Arizona’s Universities

Most applicants for the Flinn Scholarship have dreamed of attending one of the nation’s most prestigious universities or liberal arts colleges. These include places like Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Amherst, and Pomona—the familiar schools from the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.

Every year, a new class of Flinn Scholars turns them all down.

These remarkable students, and hundreds of other high-school seniors like them, decline offers from top colleges and universities outside Arizona because they understand that choosing a university should be about fit: where outstanding students can find the opportunity, flexibility, support, and community that best matches their personalities, interests, talents, and ambitions.

These students find their fit in the Honors colleges at Arizona’s three public universities.

Via powerful academic-research enterprises, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and University of Arizona offer intellectual and experiential opportunities that rival their Ivy League counterparts. In many cases, the opportunities are even greater at Arizona’s universities:

  • more available fields of study;
  • more chances to do cutting-edge research right away;
  • more options for exciting study-abroad programs.

At the same time, Flinn Scholars enjoy the best of what premier liberal arts colleges offer: an Honors community of fellow students whose academic profiles are exceptionally strong, with small courses taught by superb faculty who often serve as academic mentors and advisers on research and thesis projects.

The Honors Colleges

Whether attending ASU, NAU, or UArizona, a Flinn Scholar will live and study at the university’s on-campus residential Honors college alongside Flinn Scholars and other excelling students from throughout Arizona, the country, and world.

Barrett, The Honors College at ASU, the University Honors College at NAU, and the W.A. Franke Honors College at UArizona all feature modern facilities with multiple residential options, dining rooms, classrooms, faculty offices, workout facilities, and communal areas.

The flexibility provided by the Honors colleges—the best of a major research university as well as the best of a great liberal arts college—is a critical factor in finding the right fit.

When that flexibility is bolstered by support from the Flinn Scholars Program and the catalytic network of the more than 700-strong Flinn Scholars community of current Scholars and alumni, choosing the right university for a world-class education becomes much easier.