I’ve been accepted and toured both universities. I have procured enough scholarship money to make each school affordable, but now I have to decide!
Biggest factors:
- Engineering programs. best-engineering-colleges.com rates Alabama at 102 and Ole Miss at 212, which is a HUGE difference. However, Ole Miss has the CME, which will be great if I choose mechanical engineering. Also, my other possibility (geo. engineering) isn't offered at Bama.
- Honors programs. I've been accepted to both, but the tours and info sessions didn't really help me out. Surely they're both great, but is one more distinguished than the other?
… Alabama has nicer facilities, no doubt. However, I feel more at home in Oxford, as it is closer to and more similar to my hometown.
Any help concerning the programs of the universities and the career placement they provide would be greatly appreciated!!
What is CME?
Alabama has far better facilities than Ole Miss, no question.
The Center for Manufacturing Excellence is a program at Ole Miss that provides general, mechanical, and chemical engineering majors an opportunity to work alongside business management and accounting majors in an effort to create better understanding throughout the workplace.
Have you looked into STEM MBA at Bama? It sounds similar to what you are referring to and might be a good option for you if you choose Bama.
Did you meet with the honors department, have lunch with an honors student, tour the honors dorm at Bama? All very impressive. Speaking of dorms, I would imagine Bama’s dorms are probably nicer than Ole Miss, although I have not been to Ole Miss’ campus.
Are you interested in research? Emerging Scholars is also a program that matches freshman students with professors for research in your field of interest.
Lots of great opportunities at Alabama!
I seen the dorms, but otherwise know little about either honors program… The dorms are nicer, but you get what you pay for at either university.
I have heard of neither the STEM MBA nor the Emerging Scholars program… I’ll look into them! Thank you!!
Ole Miss and Alabama were the final two left on my son’s list. He ultimately chose Alabama, but only because of the STEM-MBA program (he’s a physics major with the Presidential who gave up his Alabama engineering scholarship at the last moment, realizing he had no passion for engineering.) He’s about to finish his first year in Tuscaloosa, and as I recall the reasons he liked each school and the reasons he ultimately chose Alabama, I can share some info (I toured both campuses with him, and we spent time in each community at the time of those tours, getting to know the area, as we were coming from out of state):
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Dorms: No difference really, as both schools offer nice housing, except Ole Miss does not offer as many of the four-room suites as Alabama - most students are in double rooms, in new housing, and Ole Miss does offer a lot of living-learning facilities. But my son has spent a year in the larger Ridgecrest West style suite, and there is nothing special as it turns out (and now that he has informed me - he’s home on spring break - that the Ridgecrest West dorms are sinking - his roommate’s door no longer closes as the door frame twists - and those dorms, he has been told, are going to have to be torn down) I don’t think it really matters now. He’s going to be moving over to the smaller Ridgecrest South suites in the fall, which are smaller, and which are also sinking into the ground. Ole Miss offered special housing for Provost Scholars like my son (Ole Miss has a special Honors College that my son did not want to apply to, but for students like him, with the same academic records, they get to be part of the Provost Scholars program, and that gives them a community, special housing in newer dorms.) The Provost Scholars suites were smaller than Alabama’s but not sinking into the ground, at least as of last summer. Key issue with housing is roommates really. Get good roommates and you can live anywhere, in my opinion.
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Facilities: Ole Miss is beautiful, Alabama is beautiful. Ole Miss is cozier, Alabama is expanding exponentially. The physics labs at Ole Miss were impressive, and my son got a one-on-one personal tour with the dean. He would have had great opportunities at Ole Miss similar to Alabama. Sure is easier getting from one side of Ole Miss to the other side, given how large Alabama is. My son finds all the building at Alabama to be somewhat amusing as he attends his Chem labs and there are no supplies (it’s worse this semester than last.) He wonders about the priorities. Perhaps Ole Miss has not yet grown so much that they are able to keep their chem labs are well-stocked (and, no, it can’t be blamed on the TA’s - they are just as frustrated, believe me.)
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Community: Well, for an out of state student, it really matters a lot what is available to do on campus and around campus, especially if coming to campus without a car. Oxford’s Square beats Tuscaloosa’s Strip any day. The Square is hard to beat, and the Strip just does not offer the same kind of charm. Of course, one can take a shuttle on the weekends to shopping in Tuscaloosa, and we certainly appreciate the airport shuttles that Alabama offers. But Ole Miss offers all of that, too - airport shuttles, Zipcars, buses around town. My son would love to be able to walk down to someplace like the Square, to a charming bookstore, or a quiet independent cafe (not Starbucks), and maybe places like that will open up near Alabama. All comes down to personal preference again.
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Program at Ole Miss that I wish had been at Alabama: I think the Ole Miss First Year Experience EDHE 105 class would have been very beneficial for my son, and I don’t believe Alabama offers anything like it. My son is independent, but the transition at college during the first year brings many surprises, and the Ole Miss EDHE 105 would have been a great opportunity. Ole Miss is a more intimate, cozy, smaller-town, smaller-community experience than Alabama is as it grows and grows and grows. I think one needs to consider how easy the transition to college will be. If already a very independent student, then there is no difference, as both schools offer great programs and the independent student will take advantage of whatever he/she wants to do no matter what campus. If a student would benefit from being in a program that puts cohorts of students together, in a set of classes together, and they are able to build an immediate community during that first year, then what Ole Miss offers is compelling, especially via that EDHE 105 course. Alabama’s Honor College, via Honors classes, could achieve this, too, but my son came in with nearly all of his general education classes completed, so Honors, at least during the freshman year, has barely played a role in his experience so far. When comparing the programs, it depends on personalities and resources.
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Cost: Well, my son had full tuition plus at both, but Ole Miss is less expensive, and maybe he would have had a better dining experience at Ole Miss, which would have saved us a lot of cash.
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Overall: I think it comes down to which school one feels most at home and which one offers the program you want. My son really really liked Ole Miss (and I liked the cheaper price and the gorgeous campus), and the personal attention he received from professors and students, and he loved the Square, but he found the prospect of having to say “Hotty Toddy” not something he looked forward to (silly, perhaps, but everything counts), and I guess he just wanted to go to a larger school. Alabama just seemed like the better choice for him - and it was entirely his choice. He also liked having the STEM-MBA opportunity. I asked my son to apply to Ole Miss at the last minute - he already had several options but there is a great Physics professor over at Ole Miss who I happened to read about in the late fall, and since my son had Alabama and other southern schools that had offered him opportunities, I figured he might as well apply to Ole Miss and see what happened. When we went to the open house at Ole Miss, the room was filled with other out-of-state students, too. For my other kids who will be applying to colleges this summer, one prefers Ole Miss because Ole Miss is smaller, and the other does not care for either school.
Best of luck as you make your choice. You have two wonderful options fro which to choose, and that is a blessing in and of itself.
“that the Ridgecrest West dorms are sinking - his roommate’s door no longer closes as the door frame twists - and those dorms, he has been told, are going to have to be torn down) Alabama’s but not sinking into the ground, at least as of last summer.”
Oh my, have you contacted Housing about this? This rumor goes around every single year. Usually it’s about RCS. If the door frame is in fact twisting and the door will not close as you have been told, I would highly recommend an urgent call to Housing.
“as he attends his Chem labs and there are no supplies (it’s worse this semester than last.) He wonders about the priorities.”
I’ve had two children in Chemistry and neither they nor their friends report any issues with a lack of supplies. I’d have him contact Erica Livingston immediately. She’s in charge of the labs.
“and maybe he would have had a better dining experience at Ole Miss, which would have saved us a lot of cash.”
As for dining options, what seems to be the issue? Although mine didn’t always like Lakeside, they were always able to find something they would eat at either Fresh Foods or Burke.
“Program at Ole Miss that I wish had been at Alabama: I think the Ole Miss First Year Experience EDHE 105 class would have been very beneficial for my son, and I don’t believe Alabama offers anything like it. My son is independent, but the transition at college during the first year brings many surprises, and the Ole Miss EDHE 105 would have been a great opportunity.”
Bama does offer a course for freshmen students that seems very similar to this. It’s called HYO Honors Connection Mentoring. It’s only available to freshmen. Both of ours took it and then served as mentors the following year. It was very helpful as you said.
Bama isn’t perfect and it won’t be for everyone, but we have not experienced a problem with any of these issues mentioned.
@UAHousing Janine, could you address the issue stated in post #5 about the residential dorms “Sinking and needing to be demolished” The statement was made about Ridgecrest South and Ridgecrest West.
Could we get some clarification on this concern??
^That rumor is perpetuated every year by students repeating it and is akin to freshmen high schoolers being told by upperclassmen that they can buy tickets to the elevator to visit the rooftop swimming pool.
^^^ I am sure that it is a rumor, but if @UAHousing can address this, it will put prospective parent’s and student’s minds at ease.
My student lived in Ridgecrest South without incident.
Maybe, but I doubt UA Housing will respond to a silly rumor on a public forum. Then what? As a parent, if I were truly concerned that this rumor held any validity I would contact UA Housing directly and ask before posting it on a public forum. I’m not doubting that a student heard this from another student and repeated it to his parent. Repeating a rumor on a public forum without trying to establish its validity serves no one. The UA isn’t perfect (although it’s pretty darn close in my book), but sinking dorms? Nah. That’s just kids being kids.
“He’s going to be moving over to the smaller Ridgecrest South suites in the fall, which are smaller, and which are also sinking into the ground.”
I’m challenging chesterton’s comments, not chesterton personally. The OP is trying to compare schools. I don’t think rumors help.
What’s funny is that the rumors used to be about the Riverside residence halls being built as temporary structures which would last only 10 years, 15 if some extended maintenance was preformed. It’s been 10+ years and they are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Ridgecrest South was built on somewhat swampy ground, but the architects and construction companies worked hard to overcome that.
As for a door not closing properly, that is a common maintenance issue. I had that issue with the front door of a suite and maintenance came and replaced the steel door with a solid wood one when they noticed that the door didn’t work well while fixing another issue.
If one has problems with their room, fill out a maintenance request and the problem will be fixed in 1-3 business days, maybe earlier. It’s not worth it to perform unauthorized maintenance oneself when UA will do authorized repairs for free.
Having been faced with the same dilemma, I went with Alabama, but there are pros and cons to either.
Ole Miss is and feels like a smaller school. It’s also more “Old South” feeling (not a bad thing). The facilities are no where near as nice as Alabama. The town of Oxford is nicer than Tuscaloosa. It’s smaller and more upscale. Tuscaloosa is larger and less centered strictly around the University.
Alabama has far nicer facilities especially dorms. It’s more cosmopolitan. Tuscaloosa traffic can be a pain. McFarland Blvd clogs worse than a third world toilet. Alabama seems to have more money to attract better faculty as well.
My conclusion was: Alabama/Tuscaloosa is a better place to go to school, Oxford/Ole Miss is a nicer place to live afterwords.