So i’m going to visit the University of Alabama this upcoming spring break. It is one of my top choices but I have a few questions about the school. My first one is I am not too sure if I will fit in. I’m from New Jersey and i’ve read stuff online saying that everyone from the southern states sticks together and your screwed if your from anywhere else. Is that true? Second, I want to go into accounting is there good recruitment from NY where I would like to work after college? Lastly, what should I expect when I visit? Anything specific to do when i’m down there? Thanks in advance.
I don’t know what you’ve read or where, but not only is it not true that everyone from the south sticks together, but 60% of the freshman class is from OOS, so there really couldn’t be that sort of exclusiveness. Southern kids aren’t like that anyway. They’re very interested in students from elsewhere.
There are over 1000 students from Calif, and close to that many from Illinois. There are a good number from the Mid-Atlantic states. There are a good number from the NE.
As for Accounting recruitment… I don’t know if there is recruitment for NY specifically, but I know that the Big Four recruit at Bama.
As for what you should expect… Friendly and welcoming people. Likely much better weather, altho we do have some cold days here.
How long will you be in Tuscaloosa for your visit? Are you applying to honors?
Have you arranged your campus tour?
http://oira.ua.edu/d/webreports/enrollment2/Fall_2015/e10.html This should help you out a little, in terms of where students come from. Over 1,000 there now from Illinois; 1,000 from California; 1,700 from Texas; 500 from NJ. See the URL for more info… 62% of fall 2015 freshmen are from out of state…from all across the U.S…and beyond. Have a great visit! Other posters from the NE states will chime in… Roll Tide!
@chargers312, check out the NJ family cited at the end of this New York Times piece: http://nyti.ms/1iEP2gg
Granted, my husband is not and would not be a student, but he’s born and raised NJ and he loved UA. It’s his top choice for our son (who has grown up in Boca which is NY/NJ - South). :-h
UA has a long history of attracting New Jerseyans, the most famous of whom is probably Gay Talese! 
Actually, MORE than 65% of the freshman class was from Out of State. 63.9 % from other states and DC, plus 1.3% from other nations. So less than 35% of the freshman class last Fall was from Alabama. http://oira.ua.edu/d/content/glance/2015-glance-new-freshmen-enrollment
Kids from the southern states (mostly just the ones from Alabama really) do tend to stick together, and some of them can be exclusive (Not all). A lot of the out of state kids stick together as well, not in a way that’s exclusive but just in a way that those are the cliques.
Like will always attract like, and many kids will choose to self-segregate at any large school, but my son’s Bama experience has been that he has good friends from both AL (one of whom took him home for Thanksgiving this year) and other southern states and much further away (IL, AZ). And I think his AL friends also might be the types who really welcome the chance to meet kids from other parts of the country. I know when we were originally looking at colleges closer to home for my son, we placed a high value on schools that attracted students from all over the country. If you can’t explore another part of the country, why not get to know kids from all those exotic places? 
Another of his friends is from the Florida Panhandle, and he’s invited a large group of friends to his family’s beach house over fall break the past two years.
Oftentimes, when kids segregate on college campuses, it’s as much about socioeconomic status as which state you’ve arrived from. At least that was my experience back in the Stone Age, and I suspect that’s still the case.
OOS students might want to check this page out: http://studentinvolvement.ua.edu/outofstate.cfm
I believe “The 49” is a relatively new club that was formed in response to the growing OOS population at UA:
http://www.the49ua.com/about.html