@EarlVanDorn - The honors seminars I provided a link to earlier (UH 300) range in size from 8 to 15 (with one outlier with an enrollment cap of 6).
Most of the UH 120 seminars, of which there are some 34 different options available in the fall, have an enrollment cap of 15, although there are a few that are larger or smaller.
There are also over a dozen seminars offered that are exclusively for freshmen (UH 155), with comparable enrollment caps.
And these are just the seminar offerings. There are several honors courses that are offered every semester, each with its own designated course number (and comparable enrollment caps), as well as the many, many honors sections offered in all the other departments. The latter won’t necessarily have 15 students, but will still be quite a bit smaller than the non-honors section of the same course.
It’s not the same at Bama because admission into the Honors College isn’t competitive. It’s automatic based on test score (and perhaps GPA).
Admission into the more selective programs - Computer-Based Honors (CBH) and University Fellows Experience (UFE) - is another thing altogether. For each of the two programs, only 35 to 40 candidates are admitted from many hundreds of applications, and the applications themselves are limited to candidates with qualifying stat’s.
Yes do remember that not many upperclassmen can get housing. This year I think was the first year that such a small percentage were able to recontract after freshman year (for Fall 2016). Enrollments at Bama are rising considerably every year and there are no new dorms being built that I know of. Alternatively, there are some very nice places off campus fairly close (all within 2 miles), many only renting to college students (there are other colleges in town) that can be had for $500-700/mo base price which I think in some cases can be cheaper than the on campus suite style living.
DS is NMF and will be starting sophomore year in the Fall and loves UA as much as he did when he first viewed it. He considers it his home, is studying aerospace and we are thrilled as his parents not to be in debt over college!