<p>Thanks for all your insights, it is greatly appreciated. Agreed racism is everywhere, but never encountered anything in my 17 years living in the suburbs of Chicago. After talking to my counselor she basically said the same thing as most on here. She also didn’t seemed too thrilled about Alabama’s academic reputation and basically, in not so many words, said going to Alabama would be a mistake. Also my parents are not too happy about me considering University of Alabama, given its not so great academic reputation and racist past… The semi-good news is, I have been wait listed at Duke; I honestly thought I was going to get denied. So time will tell… I have to think about all of this and make sense of all this. Thanks again, didn’t expect so many responses!!</p>
<p>Bama doesn’t have a bad academic rep. I’m questioning many of their judgments, no offense.</p>
<p>Yeah … I wouldn’t call a school ranked 75th in the nation (if you go by US News), with some top ranked programs and growing prestige to be poor (or anything less than good) academically. I’ve been stunned by the personal attention and vast academic opportunities given to top students here.</p>
<p>But, I’m sure you’ll be happy wherever you choose to go, good luck!</p>
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<p>Really? How do you know? Does the FBI UCR data, for example, support that assertion?</p>
<p>Also, I’m curious what a “racial crime” is.</p>
<p>My cousin went there for a year and he said it was fine (We’re Somalian.)</p>
<p>“if your asian friend thinks alabama is racist perhaps he should visit east asia
korea,japan, and china are all more racist and openly so
but its only wrong when whites are racist right?”</p>
<p>No one said they were right. The behavior in Alabama doesnt became right when compared to behavior that is - according to you - more extreme. That’s like saying Child predators arent so bad once they compared to Nazis. They are only different in degrees.</p>
<p>@ohiobassmom yes it is well documented
heres a major study</p>
<p><a href=“The Color of Crime - American Renaissance”>The Color of Crime - American Renaissance;
<p>and if you are not convinced you can check out the references at the end for yourself</p>
<p>@Mike - we should take as a serious and nonpartial source a report written by an organization whose mission statement includes: " it is entirely normal for whites (or for people of any other race) to want to be the majority race in their own homeland.** If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people**."</p>
<p>[Our</a> Issues | American Renaissance](<a href=“http://www.amren.com/about/issues/]Our”>Our Issues - American Renaissance)</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>That’s absolutely inane.</p>
<p>Anyone with the intelligence and drive to create a company like Google or Facebook will be successful regardless of where they go, entrepreneurs don’t really need college anyway. For equal students, there’s hardly a difference in job opportunities between Illinois and Alabama (in some fields, Alabama is superior). Comparing the quality of past student bodies is a very poor metric for determining how good a school’s academics or potential job opportunities are.</p>
<p>Not to mention that the demographics of UA today are vastly different than they were 5 years ago. The past fall class had a 44% acceptance rate and 240 NMFs …</p>
<p>@ohiobassmom<br>
their mission is irrelevant
facts are facts </p>
<p>you can verify their sources and try to discredit them that way
references are at the bottom</p>
<p>@Mike1213</p>
<p>If their mission is racist, then yes, anything reported by said source is incredibly circumspect.</p>
<p>Facts are not facts when you choose to ignore a HUGE heap of other facts (such as systemic racism that dates back since hmmm the inception of this country and beyond…??).</p>
<p>I sincerely hope you are still in school, because you need a MAJOR history/sociology/critical theory lesson. Or 20.</p>
<p>If you choose a school in the south, such as Alabama, you’re guaranteeing yourself to get good job offers in the south. Around here, people support the local schools, which may not be ranked nationally with amazing prestige, but locally they’re considered to be excellent.</p>
<p>If you wouldn’t mind working and living in the south after graduation, then Alabama would be an excellent choice. $45k down south will take you a lot further than it would up north. Around here $90k is an upper middle class family, so if you were to get married and your spouse was making the same thing, you definitely wouldn’t be hurting financially. Comparing money in the north and south is comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>My house is in a safe neighborhood and about 2500 square feet. It’s only worth about $100k… if that. That same house up north would cost $700-800k in some cities up north, if not more.</p>
<p>As far as race goes, I don’t know anything about the U of Alabama, but most of the south these days gets along with each other just fine and in my experience, when racism does exist, it’s more likely to be against Blacks than Indians. My dad went to segregated schools until his senior year, and he said that anyone who wasn’t black (such as Indians) actually went to the white schools.</p>
<p>And I’ll agree on the separating naturally only because I saw it with my own two eyes. I went to a majority white private school and so the non-white kids <em>had</em> to make white friends or else they wouldn’t have any friends, so we were all well integrated. Whenever I switched to a public elementary school that was about half white and about half black, I was surprised how the students didn’t mix. We had two lunch tables in my class. All of the white kids sat at one table and all of the other kids sat at the other table. I sat down at the table without the black students and didn’t even think anything of it, but I did get some strange looks. No one said anything and everyone in our class got along really well, but it was definitely a strange occurrence. Most of the other classes at the school were the same way, but no actual “racist” events happened.</p>
<p>The most racist thing that I’ve heard this year is that “Blacks in college are different from high school. The ones here are actually smart and want to learn.” That’s a product of the fact that my city is 70% black and 30% white, yet 99% of the Honors/AP classes are white. And I don’t think that comment stemmed from hatred, just more of ignorance.</p>
<p>Notredamefan has obviously never been to a UA career fair. Lots of major companies hire there. This is not your father’s Bama. No doubt the schools he mentioned are excellent, but high end students can get get full scholarships to UA’s excellent honors college. These OOS students would spend $150K more for a degree from Michigan.</p>
<p>@big10champ</p>
<p>What huge heap of other facts are being ignored? You think “systemic racism” is the cause for all of this? Thats plain ridiculous and you know it. These statistics were even adjusted to income and education level and the conclusion remained the same.</p>
<p>btw facts are always facts i get what you are trying to say about needing to know the cause of those facts but to say facts are not always facts is nonsensical</p>
<p>
As far as I can tell, the statistics never controlled for more than one variable at once, which is very poor methodology. You can’t easily draw conclusions from such an analysis. (If I tell you the crime rates for blacks vs whites and for poor vs rich people, you don’t know anything about the crime rates of rich blacks or poor whites.) </p>
<p>A slightly better comparison would control for several variables at once: “What’s the violent crime rate for blacks vs white adults aged ___ to ___ who have not completed high school and live in poverty?”</p>
<p>An even better comparison would look at more detailed data. High school diplomas are not created equal. Are we talking about AP students or remedial students? Beyond their own family income, what’s the socio-economic make-up of their neighborhood? </p>
<p>Do a better statistical analysis and I’ll be more inclined to believe the conclusion.</p>
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<p>My sixth grade teacher would fail me on references like those. </p>
<p>“We’d use the UCR stats but we don’t like they way they categorize Hispanics” yadda yadda yadda, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. </p>
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</p>
<p>No, it’s not. They’re impartial or they have an agenda to promote. Clearly in their case it’s the latter.</p>