@CyclonesGrad : Yeah, I am inclined to agree. I think I even saw an article in the Wall street journal or somewhere that said that for the hard sciences, prestige matters very little. But when I see people pouring a lot of money into a prestigious undergrad STEM degree, I wonder if I have missed something that they know or see, so I am always asking and checking to see if I hear something that I may not have considered 
Prestige and the perceived value of it is something that is argued on CC every day. For those who have the $$ or worry about what âlabelâ is on their stuff, no amount is too high. For those who scratch to get a few coins together or donât even realize stuff has labels, any price is too high. Then, there are hundreds in the middle trying to figure out what the correct $$ amount is to make it worthwhile. Basically no one else can make the decision for you, only give you input so you can figure out where your line is.
Hopefully the info you collect will help you with that. Either way when you start asking about dollars or race you will certainly collect a large, varied, number of opinions. That is the only givenâŠ
Good luck and Roll Tide
here is another question. Unfortunately, we took our eyes off the ball and missed the housing deadline. So now I am told that we will be randomly assigned a spot if my son chooses to attend. Is that bad? Can we appeal to the honors college to see if they can help by helping us get in a dorm where there will be many honors students?
What does random assignment really mean at Alabama. Do you get the âworst, oldestâ housing because you are now at the very bottom of the priority list or do they try to assign you a dorm based on your interests, major, etc
@CollegeAngst Thank you for posing these questions. I too have had the same as my DS is a URM and will be attending UA in the fall studying Engineering. We will be going back to UA one more time in a few weeks so I may feel a bit more settled about sending him so far away from home. I really appreciate all the comments in this thread because I too have read some negative things on the internet but really donât want to believe the majority behave as such. Keep the posts coming. Roll Tide!
It means your son wonât get to select a dorm like those who met the deadline and will receive an assignment by Housing. It is unlikely he will be placed in any of the newer dorms like The Ridgecrest Community. It is more likely that he will be assigned to Paty. As for contacting the HC, they arenât in charge of housing assignments and are unlikely to intervene on your behalf. How fair would that be? Thatâs why there is a process and deadlines established by Housing.
@collegeangst I remember when I was in college hardly anyone picked their roommate. Almost all of them were assigned by the university. Obviously in the stone age before internet. Snail mail only. :))
Interestingly, my twins have two different attitudes on this. My daughter has already hooked up with roommates and they all have dates to pick a room and one has the first date. My son could care less and is going to room with a guy from our local area here in IL. The others will be random and he does not care.
Sometimes I think picking your roommates is overdone. How do you really know someone until you live with them? My two older children that went to IU and UMN both survived with random assignments.
A bigger issue to worry about is what your courses and class schedule are as that will impact you heavily!!
@Loosabelle Thanks. When we tour, should we ask to see Paty for sure? because that is the most likely scenario here?
There seem to be so many residence halls, I am sure the campus tour will not show us all of them. I want to make sure we see the ones he is most likely to be assigned to. Will that be Paty or are there any other options that we should keep in mind?
@CyclonesGrad At this stage, we are less worried about âpicking room-matesâ more with âgetting the right residence hall assignmentâ Since we are not native to Alabama, need to make full use of the campus trip. Looks like I should definitely look at Paty! because there is high likelihood that he may land up there if he goes to UA, given we missed our housing deadline. I want to make sure he sees where he will live if he attends and does not get seduced by the newer dorms without realizing that he has no chance of being assigned to them!
No one can say for sure, but Paty would be most likely to have openings and has an HC designated floor. A better option would be Burke. You can always @UAHousing your question.
Look here:
@mumz214
âI too have read some negative things on the internet but really donât want to believe the majority behave as such.â
Donât worry. We arenât all still racist because we never all were just like anywhere else. youll find it everywhere if you look.
@collegeangst My sonâs wrestling coachâs son started at UA this fall. He was in your boat about deciding late and not getting into suite housing. He ended up on the Honors Floor in Paty and told my son that he loves it.
His parents are happy because Paty is less cost than the Suites. They also told me that it is more social because Paty is like traditional dorms so everyone leaves their doors open.
I think the suites are extremely nice but can see how they could be isolating since they are like mini-apartments. I think back to my apartment days and I hardly knew my neighbors. I know my son and daughter at IU and UMN, respectively, did not know their neighbors when they lived in apartments.
Could be good to be in Paty.
Your student will not necessarily get the worst, oldest housing. Heâll give his preferences to Housing and theyâll do their best to assign him to what he wants, subject to availability, of course. There are more suite style rooms than traditional rooms on campus, so it may be that the traditional rooms (such as Paty) wonât be available if there are a lot of students trying to keep their costs down with a traditional (cheaper) dorm. I donât have an incoming student, so I havenât kept up on all the current housing procedures, but I think your student can still be pulled into an honors suite by students who are participating in room selection if he deposits soon and finds a roommate.
I canât give you much input on your question about URMs on campus, as my daughter is white. She has non-white friends, and has had non-white roommates, and Iâve never heard of them having any issues, but Iâm not sure I would. I have heard of the very occasional ugly incident on campus, but Iâve heard much, much more about progress being made on this front. Over 50% of the students at UA are from OOS.
From everything I know from friends/relatives who are engineers, going to a prestigious school is not a requirement. You need a school with ABET accreditation, which Bama has. I have seen many, many top kids at UA go on to prestigious grad schools, fellowships and employment. Opportunities are certainly there for high achieving students at Alabama.
CollegeAngst,
Recently, a very distinguished Black student who writes for the Huff Post made an outrageous claim in a viral video that Whites at UA were attacking Blacks and kicking in doors when Obama won. However, she offered absolutely no evidence to support her claim. She never had to defend her story. I donât even think she was at UA when Obama won in 2008. Yet her claim was believed by many concerned people across the nation; it was another black eye for the university.
I asked sympathetic (to her) Tuscaloosa journalists to investigate her claims, and they could find absolutely nothing to substantiate her claim. Not even anything remotely like what she claimed. Given what happened at Mizzou, and their subsequent steep decline in students choosing to matriculate there after their recent racial controversy, I think it is very important and only fair to give every claim about race at UA skeptical and close scrutiny. Skepticism meaning being in the middle, awaiting evidence. There is a disturbing trend of hate incidents being alleged with no evidence to back them up. We need to be more skeptical of these claims, at the same time that we create welcome environments for all students.
Well said@atlanta68. That and the David Jackson photoshop accusation were both similar in this respect.
Re housing, my son didnât commit until April 15, two years ago. In fact, it was two years ago today that we visited UA for the first time. He did get assigned to Paty, and then he immediately put in for room change. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, my husband picked up the phone and called Housing. A lovely woman told him that, while she couldnât get him into either of the Ridgecrests, she could place him in Blount with other Honors overflow students. Best outcome ever. Was cheaper than the suites, he made a ton of friends (many of whom remain his best friends at UA), and got to hang out with both STEM types and liberal arts kids. (Blount is the liberal arts LLC.)
To summarize: Donât sweat it. If you run into snags, the school will work with you. And many of us can give you some tips on how to move the process along.
As to choosing UA over schools like Vandy, Duke, and Rice, not gonna lie: That would be tough.
But, in the end, for me, itâs about value. If youâre full pay, all you can do is compare what UA is offering you for the cost and make a decision. As others have shared, for kids with the talent and work ethic to get admitted to any of those schools, I would say the sky is the limit at UA. (And the football team is a helluva lot better than any of the others too.) 
Re the minority question, I started this thread a while back. Maybe it can offer some additional insight.
Good luck and Roll Tide!
Even back during the Jim Crow years, most Southern Whites did not support hateful violence like that seen in Mississippi Burning.