Hello All,
Our family made a road-trip from Austin to Tuscaloosa this last weekend to tour the University of Alabama with our son who is a high stats / NMF kid.
Our son is interested in both Chemical Engineering and Alabama’s Computer Based Honors Program. The university was kind enough to create a custom tour for our family, truly world class treatment!
The road-trip itself was fun, seeing parts of the country we hadn’t yet seen. Leaving at 8am (stopping by Rudy’s for breakfast tacos first), we arrived around 8pm. It rained a lot and all of I-20 seemed to be under construction. 
Thursday Night
We strolled into downtown Tuscaloosa looking for a quick bite. Thanks to everyone for the restaurant recommendations. We ended up at Glory Bound Gyros, which was tasty. The meat-eaters had a great time with the gyros and my gluten-free wife had some hummus and a great Greek salad. Downtown Tuscaloosa is pretty modern, and has a good mix of shops and restaurants. The new Embassy Suites looks impressive, but their room rates can be incredibly high.
We rented a 2 bedroom / 2 bath condo for 2 nights from @mom2collegekids for a good rate. It was well furnished and only 5 minutes from the university. If you are looking for an affordable solution for a family of 4, I highly recommend her rental.
Friday Morning
We got up and made a quick breakfast. The condo was super-quiet and everyone slept in, exhausted from the long road-trip the day before. So it was great that the university scheduled our first appointment for 9:45am, whew!
9:45am - we pull up to the parking area behind Nott’s Hall, there are two parking spaces marked “Client Parking”, so we grabbed one as instructed. (If we had parked incorrectly and had received a parking ticket, the Honor’s College said they would waive it. So no stress!) We met briefly with Ms. Dendy (recently married, congrats!) who went over our agenda and asked if we needed anything. She was very gracious and set us all at ease. She handed us off to Matt, who is part of the Capstone Men and Women.
10am - Personal tour of the school with Matt. Driving around in a golf cart has to be the best way to tour a school ever! Matt, was a wonderful host, pointing out the university’s many landmarks, passing along important moments in its famous history and stopping off at the awesome Rec center. Besides being a Capstone Man, Matt is also a CBH’er (I noticed no one called the Computer Based Honors Program “CBHP”, instead, everyone just said “CBH”). We finished the tour with 3 minutes to spare, so Matt took us to the CBH lab for a quick look around. If you aren’t aware of the CBHP, you should look into it (http://honors.ua.edu/computer-based-honors-program/). Matt was charming, funny and informative, and his tour was a great way to start the day.
11am - we joined a larger group of students and spent some time with Mr. Hall of the Honors College. He went over the various honor programs and admission to the university in general. Afterwards, we talked a little about the National Scholars Program. The most interesting aspect of the Honors College is it is stat based. If you have 28 ACT or a 1250 SAT and a GPA of 3.5 you are in. That is pretty great if you ask me, relatively little hassle for some major benefits (such as priority registration!).
Noon – We headed off to the Lakeside Dining Hall to meet with Samantha. Not only is she a CBH’er but a Chemical Engineering student as well, exactly what our son hopes to do at Alabama! Samantha was articulate and welcoming, describing her experiences and academic journey at Alabama. Turns out she was just awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. Fun fact: from 2007 to 2015, UA is No. 1 in the United States for Goldwater Scholars, with 25. Harvard is second, with 23. This informal lunch was an important part of the tour, our son Austin could really see himself at Alabama, researching and studying with exceptional students like Samantha. Alabama couldn’t have picked a better student representative to engage with my son.
1pm – With Samantha leading the way, we toured the Ridgecrest South Honors Residential Community. If you haven’t heard, these rooms feature a common room & kitchenette with 4 individual rooms and 2 shared bathrooms. My son was pretty impressed. We also learned if you registered soon enough, like on October 1st, you can pick the exact room you want! We also learned that the outer 2 rooms of the 4, rooms - rooms A & D - have slightly more space. Additionally, the second floor is prized because it has both a laundry and a full kitchen. Just make sure you don’t choose a room that shares a wall with the laundry as it can be noisy. Also, choosing a room that faces the inner courtyard can be noisy. Feels almost silly to mention, but the laundry is pretty cool, each machine is networked so you can tell from your laptop if any washers / driers are open and you can pay electronically, so no need to carry around quarters. After our tour was complete, we said our good byes to Samantha.
2pm – We got the opportunity to meet with Dr. John Weist, Associate Dean for Research with the College of Engineering. What an incredible man. Dr. Weist immediately established a great rapport with our son (who really really wants to do research starting freshman year). Dr. Weist covered all the many research opportunities at the school, including the robotic team’s recent win, designing an autonomous robot for Mars. We also discussed study abroad for engineering students, there are two options right now, engineering classes in both Denmark and Austria. Dr. Weist went over our son’s interests and how Alabama could provide opportunities for each one. The last item covered by Dr. Weist was Alabama’s innovative STEM to MBA Program (http://manderson.culverhouse.ua.edu/academics/departments/mba_program/stem_path_to_the_mba). I thought I knew about all the “cool” programs the university had to offer, but I had somehow missed it. Basically, you take 1.5 credit hours of business classes each semester and the fifth year you take all business classes, and after the 5 years you have both your undergraduate degree and an MBA! The STEM to MBA Program started in 2012, so they are just about graduate their first cohort. Apparently, students are successfully completing this course along with a Chemical Engineering degree, so my son was excited about applying to this program too. Being able to sit down, one on one, with Dr. Weist shows how much value the university places on pursuing high stat kids.
3pm – We left Dr. Weist and met up with a group of students to hear about Chemical Engineering from Dr. Christopher Brazel, the interim head of the department. Dr. Brazel covered the program in-depth and touched on admissions. He then took the time to talk to each student about their interests and plans and he shared his perspective on how each student could best utilize the many opportunities in the Chemical Engineering department. Like Dr. Weist, Dr. Brazel covered the study abroad programs. I really appreciated how Dr. Brazel took the time to discuss how each student’s interest could be a career in Chemical Engineering. After briefly touching upon graduate studies, our time was up.
(end of Part I)
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