Good morning. My daughter and I have just returned from college visits in Alabama and Georgia. We saw 3 schools and they were all beautiful, friendly, and the visits were extremely informative. We quickly dropped one school from our list and the others rose to #1 and #2 on her short list as a result of our visits. I wanted to thank the regular posters on this board for sharing their advice and enthusiasm for their schools.
The visits were exhausting but informative. Without giving too much personal information I will share some highlights. On our tours between the schools we had department meetings, met with professors, met with reps from the Honors Colleges (individually and in a small group session), met with a student ambassadors for smaller tours as well as students who took us to lunch to discuss student life (scheduling classes, internships, sorority life, housing, etc…), took larger group tours, and had a multiple informal meetings/discussions with students along the way. We found the departmental meetings informative but a bit rehearsed and scripted. The question and answer sessions during these were a bit annoying as there were many questions asked that were already covered just minutes before or easily available in the folders they provided or online. However, we are happy that we attended to get an overview of options available. We really appreciated the student led large group tours that gave us an overview of the campus and also the individual student tours that gave us a chance to really get to know individual students and their first hand impression of the school. Meeting with the professors and career offices were great and gave us a nice feel for what the schools had to offer.
University of Alabama specifically was a well organized visit that stood out. I can’t say enough about the campus and the student body. The campus was easy to navigate and did not feel overwhelmingly large. Everyone that we met was extremely polite and friendly (also the case at Auburn – not so much at our Georgia school). As we stood looking at our campus map trying to navigate to our next appointment, helpful students were everywhere. Some led us directly where we needed to go, talking to us about their experiences the entire time. One helpful student that we met by chance was from our home state and was very open in sharing their experiences with logistics of getting to and from campus/home - he even gave us his email and phone number in case we had any more questions - WOW! My daughter was also on the “look out” for greek letters and was trying to determine if she could “fit in” at a sorority. She came away with the feeling that you don’t need to have a certain “look” to go Greek at UA and after talking to several students she felt that she could fit in either way (if she decides to rush or not). While in the dining hall she struck up a conversation with 3 girls who were eating together -2 were Greek but wearing different letters and it turned out one was independent. They were freshman who were coming from a shared class and were gracious to share about rush and their experiences (being Greek - and not being Greek).
I was originally reluctant to look at such a large school so far from home but being on campus certainly took all those fears away. We were on campus for 2 days and we never saw a crush of students. In fact, we felt that there appeared to be many more students at the other schools that we toured - although we know that going by numbers UA has a larger student population. We toured a large lecture hall a few minutes before class began with students filing in, as well as smaller classes (in session and between classes). We spoke with a TA for the large lecture class and were invited to sit in and stay for class - we had to decline because we were headed to another appointment, although my daughter wished we could stay. We witnessed busier times but it never seemed like there were 40K + students on campus. We ate in the dining hall twice. On tour we met many out of state students and my daughter felt like she would fit in just fine. My daughter said she would be very happy at UA and it rose to the top of her list.
The Honors College reps were amazing to work with and we feel that this made all the difference for our experience. The campus was packed with other “spring break” tours and without the extra sessions set up by the Honors College we could have easily missed many of our best experiences that helped UA stand out. To anyone else on the fence — arrange a visit! If your child has the stats, arrange your visit through the honors college.