Academic rivalry between Bama and Auburn?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
101

<p>Atlanta68</p>

<pre><code> There is not a big difference in number of Grad students at UA compared to Auburn. From the 2009 - 2010 common data set, UA had 4,999 and Auburn had 4,676. And I have answered you question about new faculty hires. They need to hire to keep up with increasing enrollment.
I hope UA reaches it’s goal of becoming a Tier One research. I wish every student that attends there has a great experience.

Just because UA has decided to increase it enrollment and is bigger in size than Auburn, does not make it a better school. You seem to think that it is a problem that Auburn wants to stay at 25,000 students. You seem to think that because UA receive more applications, that makes it better. If I was to go by the mail I have received from both school, UA spends a whole lot more money on recruiting than Auburn. That is somewhat to be expected as they are trying to grow. Auburn receive enough applications to serve their enrollment goals.

The other contention I have is that it keeps being insinuated that because UA accepts a lower percent of applicants and has a higher yield of those accepted that it is better than Auburn. If UA stats were better than Auburn, I would agree with you. But they are not.

Both schools have there strength and weaknesses. But on this board everything at UA is better than at Auburn and UA has no issues. I am just pointing out a few concerns and issues for UA and a few strengths for Auburn. A lot of people who look at UA are also looking at Auburn. The UA board is alot more active than Auburn’s because of mom2collegekids. When I first started reading CC, this board was not much more active than Auburn’s is now.
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<p>Again, I wish UA and the students that go there the best of luck in reaching their goals. Just as I wish Auburn and the students that go there the best of luck in reaching their goals.</p>

102

<p>“There is not a big difference in number of Grad students at UA compared to Auburn. From the 2009 - 2010 common data set, UA had 4,999 and Auburn had 4,676. And I have answered you question about new faculty hires. They need to hire to keep up with increasing enrollment.
I hope UA reaches it’s goal of becoming a Tier One research. I wish every student that attends there has a great experience.”</p>

<p>I never said there was a huge difference in grad student enrollment between the two schools, but as Mom and I have tried to explain to you, UA does have plans to dramatically increase its grad student population, though not its undergrad enrollment. Have you considered that the freshman classes at UA might become a little smaller over the next few years and then stabilize? Why are you assuming that UA must rely on attracting ever greater numbers of Undergrads to reach its goal of 35,000 by 2020? </p>

<p>Finally, while I agree that growth can be excessive, the type of growth with quality experienced by UA is exactly what could help schools like AU to withstand state budget cuts. As long as the growth is properly managed, it is not necessarilly something that overshadows the good. Alabama does not traditionally fund its higher ed very well, so UA decided that it was time to take care of itself. These new faculty hires, and grad student increases are not just to avoid overcrowed classes, but to help UA reach Tier One status.</p>

<p>I think if you compare numbers from Fall of 2010 you will see that UA did have significantly greater growth in Grad school students than AU. </p>

<p>“Just because UA has decided to increase it enrollment and is bigger in size than Auburn, does not make it a better school. You seem to think that it is a problem that Auburn wants to stay at 25,000 students. You seem to think that because UA receive more applications, that makes it better. If I was to go by the mail I have received from both school, UA spends a whole lot more money on recruiting than Auburn. That is somewhat to be expected as they are trying to grow. Auburn receive enough applications to serve their enrollment goals.” </p>

<p>I have never said that UA is better than AU for most students because it is bigger or growing faster. I was responding to your seeming concern about excessive growth at UA in explaining why in UA’s case, huge growth has been mostly a good thing. And I don’t think it is knocking AU to state the truth, which is that state budget cuts have hurt its ability to hire the best new faculty members and it has hurt its ability to keep its faculty/staff salaries on par with the rest of the SEC. That does not mean that AU is a bad school, but in this current budget climate, there are tradeoffs with both the low growth and high growth approach, and you seem to want to focus only on the danger with high growth. </p>

<p>“The other contention I have is that it keeps being insinuated that because UA accepts a lower percent of applicants and has a higher yield of those accepted that it is better than Auburn. If UA stats were better than Auburn, I would agree with you. But they are not.” Who said this? The only reason I have pointed these facts out to you is to show that AU is not necessarily significantly more selective. With a higher yield rate, UA has a higher number of both lowish and high stat students actually enrolling. That is all. And given the plans to stabilize undergrad enrollment, we can expect to see even higher admissions standards at UA. Will that lead to an equalization between UA and AU? Who knows? Who cares? As long as the school continues to attract increasing numbers of the best and brightest, the school’s rep will improve, based on both objective data and subjective phenomena.</p>

<p>“Both schools have there strength and weaknesses. But on this board everything at UA is better than at Auburn and UA has no issues. I am just pointing out a few concerns and issues for UA and a few strengths for Auburn. A lot of people who look at UA are also looking at Auburn. The UA board is alot more active than Auburn’s because of mom2collegekids. When I first started reading CC, this board was not much more active than Auburn’s is now.”</p>

<p>That is fine, but shouldn’t you be spending this energy over on the AU site? It is not our fault that AU’s CC page is not as active, but you CAN do something about that. And I bet you would do a great job. I admire that you like AU so much. I respect that, but this is our forum, and you shouldn’t expect us to think that AU is just as good as UA. Of course we are biased, but that doesn’t mean we can’t lay out our case for UA. Sometimes, that does mean highlighting differences between the state’s top two public schools. You can do the same on the AU board.</p>

<p>Oh, and lest I forget, you really don’t know what you are talking about saying that UA has no new plans for increased infrastructure. There is a master plan in place, but it has already been updated to include a major renovation and expansion to the old Nursing building. A huge new residence hall is about to go up on the North side of campus, with its own rec center. Four new sorority houses are going up behind the President’s Mansion. New Frat houses are being built on Univ. Blvd. The new Nursing Building is three times as big as the old one.The school has plans to build a new digital media center. The new SEC is almost 1,000,000 of new square footage for Science and Engineering and it is only half complete. There are plans to renovate many other campus buildings. I could go on and on. UA is changing its plans on a regular basis as needed. No need to worry.</p>

103

<p>auburn students live in apartment complexes? LOL dude they live in TRAILER PARKS. You student housing consists of an on campus village and off campus trailer parks. </p>

<p>And once again another barner is on here but yet can’t answer a simple question. Why is it that two comparable in-state public universities have such a disparity in the amount of african americans on campus?</p>

<p>You wanna brag about your higher stats but you fail to answer as to why that is.</p>

104

<p>Pardon the pun, but to me, the differences in the stats of accepted students between UA and AU is academic. I recognize that GPA’s and SAT/ACT scores don’t necessarily reflect the intelligence of a person and once a student is in college, the majority of people could care less about the SAT/ACT score of the person sitting next to them. For the most part, UA and AU are peer schools. </p>

<p>While I haven’t spent much time researching Auburn’s honors program, the requirements seem to be similar to those of UA. Unlike the honors programs at many schools which consist of a set sequence of courses and often don’t take into account that many top students will be coming in with college credit, the programs at UA and AU are both quite flexible. At UA, one only needs 6 UH/IHP credits to graduate from honors. After taking an IHP class, 2 one-credit exploratory classes, and participating in Alabama Action, I am done with that requirement. As for the remaining 12 required hours of honors credit, I’m taking graduate level classes and doing two honors by contract courses (the latter are required for IHP and can also count towards UHP requirements). Class size outside the Honors College is not a huge issue for me and at either school, class sizes are small compared to those of many other state universities.</p>

<p>Overall, each university has its own strengths and weaknesses. For me, Alabama was the better choice. If anything, I’d like to see the two universities grow closer to each other. Both universities are already getting sister trees and I’d be willing to let some cows graze on the Bryce Property, provided, of course, that Auburn makes a similar symbolic gesture. I’d personally suggest a statue of Bear Bryant watching over the cows </p>

105

<p>Good Lord Sea_tide. You have a lot to learn about this rivalry. These two universities will NEVER be close in the way you suggest. </p>

<p>They hate us with a passion and would like nothing more than to see our demise. One day you’ll realize that fact. They are not our friend, sister school, or our equal. They have done nothing over the years but try to destroy us. And I’m certainly not talking about just football here. </p>

<p>The only cows of theirs I’d let graze on our campus is their cheerleaders. You guys need to stop playing kissy face with these cretins and start putting them in their place.</p>

106

<p>There is not a big difference in number of Grad students at UA compared to Auburn. From the 2009 - 2010 common data set, UA had 4,999 and Auburn had 4,676.</p>

<p>and your point is…??? OUR point is that Bama wants to GROW its grad enrollment. It’s not relevant what AU v UA grad numbers are.</p>

<p>* but as Mom and I have tried to explain to you, UA does have plans to dramatically increase its grad student population, though not its undergrad enrollment.*</p>

<p>Dad seems to want to ignore the fact that Bama wants to grow its grad/law/med school enrollment and that the total growth for the school will not only be undergrads. </p>

<p>Grad students are often “non traditional” which means that they are on campus and in classrooms at more “non traditional times” …this lessens the need for a lot more classrooms since the current classrooms get used more for night classes and such. </p>

<p>I have no idea if the law school classrooms are being used to their full potential, but if they’re not, then there is obvious room for growth. Bama has a Tier I law school that could recruit to attract more OOS students. </p>

<p>* But on this board everything at UA is better than at Auburn and UA has no issues.*</p>

<p>Uhhhhh…this is Bama’s board. I imagine the opposite happens on Auburn’s board. I sure hope that Bama parents/students are not posting “pro Bama and anti-Auburn stuff” on Auburn’s board…I would think that would be rude and impolite. I think it’s rude when Auburn parents/students post such things on this board.</p>

107

<p>LOL, I certainly did not mean to ignite a major war. So sorry! </p>

<p>I was interested in learning how the two schools compare academically because DS is considering both schools.</p>

<p>But I must confess we’re leaning heavily toward Bama. In fact, we’ve paid the enrollment and housing deposits, and we’re about to sign up for Bama Bound. ROLL TIDE!</p>

<p>Diane</p>

<p>P.S. I kind of liked Sea_TIDE’s last response, personally. :slight_smile: But, then, I am an outsider with no first-hand knowledge of the AU-UA rivalry.</p>

108

<p>There’s an old cowboy saying that may be apropos to this thread and its kin: “Love thy neighbor . . . but keep your gun oiled.”</p>

<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC App</p>

109

<p>I agree with mom2c in that it’s incredibly rude for auburn parents/students to be on this board trumping up their school and putting Bama down. </p>

<p>Mom and some others have worked very hard over the past few years getting info out about UA and growing this board into the great source of info it is today. It’s rude for supporters of other schools to try and piggy back her hard work so that they can brag on their school.</p>

<p>Every school has it’s own board. If you want to talk about how great your school is and the things it has to offer then by all means do so. ON YOUR OWN BOARD. If your board doesn’t have the following this board does then that’s your fault. Spend more time on the general boards talking about your school. Spend countless hours private messaging and emailing people about your school instead of trying to be a parasite off of mom’s hard work on here.</p>

110

<p>Well, this thread is about comparing the academic offerings of the two schools. It’s hard to do that without having people offer their opinions of pros and/or cons of each school. Why is that rude?</p>

<p>Most every school that has a board on this forum has positive and negative threads. Or threads that ask for positives and negatives. Saying it’s just plain rude to talk about anything but the good side of any college seems overprotective or hypersensitive.</p>

<p>I mean, this forum is kind of about getting and giving information, right?</p>

111

<p>*Auburn does not have as much housing as UA, but you know that going in. The housing situation is not going to change due to an increase in undergrads. Auburn does not require freshmen to live on campus and therefore does not guarantee housing for them. *</p>

<p>So, then why bring up that some kids at Bama complain that they can’t get on-campus housing at Bama? That is a ridiculous statement to make in light of Auburn’s worse situation. Your statement suggests that the complaints at Bama do not exist at Auburn. I’ve always thought it silly when people complain (or bring up complaints) about issues that exist on nearly every campus. It’s like when a child complains that his “bad mommy” makes him pick up his toys…Hello…almost every mom does that.</p>

<p>And, do NOT assume that prospective Auburn students/parents know about the limitations going in. My neighbor sure didn’t. And, there have been NMFs who have sadly learned that they can’t stay on campus when they thought that their scholarship would let them.</p>

<p>There are 4 honors classes with the History designation</p>

<p>HY 105 Honors Western Civilization to 1648 HI
HY 106 Honors Western Civilization since 1648 HI </p>

<p>HY 205 Honors American Civilization to 1865 HI
HY 206 Honors American Civilization since 1865 HI </p>

<p>I hardly think that having up to 25 kids in an Honors History class somehow makes it less of an honors class. Do you really think there is going to be any real measurable difference between an honors class of 15 and on with up to 25…when all the students are strong students? I highly doubt it. Up to 25 students is not too large of a group to have discussions. </p>

<p>and, I don’t know why you keep wanting to make a big deal separating UHP classes from Dept Honors classes. When teaching to groups of smarter students, some extra students in the classroom really isn’t going to make a big difference. </p>

<p>There are some courses that don’t lend themselves well to seminar-style discussion-based instruction, so they don’t need to be 15 students or less). And with the wonderful use of “clickers”, profs can get instant feedback with those larger (honors and non-honors) classes. Furthermore, many of those larger classes break down into smaller labs with TAs assisting students.</p>

112

<p>No one is complaining about an auburn parent popping over and giving their two cents about their school in this thread. But to sit here for 4 days now and go back and forth trashing Bama and building up auburn on this board is rude.</p>

<p>If you want to start a thread based on the auburn perspective feel free to do so on the auburn board. This board is for UA parents, students, and prospective parents and students about THE UNIVERSITY of ALABAMA. If someone wants to find out about auburn from auburn parents and students then they can post on the auburn board.</p>

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<p>*it’s incredibly rude for auburn parents/students to be on this board trumping up their school and putting Bama down. </p>

<p>*</p>

<p>*Saying it’s just plain rude to talk about anything but the good side of any college seems overprotective or hypersensitive.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Pinot…it is rude for people from another school to go onto a another school’s forum for the simple purpose of posting: “This is school is bad and my school is better” kind of things. </p>

<p>Imagine how crazy these school forums would be if - say - Harvard parents, UVA parents, USC parents, etc were posting on other schools’ forums touting how much better their schools were. The individual school boards would become so cluttered with “back and forth” arguments that no meaningful info could be gleaned. There would also be so much misinformation being bandied about…largely because those from “other schools” aren’t going to be providing accurate info about the school whose forum it is. </p>

<p>If a parent wants to know about Auburn, or Miss St, or UGeorgia, UNC-CH or any of the other hundreds of colleges, then he should go to those forums to find out about those schools. :)</p>

<p>I sincerely hope that Bama parents/students are not going over to UTenn, Miss St, Auburn, UNC-CH or the many other schools and posting things to tear down those schools and to build up Bama. It’s just rude and inappropriate. Now, if someone posts something on those forums about Bama that is factually false, then there’s nothing wrong with simply posting the proveable facts (with links to back up). For instance, if someone were to post that Bama has 30k of undergrads on campus, then it’s ok to simply post the facts and the link showing the true numbers. But, to go beyond that sort of thing is just impolite. </p>

<p>I liken it to this…if I go to another denomination’s church, and they say something very untrue about my own religion, then I would politely offer a correction and provide facts to back that up. But, I would not go over to another church with the sole purpose to tear down their faith, to be argumentative, or to say that “my religion is better”…that would be rude. I know that this isn’t a perfect analogy, but you get my drift.</p>

114

<p>“I sincerely hope that Bama parents/students are not going over to UTenn, Miss St, Auburn, UNC-CH or the many other schools and posting things to tear down those schools and to build up Bama.”</p>

<p>Ruh-roh. I must confess that I’ve made a few (possibly) invidious comparisons between Bama and UNC on the UNC board. But I’m a North Carolinian whose son has been accepted to UNC, and, up until very recently, UNC was a very real possibility for DS, so I did have a somewhat legitimate purpose over there. OTOH, my brush with the UNC boosters has been so unpleasant that I’m now glad to avoid that venue like the proverbial plague. </p>

<p>The Bama board is MUCH more pleasant. :slight_smile: Which makes Bama itself that much more appealing.</p>

115

<p>Dumb question, mom2ck: Woultd it be possible for DS to take both of these courses dueing his first semester at Bama?</p>

<p>HY 105 Honors Western Civilization to 1648 HI
HY 205 Honors American Civilization to 1865 HI </p>

<p>…and then take both of the followup courses the next semester?</p>

<p>HY 106 Honors Western Civilization since 1648 HI
HY 206 Honors American Civilization since 1865 HI </p>

<p>IOW, can he jump right into his major in that intensive way?</p>

<p>What other courses would make sense for a first-year History major, if he wants to be well-rounded? Calc, Bio, English, and a language course? </p>

<p>Just curious…should probably go to the UA site and see if they’ve got a section on sample curricula! Duhh! :)</p>

<p>Thanks!!</p>

116

<p>Well, personally, I like what Dadto3 is doing, as a prospective student. </p>

<p>Some people on here tout about how UA is a vastly superior school to UA because of the acceptance rate and USNews rankings, that seem to fluctuate year to year. But the SAT/ACT definitely favor AU, and it seems like they have the same reputation, so to me it is kind of wash. </p>

<p>But I was not really interested in AU and only applied to UA. </p>

<p>I don’t think it is rude at all for an Auburn person to come in to an UA vs. AU thread. If no one did, people would automatically be “oh, UA is so much better don’t, even bother looking at AU”. </p>

<p>And the Auburn posters are not “trashing” UA in any means. It is refreshing to see a counterpoint sometimes, and questioning of stats. I myself have wondered why Bama’s acceptance rate is pretty low (it’s almost as low as Michigan), yet the SAT range is pretty low. </p>

<p>I agree with Pinot about this being “overprotective or hypersensitive”.</p>

<p>No college is perfect, but the way some of the posts are on this board (not necessarily in this thread), one might think Bama is. </p>

<p>Oh well, flame me all you want, but just my $0.02</p>

117

<p>^ I for one will not flame you. I want to know about both AU and UA, because DS is considering both. He is definitely leaning much more heavily toward UA nowadays, but I appreciate the input from the AU folks. It helps those of us unfamiliar with both schools to get a clearer sense of their similarities and differences. This, in turn, helps us and our kids as we make the final decision.</p>

118

<p>"Well, personally, I like what Dadto3 is doing, as a prospective student. </p>

<p>Some people on here tout about how UA is a vastly superior school to UA because of the acceptance rate and USNews rankings, that seem to fluctuate year to year. But the SAT/ACT definitely favor AU, and it seems like they have the same reputation, so to me it is kind of wash." </p>

<p>The problem “thegroog…”, is that Dad was not offering accurate info. He repeatedly inferred that UA is about to hit 35, 000 enrollment, rather than a planned goal by 2020. He also inferred that UA is going to reach this enrollment goal, via signficantly larger freshman classes. We tried to explain to him that the main growth will be in the number of Grad students, to no avail. He also failed to appreciate logical explanations for why AU has an edge in avg. scores, etc. UA has both larger numbers of lower and higher stat students. But due to the much higher enrollment from a higher yield (1300 plus this last fall), and a higher percentage of non engineering students, etc., AU has an edge in terms of avg. scores. </p>

<p>He repeatedly misstated the sentiments and points made by the most active members on this board, and for that, we were not pleased. For example, he showed his ignorance of UA’s planned growth by stating that UA has no new plans for academic buildings or Res. Halls. Utter nonsense. </p>

<p>Nor do we think it serves the interests of the students and parents on this forum to see inaccurate info posted to the UA forum. Just go to the AU forum, and you will see why Dad is here, rather than there. But he and others could change that. The problem is not an occasional post correcting inaccuracies about AU, but rather an concerted effort to make UA look bad. No one here thinks UA is perfect, but Dad was simply providing misleading or prejudicial info about UA.</p>

119

<p>In no way do I think I am being rude in making a post on the UA board on a thread titled " Academic rivalry between Bama and Auburn?" that is making a comparison between the two.</p>

<pre><code> I have a daughter who will be starting college this fall. She is a NMF and applied to both schools. We are out of state and going into process had very little knowledge of either school. I have done a lot of reading concerning both schools on their websites, the forums on CC and other websites. I wanted to have as much information as possible to make an informed decision.
The post I made that seemed to start this whole firestorm dealt with me responding to a post by CCforlife talking about the different type of honors classes at UA and that he felt his daughter could get a more personalized college experience at UA and at Auburn she would be in the classes with the same people junior and senior year.
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<p>This is the post I made:</p>

<p>" I think it’s nice that UA offers the university honors classes and they are limited to 15, but they are just extra classes. They do not satisfy any requirements for your major. They can satisfy a few of the core curriculum requirements. The departmental honors classes can satisfy core curriculum and some of your major requirements. Those classes are not limited to 15. When comparing UA and Auburn for departmental honors classes, UA classes are the same size or bigger. When I compare Honors Calc 1, UA class limit is 56 and Auburn is 27 or 30. Auburn’s regular Calc 1 class is smaller than UA Honors Calc 1. When I compare Honors Bio 1, UA class limit is 120 with lab limit of 36 and Auburn is 72 or 48 with lab limit of 24. When looking at a Honors departmental classes my daughter would be taking, I did not find any where UA would be smaller. The majority of classes taken by a student at either school will not be honors classes. Because of this, I think you need to compare the academic caliber of the whole student population. Looking at the common data set for both schools shows that clearly favors Auburn.
In visiting and researching both schools, there is nothing to make me believe you have more flexibility in tailoring a personalized college experience at UA over Auburn. And as for being with the same students in the same classes for junior and senior years at Auburn, it will be the same at UA as it is at most universities. During junior and senior years students are taking a lot of classes in their major. Neither honor’s college replaces those classes. "</p>

<p>All I did was state I did not put as much emphasize on the small UHP classes. That I put more emphasize on the departmental honors classes and that at Auburn some of those were much smaller than at UA. Also that I did not believe you got a more personalized experience at one over the other. I also stated my opinion that since most classes a student would take would be outside of honors, that the overall academic caliber of student population needed to be taken into account. </p>

<p>After that all I have done is respond to statements from atlanta68 and mom2collegekids. When they have made statements that I disagreed with, I posted a response. I never expected it to go the way it did.</p>

120

<p>I don’t think anyone has an issue with parents or students who are in the search process and who are deciding between both schools coming to a school’s forum and posting questions and such. </p>

<p>However, when it’s rather obvious that a parent/student has chosen a school (and is no longer in the “deciding phase,)” then one must question his/her motives. </p>

<p>And, like Atlanta said, it’s a problem when the person continues to post inaccurate info as facts. It’s different issue if the person is asking if such info is correct. </p>

<p>Again, each school’s forum would devolve into chaos if it became routine for parents/students of other schools to be constantly posting negative/inaccurate info on each other’s forums. </p>

<p>Can you imagine? One person might ask how the history program is at School A (on School A’s forum), then people from School B, C, D, E, and F start posting inaccurate info to detract from School A and/or use the question to promote School B, C, D, etc. Then the people from School A not only have to answer the question, but they have to spend extra time dealing with inaccurate/irrelevant posts from others.</p>

<p>*In no way do I think I am being rude in making a post on the UA board on a thread titled " Academic rivalry between Bama and Auburn?" that is making a comparison between the two.
*</p>

<p>I agree that the thread invited this situation. Maybe it would be a better idea if threads on a particular school’s forum simply asked about that school. And, if information is wanted about another school, then post on that school’s forum.</p>