U of A is 40 % Greek – DD is conservative Christian and NOT interested in Greek life or the drinking culture that may be more prevalent because of that
Cultural Diversity --DD thinks U of A’s “Old South” week is a “red flag” and that attending U of A won’t be diverse enough (Esp since D3 is interested in pursuing something in Human Rights as her career). D3 went to public school with a number of Hispanics and we are fourth generation Asian
Calif girl fitting in with “Alabamians” – we have heard it is esp harder for a Calif girl to fit in because she wouldn’t be the typical southern girl."</p>
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<li><p>Whoa, 40%? It’s more like 29%, according to the stats I’ve come across. On a campus of about 28,000 students, that figure leaves the vast majority (19,880) non-greek. Surely there are birds of a feather in that flock. One of the things Dr. Witt emphasized in our time with him was UA’s direct offer (prior to students setting foot on campus for their freshman year) to connect them with student church/synagogue groups of their faiths. He said the university expected maybe a 10% return from freshmen on this offer but has received closer to a 50% return. If your daughter wants an instant connection with a conservative Christian group, it seems she will have that.</p></li>
<li><p>If your daughter wants to be involved in Human Rights, what better place to attend than an institution where she perceives human rights “red flags?” She can join other activists there and make an actual difference, not merely study the issues academically. Check out the memorial UA is creating to the Civil Rights movement in their renovation of Foster Auditorium at [Foster</a> Auditorium Plaza - The University of Alabama](<a href=“http://www.uafacilities.ua.edu/planning/pages/foster/index.html]Foster”>http://www.uafacilities.ua.edu/planning/pages/foster/index.html)</p></li>
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<p>The civil rights movement was waged fiercely in Alabama. Remember who prevailed.</p>
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<li>My son attends a high school where Asians make up the majority of students and his race (Caucasian) is in the decided minority. Embracing this differential and learning to find common ground with his peers has taught him tolerance, appreciation for diversity, and the divisiveness of stereotyping. </li>
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<p>Attending UA might be a big stretch for your daughter, but growth does not come without growing pains.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. I appreciate how difficult this decision is.</p>
<p>thanks for all the replies. Yes, I am Krazie’s mom. I am hoping a UA visit will give d a clear picture whether UA is right for her ( I think it very well could be).</p>
<p>I am out of town until tomorrow so please forgive me for not posting more until then.</p>
<p>My d is an incoming freshman for the fall of 2010 in the honors college with the presidential scholarship and engineering leadership scholarship. UA was not on her list at all. It was on her parents list, at the very top, due to the scholarships. We are from NJ and UA offers the best scholarships, it is cheaper for her to go here than any in-state NJ school. </p>
<p>We insisted that we go for a tour and within a few hours she was so excited and exclaimed that this is where she is going – we paid the deposit that night. she will not be rushing. she already has suite-mates in the honors dorm and picks her room this week. The campus is amazing. Everyone involved in the honors college is most welcoming and they make you feel as if you incredibly valued. I must also commend the recruiter for NJ, as she was our first experince with the school and impressed us greatly with her attention and prompt replies to all questions. </p>
<p>We all can’t wait for August to get here and have no doubts that UA is the perfect place for our Jersey Girl! Go for the visit, it really makes all the difference in the world.</p>
<p>you all say that going on a visit will make this huge difference.</p>
<p>well, at the time we went, it was just a run of the mill visit. we didn’t set up appt’s. with the honors college though. my DD liked it … but the visit wasn’t the be all end all that everyone here makes it out to be.</p>
<p>wondering if we should visit again! haha wanted to visit for the sorority weekend this weekend, but she has UIL stuff.</p>
<p>my DD is still undecided between two schools. both will cost about the same. one is an hour away ad the other is 9 - 10. i think she will get more involved and more attention at UA, but she isn’t one of the superstar kids, so i am not sure.</p>
<p>I think your D would benefit from another visit…one with meetings with Dept head, honors college people, etc. Going on just the standard campus tour is nice, but doesn’t provide info for various depts and majors.</p>
<p>When did your D visit?</p>
<p>Has she picked a likely major? Is she considering nursing?</p>
<p>we visited in the summer and it was kind of spur of the moment. there were kids there for their bama bound, but not a lot of others, i don’t think. there weren’t a lot of people around.</p>
<p>we didn’t st up visits with honors or her department because she hadn’t decided on a major at all and our other honors visits had not been all that beneficial.</p>
<p>she is still considering nursing, but is currently in love with calculus!! haha that points towards engineering … but honestly i don’t really know what engineering is! and does.</p>
<p>My d & I also went for a visit back in November. It was an away game day. The campus was empty. I was really disappointed as I wanted daughter to see the campus and get a feel for what it would be like if she attended. I was surprised the library was empty, no studying going on. I didn’t notice professors entering buildings to do work. The engineering area was like a ghost town. It was dead. We had a private tour and were the only people on the buses, sidewalks. There were a few people working out in the gym. Even eating in the cafeteria was basically empty. There were a few kids milling about in the honors dorms. No action near the frat/sorority houses. I am so surprised that a major university with 25000+ students that I probably saw 30 people throughout our day. Unfortunately it cost a lot to fly in so I doubt we can fly in again. Even if that was an away game day, this emptiness would be something my daughter would experience if she attend, we are oos - no weekends home. The lack of activity was kind of creepy! D has been offered that major $112k scholarship, and I really wish she would consider it again. Any words of wisdom?</p>
<p>It is kind of creepy walking around an empty campus, especially if you are there during Thanksgiving Break when there is hardly anyone around and the dining halls are closed. Of course, this happens with a lot of schools. I use this time to sleep, study, or just walk around and reflect on things. AFAIK the ducks in Palmer Lake (the lake surrounded by Honors dorms) don’t leave and can be pretty entertaining. Gorgas Library is often open these days and by noon Sunday, people get back from their weekend trips and get ready to start the new week.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate that y’all had your visit when you did. You have to trust us when we say that away weekends in the fall are truly an aberration in campus life. The only away game we had last November was at Mississippi State, which is the closest SEC school to UA. A LOT of students are able to make the 90-minute trek to Starkville to hang out for the game even if they aren’t able to get into the stadium. The rest of the students who are left behind are burned out because they are entering the home stretch of the semester, and have many finals projects and penultimate exams upcoming. Many of them are catching up on work, because let’s be honest, it can be hard to get work done on gameday weekend. </p>
<p>Add to that the fact that winter is starting to rear it cold head, and it’s just not the best picture of campus you’re going to get. I would implore you come visit in the spring when the campus is at it’s liveliest.</p>
<p>Yeegogirl, you could take that November visit and turn it into a positive. Did your daughter still like the campus? I point this out, because when we visited in December, 2008, it was 22 degrees, and the winds nearly knocked us over. There was no one on campus, because it was Christmas break. So we never saw the inside of a dorm, classes, the Ferg, etc. Still, my son found some positives about the visit. He went back two months later, and it rained nearly the whole time we were there. In the end, he looked at his visits as the worst it could be on the Alabama campus.</p>
<p>My D is a current freshman & I was also concerened about being left on
campus as we are from OOS and no chance to come home…</p>
<p>But in her case this is how fall quarter went:</p>
<p>Labor day asked to Atlanta with new sorority sister…</p>
<p>Fall break asked to Atlanta with roommate…</p>
<p>Asked to visit Clemson & Furman with a friend from class…</p>
<p>Asked to attend Mississippi State game with a friend from Alabama Action…</p>
<p>She has been to New Orleans & Auburn this semester & just returned from Spring break in Fla…</p>
<p>And she has been invited on many other trips but had to turn them down…</p>
<p>If the campus is going to be empty someone will invite a roadtrip! She has been invited many places for Easter but will be at school to show a hometown friend the UA campus.</p>
<p>She is actually loooking forward to the down time!!</p>
<p>My d & I also went for a visit back in November. It was an away game day.</p>
<p>As Feeno says…it sounds like you visited on the weekend of the Miss St game when many students went to the game…(Miss St is not far at all). It wasn’t hard to get tickets to that game, and as Feeno says, even when kids don’t have tickets, they’ll go and hang out there anyway.</p>
<p>I was there on the weekend of Dec 5 (which was an away game, too, but not one where kids could easily get tickets). There were a lot of kids in the library on that Saturday. </p>
<p>However, when we first got there, at 7:30am, it was quiet, but college kids are notorious for sleeping in on weekends. Things started “livening up” around 11 am. However, once the game started on TV, the campus was quiet again because kids had headed to wherever they could watch the game…their dorms, restaurants, etc.</p>
<p>I’ve visited many campuses on Saturdays and they aren’t always a good time to judge a school. Kids sleep in, they go to part-time jobs, they study in their rooms, they go to away games, etc. Also, kids use the weekends to go to the off-campus hangouts. At Bama, that would be: The Strip, Downtown, or Midtown Village. </p>
<p>Because the super suites are private rooms, many kids don’t have to leave their rooms to study in quiet.</p>
<p>UA wasn’t my daughter’s first choice when she was filling out the paperwork this Fall, but after several different campus visits it started rising on the list. She is looking forward to being an OSS.</p>
<p>The Honor’s program at UA has distinct advantages that you will not find elsewhere. (Honors housing, early class registration, good selection of honors classes, etc.) As mentioned in previous posts once you meet Dr. Sharpe, you will know that someone cares for your child as an individual and not simply another number. They are paying a lot of money in scholarships to attract the best & brightest to BAMA. That means your son will be attending school with several like-minded students.</p>
<p>I would recommend looking at size of the actual classes he will be attending and the number of students within his major besides just the overall size of the university. When we compared most of her classes are really smaller than they would be elsewhere. Likewise a larger University can offer more activities and clubs for different interest groups. (Check out all the different offerings at the Rec center alone…)</p>
<p>You can read all the books and gather tons of information but until they actually set foot on the campus and start talking with people who attend the school students can not get an accurate gage if it’s a good “fit” for them personally. When we visited they had made arrangements for lunch with a student from her major so she would feel more comfortable. She was able to ask several questions that she may not have queried if it had been university rep.</p>
<p>Good luck in your search. I’m sure he will find a school where he feels he belongs!</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses. The scholarship is amazing and I wish I could make another trip down but the flights are expensive. My daughter did have lunch with an honors student that day, which was nice. We were on campus from 10am-3pm. I love to hear of the nice opportunities that have omama’s daughter has been able to have. I think that’s what all mom’s would love for their children … lot’s of great options to enjoy. I figure my d would want to be in a sorority but don’t know how that process works.</p>
<p>We have our day planned when we visit UA this upcoming Tuesday April 14th. We will be meeting Jami, Dr. Halli, and Dr Sharpe, and the Director of the Study Abroad Program, AND Krazie will attend the Honors Seminar “International War Crimes” – right up her alley since she is interested in law and human rights.</p>
<p>mom 2ck - I thought you mentioned there was a “best view” entrance to the campus. Can you let me know which entrance that was (might as well see UA at our first glance at its most majestic). </p>
<p>Found out there will be a baseball home game that Tues evening so we will be purchasing tickets… .Krazie who is a baseball fanatic (in fact, she is at an Angels game right now) suddenly got a LOT more interested in seeing UA once she found out that we were going to a UA Baseball game . . it will make for a VERY long night though as we still have to drive all the way to Clemson after the 6:30 pm game for our Clemson tour there the next day.</p>
<p>We will be getting in Monday night. Can anyone tell me how to get to Dreamland BBQ from Birmingham airport (We are staying at the Winham). Since we are from S cali , we gotta fit in some real Southern BBQ and Southern food, hopefully we can eat at the Cracker Barrel too.</p>
<p>You’re staying at the Wingate, get back on I 59 and exit at McFarland Blvd and go north.</p>
<p>Take that for a few miles till you see the clover-leaf exit to University Blvd. (the clover leaf will turn you around and you’ll make a right onto University (going West). Being from Calif, you’re used to clover-leaf off-ramps that turn you around.</p>
<p>You’ll proceed West on University Blvd. (On the right, across from the hospital, you’ll see new construction of the future home of the College of Nursing.) Keep going. </p>
<p>As you come onto the campus, you’ll pass the quad on your right and then the stadium on your left. </p>
<p>If you zoom in on the university and click on “satellite and show labels” … [google</a> tuscaloosa - Google Maps](<a href=“Google Maps”>Google Maps)</p>
<p>Now, to get to guest parking…When you get to the stadium (which will be on your left)… Turn right onto Stadium Drive. Then Left onto Marrs Spring Dr. Then cross Campus Drive E and turn into the parking structure (that side is the Guest Side). After you park, head to Student Services Bldg (see on map) if you’re doing the campus tour first.</p>
<p>What order are you doing things on campus? Honors is in Nott Hall, which is on the east side of the quad.</p>
<p>As for Dreamland…are you asking for a Dreamland in B’ham or the one in T-Town?</p>
<p>We get in around 5 pm at BHM airport. Will rent a car and head towards UA. Plan to eat dinner at Dreamland and then find the Wingate.</p>
<p>Itinerary
9:30 Jami
10 Dr Halli
11- Honor Symposium
12:30 lunch at Lakeside
1:30- tour of Ridgecrest Residential
2 – Ms Channel, Study Abroad programs
3 Dr Sharpe</p>
<p>then (on our own)
4-5 drive around T town to get a feel
5:30 – go to the 6:30 baseball game
9 pm head up to Clemson</p>
<p>Guess we are not getting a “real” tour from the looks of the itinerary planned for us.</p>
<p>Dreamland Tuscaloosa: From Birmingham, take exit 73 (McFarland Blvd/US 82) and turn left at the end of the off-ramp. Go about 1/2 mile. Turn left at Jug Factory Road (right before the Country Inn hotel - if you’ve driven past a overpass, you’ve gone too far). Drive another half-mile up the hill. Turn right at 15th Avenue. It’s easy to miss so don’t drive too fast.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the only thing you can get at Dreamland Tuscaloosa is ribs. If you want anything else, you’ll need to go to the other Dreamland in Northport.</p>
D & I will be in Tuscaloosa this Saturday for Panhellenic Preview Day to see if she thinks Greek life might be a consideration this August. There’s a forum called