<p>I’m from St Louis, National Merit Finalist and eligible for the Presidential Scholarship at AU
Visited campus for Presidential Scholar Day, and I was really suprised at how nice it was. I really liked it. Plus a full ride makes it hard to turn down. My only concerns…</p>
<p>the overwhelmingly Southern student body. From what I can tell, most kids are in-state or from Atlanta, Miss., Tenn, Texas, or somewhere else in Georgia</p>
<p>So…just wondering if there’s any sizeable Midwestern presence, and would I fit in there (I have lots of friends lol…I mean would I fit in with the student body).
I’m from the Midwest obviously, white, non-religious/agnostic, pretty liberal, dislike NASCAR, hunting, pickups, and Republicans (lol)</p>
<p>Just looking for some feedback on whether or not Midwesterners are ok at AU. I’ll need plenty of luck to find a roommate from the Midwest.</p>
<p>My daughter is a NMF freshman at Auburn. She is from Florida and has found everyone to be fantastic. No, she isn’t from the Midwest, but Florida, even though it is south of Alabama and Georgia, isn’t south. She isn’t a “country girl” and she doesn’t like NASCAR or hunting, but she would peg herself as a moderate republican; less government but pro choice and pro gay. She hasn’t had a problem and absolutely loves being a member of the Auburn family. She has said she has heard of racial undertones among some, but no worse than in Florida. As for a roommate from the midwest, well that might be problem. All four of her roommates are from Georgia and all of her new found friends are from Georgia or Alabama. She hasn’t had any problems with any of them and finds them all to be great. </p>
<p>She said the Bible Belt influence is pretty strong and she has one very fundamental roommate with whom she gets along fine with as long as they don’t discuss religion. My daughter is not agnostic, but she is more liberal than a fundamentalist Christian. She has found people to be very accepting and above all, very friendly. She was bleeding orange and blue within a week of arriving on campus in the fall.</p>
<p>Almost half of us are black, the other half chew tobacco (including the women) and spit wherever we stand, we play banjoes on the porches of our shacks for fun, and in areas without Nascar we raise bulldogs and roosters to fight to the bloody end. Can we feed any other of your stereotypes today? </p>
<p>As someone who was born in Ohio and has lived all over the US from Colorado, to Florida, to Maryland and St. Louis and now Atlanta, I find such bigoted posts sickening. </p>
<p>My apologies to all others… You’ll be twice as welcomed as you make others feel. What you get out of it is more up to you than others.</p>
<p>We are from Ohio. D is NMF and will be starting in the fall. I have not seen, heard or read anything that would give me the impression that she would not be welcomed at Auburn. It has been quite the opposite.</p>
<p>I apologize for offending you, Monsieur Boatfoot…I wasn’t intending to stereotype anyone in the South, but it is hard to ignore the cultural difference between STL and Auburn. </p>
<p>I’m sure I will find kids who are like me at AU, should I choose to go there. I would definitely be open minded, wherever I go. The purpose of this thread was to figure out if there’s any other Midwesterners out there who are thinking about AU, and if people from the Midwest ever feel overwhelmed by Southern culture.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread. While sweeping stereotypes are always unfair, at the same time I can’t imagine anyone would deny that different regions of the U.S. have different cultural inclinations, including the South. Like lancersbaseball5, my son is a soon-to-be National Merit Finalist who has been offered Auburn’s very generous full-tuition+ scholarship. He too was very impressed with Auburn’s campus friendliness on a quick visit last fall, but I wonder a bit about how good of a fit Auburn would be culturally for a fairly liberal agnostic/atheist who, while he’s great at making friends, can take or leave football. He has been offered full tuition at Minnesota-Twin Cities and U of Delaware as well, but Auburn would definitely present the lightest financial burden since their scholarship includes housing and more. I welcome continued comments, especially from distant out-of-staters/NMF’s who have attended Auburn.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread. While sweeping stereotypes are always unfair, at the same time I can’t imagine anyone would deny that different regions of the U.S. have different cultural inclinations, including the South. Like lancersbaseball5, my son is a soon-to-be National Merit Finalist who has been offered Auburn’s very generous full-tuition+ scholarship. He too was very impressed with Auburn’s campus friendliness on a quick visit last fall, but I wonder a bit about how good of a fit Auburn would be culturally for a fairly liberal agnostic/atheist who, while he’s great at making friends, can take or leave football. He has been offered full tuition at Minnesota-Twin Cities and U of Delaware as well, but Auburn would definitely present the lightest financial burden since their scholarship includes housing and more. I welcome continued comments, especially from distant out-of-staters/NMF’s who have attended Auburn.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what the Greek scene is like at Auburn? Is it hard to socialize without being part of it?
Also, what do out of state students do on weekends? (I’ve heard most in-staters go home)</p>
<p>Considering how many students are OOS, even if half the in-staters were to go home, there would plenty of students still at AU. Besides, at least during football season, no one goes home if there’s a home game.:)</p>
<p>D is a freshman this year, and came to Auburn from CA. There are many OOS kids who are NMF living in honors housing, and she is thrilled with her school choice. The kids she hangs out with cook nice meals in their kitchen, go swing dancing, attend sporting events, visit Montgomery for ice skating, take day trips into Atlanta for the aquarium, and have old fashioned game nights. It always sounds like she’s having a great time, and she never had a hard time adapting to the culture there. According to the stats, Auburn is around 30% Greek, but she’s never bored on the weekends, even without pledging a sorority. I was really worried that she wouldn’t have a group of friends around her–she knew no one when the year started, but she quickly met many amazing kids from all over. One of her roommates is also from California, so there is definitely some geographic diversity–especially with the Presidential/NMF scholarship recipients.</p>
<p>Our biggest worry now is that our hs sophomore will want to attend Auburn as well, and won’t have the test scores to grab any scholarship $$!</p>
<p>I back up what everyone has said. We’re from Minnesota, and our daughter loves it there. The only thing she has mentioned as far as being from the midwest, is getting teased for her accent. She has mentioned many many more positive things about the south, mainly how nice and polite the people are there.
She is not into the Greek scene at all, and that is not a problem. Only one of her friends is in a sorority. Football is so big in the fall that you will not have to worry about the week-ends until spring. For the first time my daughter mentioned that her Alabama friends were able to go home on the week-ends and she couldn’t. (We did say we’d fly her home for a week-end if she wanted to)
A good friend of hers from Minnesota flew down to visit her last week-end. The one comment she made was how nice my daughter’s friends are. She liked Auburn so much that she is saving her money and wants to visit my daughter again in the fall.
College and developing friendships is what you make of it. If you go in with an open mind, you will have no problem fitting in. I would strongly advise against going there with a stereotypical attitude about the south. I would actually recommend a roommate from Alabama. My daughter has found they have a lot of local knowledge about the state which comes in handy.
PS-mountainwestmom, my daughter turned down a full ride at University of Minnesota, our home state flagship. I think it was the best decision she’s ever made.
PPS-sherigmom, we might have the same problem with our younger daughter-lol.</p>
<p>My d will attend Auburn in the fall–we are from Chicago but live in FL now. She was accepted at several Midwest schools that she loved and found Auburn to have the same flavor. Two of my friends have children at Auburn and they have not found the student body to be biased against OOS kids–quite the opposite. Not so for two of my friends who have kids at Clemson where they say there is a subtle but definite we/they. The B school at AU said they are actively recruiting for the business school from OOS and close to 60% of their kids are OOS.</p>
<p>I was recruited heavily by the B school (OOS) and really felt wanted. I have a sibling at AU and other students think being from Texas is cool! They were curious and asked a lot of questions about Texas, and I guess some people could take that the wrong way, but he loved it. AU students are just very open and friendly, so that could be considered nosy or too personal for people from areas that may have more reserved attitudes.</p>
He has been offered full tuition at Minnesota-Twin Cities and U of Delaware as well, but Auburn would definitely present the lightest financial burden since their scholarship includes housing and more. I welcome continued comments, especially from distant out-of-staters/NMF’s who have attended Auburn.</p>