If you are a junior in high school right now, it’s definitely time to start thinking about your college visits – a perfect time to see what a school you might be considering is really like without solely relying on their website or brochure. With all of the colleges out there, how do you begin to narrow your college search? Check back with our blog frequently (or better yet-sign up to get our blog sent straight to your email), as we will be posting things we have observed on our most recent college visits.

Today, the KaMi Spotlight is on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)

We toured this school on May 14th, at a lovely 93 degrees for our 10:00 A.M. tour. We would suggest that you not wait much longer if this is a school you are interested in visiting!

English: logo for UNLV (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

5 Things You Might Know:

• A 332 acre campus which includes an 80 acre arboretum.

• A Division 1 school in the Mountain West Conference.

• Enrollment for Fall of 2013 was 27,848 students but only about 2,000 live on campus.

• Cost to attend (with housing) is around $33,270 a year for out-of-state residents.

• The Thomas & Mack Center seats over 19,000 and is the home to the UNLV Men’s basketball team.

5 Things You Might Not Know About UNLV:

• Lied library is 5 stories and bigger than the Thomas & Mack Center. It holds over one million books with another 600,000 books held in storage that can be retrieved by a robotic arm upon request.

• The Student Recreation and Wellness Center is 4 floors and includes a swimming pool, indoor soccer and basketball, cardio machines, and an indoor track.

•The Schools of Business and Hotel Management are the biggest.

• Most of the freshman dorms feature two bedrooms that share one bath. Brita water-filling stations are located on campus for students as well.

• There are 70 emergency phones on campus, with 30-40 police officers. The average response time to a call made at one of the phones is 30 seconds.

We were surprised to note how shady the campus was, with lots of grassy areas under trees. As the average age of a student at UNLV is 24, the campus has a slightly mature feel, and while signs of school spirit were present, they weren’t everywhere. The majority of the students here are in-state, and mostly locals to boot.