Huntsville or Tuscaloosa

Reading the forum on UAH, the size looks more like what DS initially would have preferred.

However, with the Presidential Scholarship, UA it is the top choice. He is waiting on financial aid awards from 2 colleges yet. However I am wondering if he should apply to Huntsville as well. On the UAH forum, it sounds like they also have good engineering department? He would be OOS, so dorming there.

He,so far, is committed to Computer engineering. Would UA still be the best school for him? Or should he go ahead and apply to UAH as well?

Anyone contribute to the pros/cons of UAH over UA.

Laralei: I have had one son graduate from Alabama. He has degrees in econ and political science and minors in CBHP and mathematics. He is currently in his first year of law school at UVA. I also have a younger son who is a freshman at UAH. He is majoring in econ/finance/accounting and minoring in mathematics. He is also a member of the cross country/track teams.

Applying to UAH will not hurt your son. I do encourage you to visit the school. It is considerably smaller than UA, and there is no football team. My son quickly accepted that fact, because he really wanted to run in college. UAH gave him that opportunity. BTW, he also got into UA, but he knows that he would have had no chance to compete there. He really does like UAH. He lives in a four-person suite with his teammates. Two are engineering majors, and they are local kids who chose to live on campus. His other roommate is an OOS kid like he is (we live in VA).

My son is a huge hockey fan, so he enjoys attending UAH games. He also has gone to basketball, soccer and volleyball. As for academics, he has had his share of challenges, but he is an Honors Scholar (the UAH version of the Dean’s List). He also joined an fraternity, and he has several brothers who are OOS students. Many of his fraternity brothers, as well as his track teammates, are engineering majors. He often says that he graduate and walk across the street to your first job. The school has excellent internship and co-op possibilities. What made my son happy was to hear that they have more internships in business than they have students who can fill them. In other words, if you want an internship, you should be able to get one.

As for my older son, he loved his time at Alabama. He has several friends who graduated with engineering degrees. One is working in Kansas City for the company that offered him a co-op when he was a student. Another is in consulting in DC. A third is getting her PhD in engineering at Stanford. All had wonderful experiences at UA and in engineering.

I think your son needs to visit both schools.

It can be a challenge to be an OOS student at UAH without some other “tie” to the school…like a sport. UAH consists of mostly kids who live within about 35 mile radius. It is largely a commuter/suitcase school. It is a very good school, but you need to be aware of that.

Yes, it is good for engineering, so is Bama.

I think your son should visit both and make his decision.

Can you visit?

BTW…is your son going to take the AP English Comp exam? It’s easy to self-study.