Going from California to the South for College

I’m from Southern California and am looking at a few colleges in the South: U of Alabama, U of Georgia, and U of Tennesee. I was wondering if anyone has advice for moving from here to the South? How different would it be? What are the main differences between here and there? What’s the weather like? Are any of these schools worth paying OOS rates for? Etc… Thanks!

In terms of OOS rates, would you be paying list OOS price, or would you qualify for scholarships to reduce the price?

Compared to most California public universities, those three flagships have undergraduate students that are from wealthier backgrounds (19-29% Pell grant, versus 19-68%) and are mostly white (70-78%, versus 7-56%).

I would be worried way more about the social differences - than the wealth differences, since many Californian’s buy cars the prices of peoples houses in those states. Not saying CA people are wealthier but clumping the zillions of students in the CA system in to one statistic seems like a blurred picture.

If going to another part of the country like the south, I would look at schools with a large mixed population. We looked at a southern school but with 80% instate kids, it did not have the diversity mine are use to and require.

Not that there aren’t fantastic places in the south, but to me the main differences would be the mindset. Perceptions of race and women still vary in many places. My African American friend is terrified to drive in the south. Last time he did, he was pulled over and the trooper asked him, :“Hey boy, what you are doing on my highway?” He is a VP of engineering at a Fortune 500 company, graduate of Cal and Stanford, who was visiting for a friends wedding. It is not the same everywhere. Visit and see for yourself. Form your own opinions.

If you are looking at southern school with a good geographic mix, University of Alabama is a nice choice. In fact, 51% of studnet body is OOS.

Asking about the main differences between California and The South is waaaayyy to general for anyone here to answer. Are you from Los Angeles or Big Bear? No one here is going to try to explain all the differences to you. But you should pay attention to what @scotlandcalling says. You seem to know nothing about the South. Why do you want to go to school there?

I don’t think the differences between California and The South are that great. It’s still the United States, people speak English, go to McDonald’s (unless they’re going to Waffle House,) watch the same TV networks. I find the people in The South tend to be friendlier than people elsewhere in the country. I can understand why someone who had never been there might think The South is a hotbed of racists from the media, but if you visit, you find that it isn’t.

My daughter grew up in California and graduated from Middle Tennessee State. She loves Nashville and I don’t remember her having any problems attending school in Tennessee.

My daughter is from the northeast and attended a homogeneous, relatively wealthy HS. She did not want this in college. She currently attends school in the south and loves it. She describes her school as “very liberal,” and very different than her HS.

She recently returned from an internship in a different southern state and LOVED it…she was in a city and spent the summer with people from all over. They recently visited and toured a school you mentioned and she liked it.

Will you be able to visit these areas? We visited other schools in the south and they were clearly not for my daughter.

Most southern large flagships are far more liberal than their surrounding states–Fayetteville, Arkansas, Tuscaloosa, Oxford, Athens, etc., are liberal havens compared to many areas of their respective states. I would not worry about the impression you get from the movie “Deliverance” or random articles on HuffPo or Daily Beast twitter feeds. I agree with an above poster, however, that like with any OOS school I would pick one with at least 25% OOS population–Alabama is nearly 50%, as is Ole Miss, and several like Arkansas are at 30%.

Was that in one of the two states whose state flags incorporate CSA flags?

@scotlandcalling @ucbalumnus

Take it from me, someone whose family transplanted to the South from the North. I experienced more bigotry, racism, ethnic slurs, fights and vile language during our summer visits to our loudmouth, city dwelling, blue color, union member, card carrying democrat, northern relatives and their friends, than I did in 25yrs of living in the “deep south.” I learned early on that I never wanted to live anywhere north of Tennessee.

Our colorful relatives would jokingly apologize to their friends that we were their, “backward cousins from the south.” The cognitive dissonance… They would then proceed to get drunk and trade stories, introducing each new character with their ethnic or racial background… "You know Joe? Yeah, he’s a " “Ha ha.” “Well yeah, he’s a good though” “Ha ha”…

This kind of behavior would make you an outcast in the south. When northerners poke fun at the south for bigotry, it makes my skin crawl.

Yep!

@Greymeer yes, and you just described what we go thru when we visit H’s relatives around Chicago. They claim to be liberals, but the racist comments that come out of their mouths would have gotten them upclose and personal with an Ivory bar soap if they had been raised in my family.

@madi12 I’m a native southern Californian who now lives in the south. I actually now live quite close to UAlabama.

To the person who made the income comments…you need to visit Bama. The majority are not low income kids.

I would avoid any OOS public where the OOS numbers are low/lowish (UGA, UTenn). The problem with state schools that have low OOS numbers is that they become suitcase schools when there’s no football game keeping them on campus.

As for paying…do you qualify for any scholarships? What are your parents saying about paying for college?

I know of a couple Virginia kids who went to UGA. Had very good experiences. Most flagships, even if there are not big OOS numbers of kids , don’t seem to be “suitcase schools.”

Colleges in Florida might be smoother to transition into. Check out Florida State, Florida Atlantic U., South Florida, & Central Florida.

In my experience, when people from California go out of state, they are most likely to rub people the wrong way by: 1. complaining that the weather isn’t as good as in California and 2. unfavorably comparing the local Mexican restaurants to the ones back home.

Funny (and true) about the Mexican restaurants!
On a recent trip to Brevard NC we dined at the local Mexican restaurant-which was quite busy- and were offered french fries OR tortilla chips and I’m pretty sure the “salsa” was straight tomato sauce.
However…Nashville has some excellent taco places…Bar Taco, for one, is great.

<<<<funny (and="" true)="" about="" the="" mexican="" restaurants!="">>>

Omg! When I first visited Alabama in 1999, I could not find a decent Mexican restaurant. I swear, the salsa served was Pace Picante…everywhere. Then, through word of mouth, we found a legit place. Soon after, more and more good ones popped up. Now, those odd Pace Picante places are a thing of the past.

Depending on the social scenes and extracurriculars (athletics, Greek life, religious life, etc.) and diversity (race/ethnicity, wealth, sexual orientation, and so on) you’re looking for in a college, the southern flagships will have trade-offs with CA colleges. If you’re dying to have a huge Armenian or Persian community, for example, UCLA would make a lot more sense than Kansas or Ole Miss. If you’d like a large community of African-American students or a large Greek scene, on the other hand, Ole Miss fares much better in that regard.

If people are going to be bigots, I’d rather it be to my face. Things like HB 2 show that bigotry is alive and well in NC, the state I called home for over two decades. There’s a lot I don’t like about California, but I feel much more comfortable as a gay guy here than I do back in NC, and I’m not keen to move back.

You’ll get no argument from me that some northern places are among the most highly racially segregated places in the country (Chicago and Milwaukee being relatively well known examples), indicating likely very high levels of racism, even though the white people there may be more left leaning on economic issues than those in southern places.

On the other hand, it isn’t like the OP is moving from the midwest to the south or vice-versa. Much of California is an outlier compared to the rest of the US in terms of anything race/ethnicity related.