University of Tulsa Top Questions

There is a wide variety of students at TU. They dress differently: from high heels and Coach purses to pajamas and slippers. There are snobs, jocks, "cool kids," dorks, choir nerds, loners. The TU student body is colorful and different. There are students who really want to learn, and there are students who are there just because their parents tell them to go. Of all of the people I talked to, it seems as though the political ideas of students is varied, although being in Oklahoma, the right seems to drown the others, which is unfortunate.

There is definitely a diverse campus. I personally had a major in the engineering school and that is where I ran into the most diversity. I never had a problem with it but at times it was very different b/c sometimes they would talk in different languages. However it was nice to make friends from different places. Some students dress up for class, some wear athletic clothes, and I have seen some in pajamas, I think it completely depends on the person. Coming from St. Louis, I found that there was a large amount from my hometown. It was fun however to become friends with people from home that I had never met before.

People that are not open minded would not like TU. It is very diverse.

There are plenty of minority social and honors groups on campus. I myself am not involved with them, however, because I am caucasian. There is an LGBT group that a friend of mine is involved in; campus is very tolerant of them from what I have seen. I'm involved in the nondenominational religious group called StuMo and it's a good group for fellow Christians to get to know eachother, worship God, and grow in faith. There are also several other religious groups for Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, and Muslims. A student that won't fit in at TU is one that is not responsible for their actions. I have seen many students leave at the semester or end of their first year because they neglect their grades for social events and/or make social decisions they regret. Other than that, you would have to try hard not to be able to fit in; we are a very diverse community. I'm friends with students with all different types of majors. I'm friends with students in different Greek houses. I'm friends with students who hate Greek life. I'm friends with students who are extroverted and I'm friends with students who are introverted. I'm friends with the starting basketball players. I'm friends with the top students in the Engineering college. At TU, it's very easy for completely different people to come together and bond socially. Politically, most students are split right down the center. TU has a handful of conservatives, a handful of liberals, a handful of moderates, and a large portion of people who really don't care or admittedly don't know enough about politics to have an opinion. Politics usually aren't that dire of an issue for students, so most will not end friendships over the topic.

TU's student body is pretty diverse...for the Midwest. Because of our Petroleum Engineering program we have quite a few students from the Middle East and South America. We also have a large amount of Angolan students. Campus is definitely more diverse than the surrounding community, but still has a much larger percentage of white, Christian, heterosexual students than anything else.

It is a small school. Personally, my high school is only a bit smaller than TU. Most of the students are from Upper-middle class, but most of the students on campus have some sort of finical aid, & financial backgrounds aren't that important. There is a surprisingly large amount of international students, a lot from the middle east. Some of them are a bit creepy, I'll admit. Most students dress fairly well for class, considering it's college.

Large enouph to never run out of people to get to know, but small enouph to have a million friends that you feel very close with. Any where you go there will be ten people new to meet, and ten people you consider close friends. They all are spirited, kind, and unique.

The student body here is very diverse. TU encourages study abroad and hundreds of students every semester take that opportunity. Being located in Oklahoma, TU does have a pretty conservative stance on many issues however, it doesn't mean that students would be degraded for being different. The students here are very welcoming. I, personally, have friends in my different circles and I adjust well being placed in any one of them. The students at TU come from many different places but mainly the midwest: 50{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} from Oklahoma and 50{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} from areas outside Oklahoma. Because TU is located in Tulsa where the population is the second highest in the state, many students don't want to come here becasue it's too close to their parents. This issue is understandable but I would not have been able to handle the larger state schools.

I have noticed that when I visit larger state schools, it seems as if the Greek system dominates life on campus. It's different here at TU. Greeks hang out with non-Greeks, and vice-versa. It's not a big deal, and that is so refreshing. Seriously, everybody hangs out with everybody else. My friends are physics majors, mechanical engineers, political science majors, Greeks, non-Greeks, computer engineers, and art majors, along with my fellow film students. Coming from a high school that had a huge problem with exclusive cliques, TU allowed me to become whatever I wanted to be, and I greatly appreciate that. Looking back on it now, I can see how much I have grown and changed since I was an incoming freshman, and a large part of that is due to the friends I have made here from all over the world.

I was very disappointed to find out that the activist and LGBT groups on campus were really more focused on self-congratulation than they were on activism; as a result, I do not participate very much in those groups. Racial diversity is high, although there is a big disconnect between racial groups. It is hard not to adopt racist opinions when living near students from other countries who are very unconcerned with being considerate of others. Students tend to come from very rich backgrounds. People like me, who are on full ride for National Merit (and could not be here under any other circumstances), find it very difficult to interact with people who seem to take their parents' unlimited financial support for granted. Students tend to be very apathetic in terms of politics as a general rule. In terms of people who swing left or right, I would say that there is probably an equal number, although the people on the right are usually more moderate than crazy conservative. The crazy conservative people are the business majors and engineers.