will give you my reasons... -Location- Butler has an amazing campus. It's not located directly in a big city, but there is so much to do in the surrounding areas with downtown only being 5 miles away. It is about 2 and a half hours from my hometown, so it's far enough away, but not so far that I can't go home on a weekend if I want to (I never really want to leave here though). -New Opportunities- A lot of my friends from high school went to Indiana University and frankly they really still hang out with the same group of friends.... When I came to Butler I really knew 1 or 2 people here and I have met so many amazing people. -Size- Like Joe said, 4000 students is a perfect fit. I came from a high school of 200 students and was very involved and active. I wanted the opportunity to be a leader on campus and make my mark... Butler supplies many opportunities to do this. -Academics- I am a pharmacy major, so my options in the Midwest were pretty limited... but Butler has one of the best programs in the nation.... I actually passed up a lot of scholarships and offers from Purdue because I felt like Butler was a better fit for my personality and for my needs.... ....needless to say I could not be happier with the decision I made to come here.

Butler is one of my four top choices.  I'm just wondering what kind of stuff we could do in/during our freetime on/off campus.  I want to know what all we could do in the town because the one of the other colleges I'm looking at is about 20 minutes away from Chicago.

There is SO much to do on campus and around Indy. Obviously, Chicago will have a lot to do as well, but one thing that I like about Indy over Chicago is that Chicago has that big city feel, while Indy has a lot of the advantages of being in a city but you can easily get away from the urban feel.

I don't even know where to begin with on campus activities. A lot of what you decide to do will depend on the organizations you join. There are always a million things to do on the weekends, and most things are free (big plus). Right now, football games on Saturday are popular - later this year it will be basketball. Butler students get into all athletic events for free, and basketball games are AMAZING - by far the best entertainment in the entire city! There are also free movies put on by the student government association every Friday and Saturday night. When the weather is warm, sometimes they put up a big projector on the mall and have a "drive in" movie (we all sit on the grass). The movies are ones that are out of theaters but generally aren't on DVD yet. Last weekend was "Wanted" and they showed "Get Smart" earlier this year. The Greek system also puts on a lot of popular events around campus, often to raise money for charities. Sarah and Joe both have a lot of posts / videos on their blogs, so check it out! As I said before, a lot of my "free" time is taken up with activities for my organization. Next weekend I'm heading to Ohio / Kentucky with my pharmacy fraternity for a big conference. When we're on campus, we sometimes have picnics in Holcomb Gardens (we love to play cornhole and have water balloon fights), or we go to sporting events together (a group went to an Indians Game earlier this year). Butler also sends out a daily e-mail to all students called the "News Digest" where organizations will give announcements about upcoming events on campus.

Indianapolis has a lot of great sports teams, and the awesome thing about them is that tickets are reasonably priced. Last year I went to a Pacers / Bulls game for $15 - the student government association's program board picked up part of the ticket price. I've also been able to go to three Colts games, and I know that tickets to the Indians games are really reasonably priced. If you're into the arts, the IMA is literally just down the street from Butler, and I think that students get in for a discounted price. There are also theatres downtown as well as the ISA (Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra). I know that professors for some classes will utilize these resources and have students attend events - sometimes as an assignment, or sometimes for extra credit. Broad Ripple is an area about 10 minutes from campus where a lot of students go to hang out - there are a lot of restaurants and a few shops. There's a place called Kiln Creations where you can paint your own pottery and it's a lot of fun! Of course we have some really good malls, and there are movie theaters too....basically anything you would expect to find in a city.

I'm a Senior and I still haven't finished exploring Indy - I really want to go check out a lot of the monuments downtown sometime! I've seen most of them from a distance, but I haven't seen them up close.

One more thing - Butler gets a lot of cool concerts, and tickets for students are cheap (think $5 to $10). Ben Folds came to campus my freshman year, and The Fray opened for him. I heard Gavin DeGraw had come for Exam Jam the year before I came to Butler. Last year I went to go see Ok Go (the band that did the really cool treadmill video).

The last awesome thing about the area is that other cities aren't that far away. Even Chicago is only a three hour drive - a lot of students drive up there for the weekend if there's something they really want to do (like a concert or sporting event). Cincinnati is close (2 hours) and you can get to St. Louis in about three hours.

First consideration for me is choice of major (pharmacy), then program structure (0-6 preferably), and finding a place I'd be happy spending 6 years of my life! Then all the other stuff like cost, which might be more important once I see real numbers!  I really want a school that offers a variety of good majors though because, even though I've spent alot of time shadowing and talking to pharmacists, I think some people must realize that it's just not for them once they're actually in the program!  I don't want to have to choose another school if I happen to be one of them!  I'd like to be reasonably close to family but since my mom lives in NY and my dad in KY, that gives me a pretty wide range.

There are a couple of colleges that meet my criteria, but I think the Butler students seem to be happiest with their choice.  The more I hear, the more interested I am!

 I was wondering if any of you guys were considering St. Louis College of Pharmacy because my final two choices are between that and Butler, and I CANNOT choose!

I didn't look at SLCOP but I've heard it's very competitive. If you get into there and Butler, I would choose Butler just because I think the odds of getting into the professional program are better at Butler. The other nice thing about Butler is that it offers a lot of opportunities to step away from pharmacy every once in a while, which (trust me) you'll want to do because it starts to take over your life! You can get involved in clubs that aren't pharmacy related, and go to our awesome athletic events! We offer a better liberal arts program as well - you get to take your liberal arts electives with liberal arts students taught by faculty who has advanced degrees in what they teach. You'll also get a lot more class options for your electives at Butler. Basically, I think you'll get a lot more well rounded education at Butler and a lot more opportunities. Of course, I'm a little biased though :)

If there are any specific things about Butler or pharmacy at Butler that might help you make your decision, let us know!

 i'm also interested in pharmacy, so like everyone else in good ole indiana my choices were very limited.  i also applied to purdue and plan on applying to Ohio Northern, but i REALLY want to go to Butler. i go to a high school of about 500 students, and i don't think i would like being at a huge school. i'm gonna miss all my friends and even the people who i'm not really close to. i love that butler is smaller and it seems like such a tight community; the school spirit and everything really reminds me of my school, which is soooo important to me. also, this may sound arrogant, but i love the impressed look on people's faces when i say i hope to attend Butler. the presitge is amazing!

Good to know that Butler ranks high on prestige in the area.  I don't know alot about the midwest schools, but my aunt and uncle are pharmacists and lived in Indiana before moving to Louisville last year. But they went to UK and liked it there. I looked at STLCOP's website a few months ago but they seem very specialized and there are schools like that closer to home for me (ACP, MCPHS, USP).  It's great that you got accepted to both schools - if you think you'll be happy at either maybe it would come down to the cost or how close to home it is for you.  It sounds like it's getting harder to get student loans and who wants to end up paying back more money than necessary?  Is anyone else thinking about this in their decision?

Anyway, I agree with Ashlen - we have to have a life outside classes so things like the size of dorm rooms, quality of food, social life, clubs, etc. are worth checking out. (How is the food this year? Did anyone visit and eat there?)

Amy - did ONU call you?  I got a call from a pharmacy student there the other day and didn't remember even signing up for info. It was nice that they had a real student call but I'm not applying there.