I see so many posts saying “You have to visit, you will be sold or hooked”. Why so?
My son is NMSF and should be a Finalist next mo. He is a very high achiever in school because he has a strong work ethic. He has applied to the HC at Alabama, been admitted, and we even have deposits down for enrollment and housing. However, he is lukewarm on the idea. He thinks he wants a smaller college experience, probably because he hears my wife and I (State U grads) talking about our larger classes, huge campus, etc. He’s decided he wants to be more than 50 miles from home, so our State U is likely out, which is completely fine by us. His happiness is so much more important to us than being a legacy.
We have a tour scheduled for end of Feb (weather may not be great) and the admissions office is customizing a schedule for the entire day. Hopefully he will meet with a HC advisor get to see the honors dorms. He plans to major in Biology and go to med school. Incidentally, admissions office has been awesome.
Just wondering what is going to be so spectacular about Alabama? Thanks in advance.
Hi, it seems to be the standing opinion that the campus visit really does “seal the deal”. The campus visit has been known to sell the university even to those who may still be “on the fence”. Students tend to really like the individualized tours, but in my opinion, it is the people you meet who will really make a strong and lasting impression. Your son won’t feel like he is being recruited just for his stats, he will find that the Deans, the professors, the students and the staff truly care about his education and his goals. Also, the campus is stunningly beautiful, open and green, and the weather is generally pleasant (maybe a little less so in February). The residence halls are top notch, as are the recreational facilities. Add all these positives to the Honor College’s advantages; small seminar style classes, early registration (after the first semester), a dedicated Honors College staff, and a true Honors College experience and I think both you and your son will be impressed. Please make sure you take a little extra time to meet with an Honors College Ambassador (current student), who may even take you all to lunch depending on your time and schedule. I really think this one on one with a student is an important aspect of the individualized approach. Someday, your son may even choose to be an HC Ambassador himself. I hope that your son will be able to see the benefits of the University of Alabama education which goes well beyond the monetary value.
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We have a tour scheduled for end of Feb (weather may not be great) and the admissions office is customizing a schedule for the entire day. Hopefully he will meet with a HC advisor get to see the honors dorms. He plans to major in Biology and go to med school. Incidentally, admissions office has been awesome.
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Altho Bama’s campus is large, it is thoughtfully laid out. As a Bio premed major, most of his classes would be in the upper right region of the campus. Honors dorms aren’t too far from there.
My son was a ChemE premed at Bama (graduated in 2013 and is now a 3rd year med student). He had a rather easy time getting the classes he needed. He had few large classes, but he did use his AP credits to fulfill many of the Core/Gen Ed.
Even small schools will often have large classes for the 1XX level classes. Yes, schools will post “average class size is XX,” but that’s the average. A few will have a lot and some will have few.
What AP credits will your son come in with?
the campus is beautiful and the facilities are amazing. That is what often sells the school…also the friendliness.
The best thing you can do is to visit! We visited UA last year and were really impressed. Once your son sees the campus and has a tour, he will have a stronger feeling of whether it is right for him or not. Also, he will likely receive a very generous offer from UA, and when he is comparing this with his other offers and making his final decision, the personal experience of being there will be a very helpful factor.
Be sure to spend a little time in Tuscaloosa as well. We found it quite charming and lovely, and both my son and I felt that it would be a fun and safe place to spend his undergrad years. I highly recommend the restaurant “Chuck’s Fish,” which has a humble name but is actually a beautiful fancy restaurant that reminded me a lot of some of the restaurants in New Orleans.
In my opinion any kid with high stats should keep UA towards the top of their list, since it is a great school and very affordable for talented kids.
@robotbldmom We are planning to meet and have lunch with an Ambassador. I’m glad that you are recommending it, so I know it’s time well spent.
@mom2collegekids He has 2 APs under his belt (Latin and US Hist) got 4s on both; and is taking Bio II, Civics, Calc AB, and English as APs this year. I’ve read many of your posts on here and that even prompted me to have him look at the Eng’g Pre-med track; but he wasn’t interested.
@chris17mom Tour is on a Monday. We are driving there on a Sunday, which is about 5 hours from home. We plan to drive around the town, go to the campus Catholic mass at 7p that evening, plus visit with a current Sr. afterwards who is from his high school and is very involved in the campus Catholic ministry, which is one of my son’s passions.
Sounds great! Fingers crossed you will have good weather! It was raining when we were there, but we could still see that it is a lovely campus and town.
St Francis has a beautiful new church on campus. On Feb 1st, it is breaking ground for the new Saban Catholic Student Center. (Another sign that the Sabans aren’t leaving Alabama!) The growing population has outgrown the current Catholic student center.
Have you visited the St Francis student webpage or their FB page?
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He has 2 APs under his belt (Latin and US Hist) got 4s on both; and is taking Bio II, Civics, Calc AB, and English as APs this year.
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are you from NOLA? Is your son one of the NMSFs from that boys school that has lots of NMSFs? If so, there have been a number of them come to Alabama.
Hope your son does well on his AP exams, particularly the English. If he gets at least a 4, then he won’t have to take Frosh Comp I and II…which is a big time saver!
If he’s wanting the “feel” of a smaller college, he should know that taking several classes within the Honors College will definitely help along those lines. Those classes are smaller (many as small as 15 students) and he will certainly get more personal attention. (Most people wouldn’t recommend taking FIVE Honors classes per semester … but possibly taking 3 in his case might work out. I believe that many freshmen and sophs typically take 1 to 2 per semester. Varies of course.) I hope he will keep an open mind! Truly, visiting the campus and seeing the progress … new buildings constantly going up, renovations constantly being done on older buildings … and just the natural beauty of the campus (so very well kept) … and the SUPER friendly and over-the-top helpfulness of everyone you run into… well, the visit really DOES seal the deal for many! Good luck!!
My Catholic DD is a sophomore at UA. My older DD is graduating from UAB in April - she is more involved with campus ministry etc. There is a FOCUS group at UA this year, and the young priest is also in charge of vocations for our Diocese - he is very friendly. Reported 3,000 Catholic students at UA, which isn’t a huge part of the population, but is growing, thanks to OOS students.
Feedback from other parents are that their students find a comfortable fit with their faith.
UA DD attends Mass but not hooked into the student center activities - she sometimes goes with her friends to the free meal done by various faith student groups.
I spoke to the Deacon at St Francis before one of the Masses, and found him to be a very welcoming person too.
Before visit, it sounds like you have a ‘check list’. After visit, you can see if UA ‘hit’ on all the major things your student and your family are looking for.
@mom2collegekids Yes we are and he is. We know several that are enrolled or have graduated. It’s why he applied and we’re looking - that and the scholarship.
If you have an opportunity to check out Miss St ( which is an hr and 15 from UA) and Ole Miss ( over 2 hrs), they both give you a nice comparison to UA but on a little smaller level. We visited UA, State, and Ole MIss back in July and all 3 had some outstanding qualities and all 3 had some things that left you with hmmmm…
We are also from the midwest (KC area) and my son is deciding on one these 3 schools for mechanical engineering due to nice merit scholarships. He’s been accepted into all 3 HC’s. We plan on visiting all 3 again next month to try and make a decision.
Whatever it is, it has totally hooked my born and raised New Jersey husband. He wants to move to Tuscaloosa and take classes just so he can use the gym (he loves fitness). If our son does not go to UA, I think my husband will be the most heart broken.
My husband never graduated from college, though he is a successful business person. He like sports (played baseball in college before he left to start a business) but he’s not over-the-top sports crazed, so it’s not that either. UA just has something really special going on.
I was fairly against UA until we visited. Now I would be happy if my son chose it (though I’m open to other schools - for me it depends highly on specific circumstances). At any rate, we are so thankful to receive the scholarships, and to have the opportunity. We also loved the engineering quad.
My deal with my kid is he gets X dollars. If he goes to a school and doesn’t need the dollars, he has graduate school or house money. I’m neutral on what he does. If he chooses pricier school and thinks that’s better for him, great. If he chooses a school that values him and will give him significant scholarship, he can take the money from me. My warning is for him to think long term, not short term and to do what is right for his soul.
With that in mind, we Just visited Alabama and only as a safety because they gave son a presidential scholarship for 4 years and another 10k for engineering. Didn’t expect much and made the trip with some to be “financially responsible.” Not easy to even fly to and had to stay an extra night in Birmingham to get home a 3 pm…
That’s the backdrop. Here’s the fact: Life is NOW complicated because the school is a WOW. Stunning campus, friendly people, housing first rate. Honors programs create intimate experience of small school, despite the size of the school. Travel abroad programs are compelling and their willingness to use out of state tuition scholarship to pay for it makes it virtually free. I was in your camp and wondering what the fuss is…get here. You’ll see. This skeptic got a wow but more importantly, my son who I dragged here loved it. Didn’t like, LOVED it. Not sure it will be his final as he is sorting but the visit was one of the only that provoked thought that wasn’t there going in. Good luck to you in your search…my version of Alabama is, if my son ends up deciding to go somewhere else after what we saw yesterday, he’s a very luck young person because we experienced a first rate day. Residents of Alabama, you have a treasure and you’re now no longer “just a football” school in my head. Amazing commitment of resources to top scholars…made me wonder how many end up staying in Alabama. The thought that kept on going through my head was, I wonder how Alabama pulls off all these buildings and all these academic scholarships …wonder what the data on the payoff is? Are they stacking the deck and luring new OOS talent that stays or does the OOS help keep the state from suffering “brain drain?” Whatever the case, it looks like it’s working.
Just to offer another perspective: recognizing that it has many great features, my kid did not care for Alabama. Before we visited (summer before senior year), it was top 3 on her list. She ended up not even applying. The Honors College rep was great as was the tour, but she just couldn’t see herself there once we actually visited. She ended up at another big southern state school that is costing more than Alabama would have (by about $7,000/yr) but that was still well within our budget, and she is extremely happy there.
This is not meant to be negative about Alabama, just to note that if your son is not awed by his visit, that’s OK. It is a great school, just not for everyone.
My daughter visited this weekend from NYC and she was very impressed. Lunch with the engineering ambassador ( a student) was especially helpful. She can definitely picture herself there now. I’m very happy that we sent her.
I will try to make our experience brief for you. NMF and valedictorian daughter refuses to fill out the Alabama application. Refuses to visit. Thinks she is going to one of the Ivy league schools, Northwestern or University of Chicago. I fill out the application and in two days a letter arrives with congratulations on being admitted to Alabama. Says she didn’t apply. I smile and said I did it for you! Trying to get her down to visit was like pulling teeth. Finally over spring break her senior year we make an agreement to visit. We have to leave after one of her soccer games. She ends up on the ground near the end of the game. After 10 minutes they summons the parents, us. She needs to go to the hospital. I say no way. We have to be in Tuscaloosa at 10 am the next morning. I say we have crutches and that will have to do for now. We drive all night, sleep two hours in car and then do our visit. At this point she has been waitlisted by Northwestern and University of Chicago. They treat her like gold and we have a good day. On the way home I don’t say much. Then about Nashville, I say what do you think? She says I think am I going to Alabama. I am shocked. Says all the other schools aren’t for her. Alabama feels like home. Says it is the best decision she has ever made. Now working on her Doctorate in Psychology. Child number two now attends Alabama. Dean Sharpe sealed it for both kids.
Well, I have to say maybe, maybe not. My daughter was not sold by the visit, although she was VERY impressed by the dorms (and may have made her decision on that basis). She’s now a senior at Alabama, so she obviously chose to attend, but her visit, although arranged by the Honors College, was not that impressive. She visited during January of her junior year and did not end up deciding on Bama until March of senior year. The decision may have been a tough one, but she has absolutely no regrets. She’s been very happy at Alabama.
As for large classes, when my daughter was a 1st semester freshman, her largest class (Calculus) had 75 students. Her other classes were 15, 18, 20, 25 and 36, IIRC.
