Things You Might Wanna Know Before Choosing WSU

Introduction
I seriously recommend visiting before ever deciding to go there. Being used to a small city life I got quite a hard time getting used to the rural setting. Trust me when I say it's in the middle of nowhere, I mean it. Looking for a decently ok school with tons of school spirit? This is it. But please be warned that living here can be harder than you expect. I'll get to that later. Also prepare to get sore legs and toes. Campus is right on top of the hill, and most residence halls and houses are waayy downhill.

Campus Life and Social Life
Some consider WSU a party school. It's not exactly true. Yeah parties are available, but nowhere near the level of Cali or Arizona students. Most parties are on fridays and saturdays. Sundays are a bit dead at times, unless it's Dad's weekend or something like that. Some weekends however can be as dead as a graveyard at midnight. If you're looking for social scene every night, look elsewhere. Most parties are centered on Greek row and house parties, and it's basically Greek vs Houses vs Apartment when it comes to social scene. You cant get into greek parties (very few are open ones) unless youre either a member of one or have good relation with the members. Cougar game days are awesome and stadium's always packed, but always prepare yourselves for insane traffic jams.

Now the hard part: Pullman. It's a friendly town, yes, and it has pretty much all you need to survive. But it's really remote and the nearest major city, Seattle, is over 200 miles away. There are closer towns and smaller cities like Spokane, but there isnt much to do there either. So unless you have a car you're pretty much stuck there. There's a town nearby in Idaho that's about 15 minutes drive or bus ride, Moscow, home of U of Idaho. It offer's bigger supermarket and cheaper, and you can get there free on bus with your Coug ID. Pleaseeee do not ever trust what the school rep might say about the weather. When it comes to winter it aint mild at all, unless you consider -10F mild. It gets really dry in the summer and while the temp roams in mid 90 range, it can get as ugly as 102-105 in mid summer. This is what I got from local residents and experience, not some hyped up marketing crap the school come up with.

For dorm kids. Those looking for quality place should consider Goldsworthy or Orton. They're a bit far from classes as those buildings are located way down hill, but they got nice rooms and have a dining hall (Rotunda) nearby. Quiet dorms seekers, go for Honors, Rogers, or McEachern. The Hill halls offer the best location, pretty much near all classrooms, but the buildings are really old and and a bit run down. Those considering living in Stephenson take note: theres more police surveillance there than on all the other dorms combined, and beware of drug abuse (pretty common there). The campus owned CCN apt share the same fate.
There are 4 dining halls, Roto, Wilmer-Davis, Regents, and CUB. The dining hall Rotunda is probably the 2nd best in terms of food quality, though still suck in general. Wilmer Davis meals are liveable still, but Regent's really suck. All meals cost the same everywhere except CUB. Dining halls dont take cash, except CUB (the best imo but also the priciest) or on special occasions only. AVOID getting a level 3 meal plan, trust me you're not going to spend that much on horrible food. Instead you'll be spending the balance more on campus stores, most of us do. Academics
Classes are ok. A general downside with classes here is they tend to give you heavy ammount of homework, at least for my standard. Not exactly challenging in quality, more on quantity.
The Math classes suck (as usual). The real major gripe is the fact that the professors barely speak english. Exams are pretty tough, and the mediocre teaching only make it worse. Most, if not all, math professors give insane amount of homework. Seek help from your TAs!!! I only showed up in my calculus class for quizzes, exams or giving homeworks and still passed with a B- thanks to the TAs classes.
Chem courses are generally easy if you're willing to read. The workload is ok in general. TAs are mostly so-so, not as smart or informed as I expected. Watch out for Organic chems though, they're tough and the TAs are horrible, you'll need to look for help from your seniors.
Physics dept is the one where you really need to work hard. Quite heavy on workload, and the exams are extremely tough. Don't get a shocked if you get like 40% on your 1st exam, it really is that hard and the prof curves like crazy. I got 53% for an exam and ended up with a B.
Buy books early, they're refundable anyway. That way you can find yourself a lot of like new 2nd hand books, perhaps a few scratches but no markings on the pages. Saves you a lot of money as the cost for books were and are still insane.
Profs are total hit or miss. Careful as some just vanish right after classes. And trust me they dont care at all if you pass or fail.

Student Body
Diversity is rather lacking here. Most students here are local WA residents, with a small number of out of staters. There are a few international students here (myself included) and the highest number are from China. Socially most are middle class white kids who didnt have much experience with the other types in their lives. Minorities are like 5-10% of the student body. Not a problem though, they're mostly nice people really. Those living an... umm... "alternative" lifestyle aren't well accepted however. I gotta critizice my fellow international students though, as they tend to stick with people from their own lands. Theyre as cliquish as Greek kids.
I know some who consider their classmates as snobs, and sadly I gotta say its true in some cases. Students here are a bit divided though, some are nice, some are snobs (mostly ascociated w/ a greek chapter). Making friends is quite easy if you're willing to put a little effort. All you need is initiative. Doesnt matter if you're not white or even American. Being an international student I still got tons of friends on campus, get invited to frat parties, and maintain my 3.0 gpa.

In Closing...
So how do I sum this? Lets see, medium sized school with loads of school spirits and decent party scene at its best, and a remotely located campus with barely anything to do and nowhere to go at its worst. A little advice: if you decide to live in dorms and aren't used to bone chilling cold days, consider buying portable heaters. They NEVER turn on the heaters on time, and by the time the school decide it's "necessary" to warm up our rooms many of us are half freezing already. To keep things real, there are people who find it hard to socialize with local students. I recommend hitting the dorms, there are lots of nice people there.
Also, if you can afford it get a car, it's worth it unless you dont mind getting stuck here with nothing to do.