A Few Questions

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
1

Hi, I have been a long time lurker here on the Alabama thread and college confidential. I’ll start off by saying that the information that I have learned from all of the posters has been incredibly helpful. Everyone, especially mom2collegekids, have really helped me gain a lot of knowledge about the University of Alabama as a whole. So, I would like to ask a few questions that I have been thinking about for a while. First I’ll start off by giving some of my background information. I am currently a high school senior from Wisconsin. I will graduate third in my class of about 260 kids and received the presidential scholarship at Alabama. I love to participate in, and also watch sports, and I was a three sport athlete in high school. I also did Academic Decathlon, NHS, and Academic Bowl while in high school. I was accepted into the honors college and am about 90% sure that I will be attending Alabama in the fall. So, here are my questions.

  1. Finding a Roommate: What is the best way to find a roommate? Is it late to be searching for a roommate? I know that I have seen other posts about people already having roommates and am kind of worried about finding a good roommate. Coming from Wisconsin, I will know few, if any, people at Alabama, and would like to find a roommate/roommates with similar interests as myself (likes sports, Christian, takes studies and school seriously, yet also likes to relax likes to hang out with friends, etc.)

  2. Orientation: I have already signed up for honors orientation, however, there are four of them and I had to sign up for the third one as I will still be in school while the first two are going on. Will this affect me being able to receive the classes that I want?

  3. Honors Action: I plan on signing up for the Outdoor Action so that I am able to volunteer while also meeting new people and having the opportunity to move in early. I can’t remember if this question was already answered, but I was wondering how fast the Honors Action, and specifically Outdoor Action, fill up?

I think I may have forgot a couple of questions, but I will post them if I remember them or have any new ones. Overall, I have been so impressed by the University of Alabama. Everything from the scholarship, to planning a tour (I visited over Christmas break but have another visit scheduled for late March), to the meeting with the regional recruiter has been absolutely amazing. I have been stunned by the personal attention given by such a large school. When I toured Wisconsin-Madison, it felt like they were herding cattle in and out of the system and that you should have to beg for the opportunity to go there. Alabama has felt like the total opposite and has impressed me in so many ways. Again, thank you to everyone, I have learned so much from all of the posters here on College Confidential and really appreciate the feedback. Roll Tide!

2

Roll Tide! Very happy for you that you have made what sounds like a careful decision and can now make your plans regarding UA.

  1. I think there are facebook groups where you can get to know potential roommates. Hopefully others will comment.
  2. Orientation- No worries about attending a later Orientation session. They release classes throughout the summer so that all incoming students have the same advantage in getting classes. And, you can continue to make adjustments to your schedule until classes begin in the fall as new sections open up. My student has not had any difficulty in getting the classes he wants, the early honors registration is a nice perk.
  3. Honors Action-this is a great program and way to make early social connections as well as move in early and get familiar with campus and Tuscaloosa before it is at full capacity. Since you know you want to participate, I would say book it early, but I have not heard about too many students being turned away.

Welcome! I hope you get all the information you need on this forum. Enjoy the downhill of your senior year and Roll Tide!

3

Thank you! Regarding the potential roommates, what I forgot to include is that I do not have a facebook. I know that a lot of others have said that facebook is one of the best ways to meet roommates, but I don’t have one. My parents do, oddly enough, and they have joined the parent facebook group, so I don’t know if I should try to piggyback off of them and have them try to find me a roommate or if I should create a facebook of my own.

4

Hi from a fellow WI parent. Illinois students have been flocking to Alabama for a couple of years, its good to see that more Wisconsin students are planning to attend - Roll Tide!!! Definitely make a facebook account for yourself. You really don’t have to “use it” if you don’t want to except for getting on the student page. This way you can be proactive and perhaps find yourself a roommate or two before you need to sign up. I believe you can try to find roommates through your mybama account too, but going this route is a little harder. Welcome and know you won’t be the only one from Wisconsin…I personally know two students from our school area who will be freshmen next year and I am sure there are lots more!

5

My son also a Presidential Scholar. Honors college and would like Honors dorm. He’s a military kid and not from anywhere and just decided TODAY on UA! We still need to sign up for BB and also moving this summer from Colorado to DC area. You are not alone! I know there is a website where I noticed some UA students looking for roommates or you can interact with matches thru the housing website too.

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Oh it won’t let me post link but Google find college roommate and it pops up.

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Oops

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Set up your own Facebook page. You don’t want to use your parents’ account and it look like a parent is looking for a roommate. You can post as much or as little as you want about yourself. There’s also a matching method that’s outside Facebook.

9

Within the Housing application, there is a place to enter your preferences (types of music, preferred bedtime etc.). You can then do a “roommate match” and it will suggest several people. You can send them messages through the housing app (I think it goes to their Bama email address) so you can “talk”. Last year, the 2018 Parents group did have a “matching activity” going on where we created a spreadsheet of our kids who were looking for roommates. My son isn’t much of a Facebook guy, so I (mom) gave him some possible people to contact. Seems to have worked because he has a very nice set of roommates in his suite.

As far as the Honors action programs - I believe that Outdoor Action is a fairly small group of kids. Alabama Action is much larger. If you are looking to do OA, I would sign up for that one pretty quickly.

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Congratulations on your acceptance and scholarship offer.

Regarding question 1: yes, there are all the social media sites, and this forum, too, but my son has learned that the roommate finder, with its imperfect matching system (a bit too heavily weighted based on music preferences, which, since many students use headphones, is not a serious issue) is, nevertheless, very useful and turned out to be accurate as far as matching personalities (or revealing aspects of personalities that might lead to minor conflict.) So utilize it, too. Only problem is that many students don’t check their Crimson email in a timely manner, so if you post info about yourself in the roommate finder, include your Facebook page, link, for example, and stay on top of checking your Crimson email.

Question 2: If you are attending an actual Honors orientation, you probably have a good chance to get some Honors classes. Due to other travel commitments, my son had to attend one of the late July, non-Honors-focused orientations, and there were three Honors classes open with 1 seat each. That was it. He grabbed one upper division Honors literature class. For the remaining gen ed classes he took this year, he took the non-Honors sections (for the Chem and Math classes, that was perfectly fine with him.)

Question 3: Outdoor Action was marvelous given the early move-in and the actual program work itself. Sign up quickly, though be prepared to wait a while before getting confirmation that you have a spot. My son got to move in that Thursday before the start of the program (begins the following Monday.) Please note that the dining halls are not readily available when you come to move in early, and the dorm was a ghost town. My son found that first night in his suite very creepy. He saw no one on his floor or any where on his side of the building until the next day. Fortunately, we stayed in town until Monday morning, which was good, because we soon discovered the limitations of the dining halls for that Thursday-Sunday. We were able to pick him up and take him out to eat, plus we bought a bunch of food for him to store in his dorm room. It was that experience that started my apparent obsession with the dining hall program at Alabama :slight_smile:

So definitely recommend the Outdoor Action program (bring sunscreen!) and make sure you bring some bottled water and some food to snack on until the dining locations ramp up. My son was able to use Dining Dollars immediately at the retail sites on campus (still only a couple places were open), but he was not able to use his regular dining hall plan until Sunday, I believe. So bring cash, too.

And, last, don’t forget the toilet paper. Your suite will not be equipped with it :slight_smile:

Again, congratulations.

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Quick tip on food for Alabama Action and other early arrival programs – even though you probably won’t be going through sorority recruitment if you are doing one of the “action” programs (they conflict with recruitment), it is worth it to flip through the Greek Chic publication on the Panhellenic website because it lists the dining options for recruitment week, the hours the location is open that work with the recruitment schedule and the hours for the dining dollars options as well. For instance, last year’s publication (page 45) shows that the dining halls opened on Saturday, August 9 with Lakeside, Fresh Foods and Burke open for lunch and Lakeside open for dinner. (Note one day is shown as “off campus dinner” on the schedule but that is because recruitment activities that day ended at 9:30 p.m. – after the dining hall closed).

12

That’s good to know! One last thing that I forgot to mention, not that it makes that much of a difference, is that I am a male, and I’m not really interested in joining a frat, but you never know! For the Outdoor Action, should my parents plan on staying through the weekend to help me get settled in/help me get acclimated or is it not worth it?

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Wisconsin97, my youngest did OA last summer. We moved him in I believe on the day before it started and left. He was fine without us. Most people in OA did not know each other so everyone is friendly and found places to eat etc. together. OA also had some of the evenings planned to. I think your parents there would hinder you as you might feel you would have to “hang out” with them. Without them there, it would free you up and/or force you to meet others.

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1 - I would recommend filling out the info on the housing website and looking around at your matches. If your parents are already on the parent FB group (especially the Class of 2019 group), they may have leads for you as well. Last year, DS didn't care one way or the other whether he had roommates lined up. I had met several parents on CC and the FB group that had sons that were very similar and appeared to be compatible. Through talking with them, the four boys decided to room together. It has worked out great - they get along and have just signed a lease for an apartment for next year. So, that depends on how much you want to take control of the roommate situation. :)

2 - DS attended a regular Bama Bound session in mid-June. He only took one honors section class, but only because that's all he was interested in. He took the Honors Freshman Engineering. This semester he also only has one - Honors Physics. Including the 1 hour credit for Honors Action, that's 8 of the 18 required credit hours completed during freshman year. :)

3 - Honors Action is a great way to get to know other students! DS did OA and it was a really good experience for him. He moved in on Friday morning, along with two of his three roommates. We all went out to eat Friday late afternoon before the other families returned home (they lived within a few hours of campus). We spent that night, took DS to breakfast then to the store to get last minute items (an additional lamp for the living room, some snacks, etc.), then we left by noon on Saturday. He did perfectly fine with his roommates until the program started on Sunday afternoon - no need for us to stay longer. I believe the programs eventually fill up, but I really don't think they fill up immediately. There were still people signing up over the summer.

Good luck! This is an exciting time in your life!!

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Note that there was a waiting list for Outdoor Action last year…so if you want Outdoor Action (or Black Belt Action), I would recommend signing up for those ASAP. AA eventually filled up last year but not until some point around late June or possibly early July.

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Thank you all for the great info! I just submitted the application for OA. I’m glad that I got it submitted on the first day, and am so excited! Now I just have to focus on finding roommates.