I recently visited The University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, where I toured campus and spoke with the admissions office about the latest trends in admissions. Here are some takeaways from my visit:

· Located in the middle of Missouri, halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis, The University of Missouri (“Mizzou” for short) is Missouri’s flagship public university. With over 20,000 undergraduates and a local Columbia population of nearly 130,000, Mizzou is a bustling, dynamic campus with a range of attractive programs.

· Mizzou is one of only 35 public universities elected to membership in the prestigious AAU for the quality of its research activity.

· Journalism is Mizzou’s greatest claim to fame: theirs was the first journalism school in the world, founded in 1908. They are the only college to own and operate a commercial TV station (NBC), providing students extensive opportunities for hands-on production experience. Mizzou students also operate a professional daily newspaper serving all of central Missouri, as well as their local NPR station (student stories are sometimes picked up for national distribution), in addition to a weekly magazine and two advertising agencies.

· Pre-med and pre-vet students benefit from the presence of Missouri’s medical and vet schools right on campus, including two on-campus university hospitals.

· As part of the “Missouri Method,” every degree program incorporates hands-on, experiential learning early on.

· The campus and adjacent downtown Columbia area are highly walkable, and there are a range of interesting restaurants, shops and bars downtown that students frequent. Housing is required for freshman, after which point many students move into off-campus housing near campus. Although not the frigid north, there can still be some snow and ice in the winter.

· Mizzou is a member of the SEC, and sports are popular. Greek life is available for students who want it (around 30% participate), but less of a presence than at some other SEC universities. There are over 600 student clubs and organizations.

· The only SEC school with an LGBTQ center, Mizzou celebrates Pride in April (rather than June) while students are still on campus. There are also a range of other cultural student centers, including a women’s center, black cultural center and multicultural center, as well as a relationship and sexual violence prevention center.

· Missouri, along with Utah, is unique in the relative ease with which out-of-state students can acquire in-state residency for tuition purposes. 24% of out-of-state students acquire in-state residency, which can be done after residing in the state for 12 months and meeting some additional requirements.

· The campus gym was voted as the best in the US by Sports Illustrated, and includes a sauna, steam room, rock wall modeled after real Missouri limestone, hot tubs and a “Tiger Grotto” (worth Googling).