Questions and Concerns about College

[Naturally]

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Is it hard finding friends who are not into that party scene? People who instead of partying would like to, let’s say, play video games, have thought-provoking discussions, go hunting, sports, talk about cars, etc.?

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<p>This is where it gets tricky, because it can differ so much from school to school. Some schools have “reputations” for being party schools. I am not sure what the best way is to find out about a particular school, aside from asking around.</p>

<p>Would your son feel more comfortable at a school with a fair amount of Muslim students? If so, I would suggest trying to figure out which states have the biggest Muslim populations and looking at schools in them, and looking at massive schools. At huge schools, even if only a small percentage of students there are Muslim, that might still add up to a lot of people. I would also look at the school websites for clubs related to Islam, Bosnia, Iraq, and so on. (Also check with the school to see how many members are in them . . . not much good if it was a club with three members and they are all set to graduate.)</p>

<p>Hope that helps. Your son sounds like a great kid.</p>

[Marian]

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“As for waking up early, it’s probably the norm that one roommate gets up earlier than the other depending on class times. Obviously, consideration and discretion are basic manners issues rather than Islamic ones, and you’ve raised S to be respectful of both, so not a problem.”</p>

<p>Yes, I am worried if this might disturb the roommate. Also, I suppose praying in the room would not be an option then.

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<p>Praying in the room in the early morning would not be an option if there is a roommate.</p>

<p>Your son is highly qualified. I wonder whether he might be interested in Columbia or Cornell. Both have plenty of single rooms for freshmen. That might make the prayer situation more convenient. And both are sophisticated places where I think a Muslim student could be quite comfortable. However, as members of the Ivy League, Columbia and Cornell do not offer any merit scholarships, which might rule them out.</p>

[mom2collegekids]

<p>*Quote:
Is it hard finding friends who are not into that party scene? People who instead of partying would like to, let’s say, play video games, have thought-provoking discussions, go hunting, sports, talk about cars, etc.?
*</p>

<p>I don’t want to offend anyone, but I think certain majors tend to have certain types of students (not 100% either way). </p>

<p>I think that those in the most academic-demanding majors really don’t have time to party much. Yes, they may have party gatherings on an occasional weekend or for someone’s B-day, but they tend to more socialize in a much less party-animal atmosphere. </p>

<p>If your child is in one of those demanding majors, and perhaps chooses a themed dorm (honors, or engineering, etc), then he’s more likely going to find students who spend a Saturday night playing a video game or watching a movie…rathe than tapping a keg. </p>

<p>My kids’ undergrad is Alabama and your son would get a very generous merit scholarship – at least full tuition assured. If engineering, then an additional 2500 per year. And, sometimes bonus money for an ACT 35/36. The app is very quick and easy…and the scholarship app must be submitted as well before Dec 1st (formality, but must be done).</p>

<p>Tuscaloosa and the school do have a Muslim community. It is NOT unusual AT ALL to see women in headscarves/fully covered clothing at the school or shopping around town.</p>

<p>Muslim Student Assoc at the Univ of Alabama
<a href=“http://bama.ua.edu/~msa/[/url]”>http://bama.ua.edu/~msa/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“HRC addresses housing issues - The Crimson White”>HRC addresses housing issues - The Crimson White;

[mom2collegekids]

<p>*We are worried about cost since my husband, though thank God has a very good career, we still support his mother in Iraq, my two very elder sisters, and his very elder sister (all are widows unfortunately, but the sisters work in low income occupations while my husband’s mother does not work) on his income as well as our own family of 7. *</p>

<p>I disagree with the earlier post suggesting that schools will take this into consideration. In the past when this has come up, unless the people are living with you, sending money is considered an “option” by schools and they won’t give you more aid just so you can send money to other relatives. These policies are likely in place otherwise many families would begin sending money to relatives during the college years to get more aid. </p>

<p>One can imagine how such things would soon become very abused if it were allowed. Families would soon be claiming that they’re sending $25k per year to Family A and Family B, and the school can’t really check to see if those families really need the money or are they just holding the money while the college family seeks more aid. </p>

<p>Colleges also will not allow you to count these people in the household number since they do not reside with you. </p>

<p>your family’s eligibility for aid will be based on your H’s income, your assets, and your household dependents. Again, sending money to help extended family (while very nice and good), won’t likely get special consideration. Colleges believe that the first obligation is to the immediate family.</p>

<p>Since it’s unlikely you can “cut off” your extended family, your child needs to include a few schools that will give large merit for stats.</p>

<p>Is your son a NMSF?</p>

<p>How much can you afford to pay each year?</p>

[BosnianIraqiMom]

<p>Sorry for the late reply, everyone. Thank you all for complementing my son. I’m sure your sons and daughters are also very bright and that you raised them well. :)</p>

<p>“Your special circumstances may be considered by some colleges when they decide financial aid. You may find that some of the “need only” colleges offer your son better financial aid packages than the college that offer merit money.”</p>

<p>Colleges will not take in to account our situation at all, like mom2collegekids has said much better than I could have.</p>

<p>“Would your son feel more comfortable at a school with a fair amount of Muslim students?”</p>

<p>I think he would. Of course, a fair number would probably mean at least 15 or so I suppose, even if the school had 20k students or more. I assume that it would assure a greater availability of halal meat and an area for prayer. </p>

<p>“Your son is highly qualified. I wonder whether he might be interested in Columbia or Cornell. Both have plenty of single rooms for freshmen. That might make the prayer situation more convenient. And both are sophisticated places where I think a Muslim student could be quite comfortable. However, as members of the Ivy League, Columbia and Cornell do not offer any merit scholarships, which might rule them out.”</p>

<p>Thank you for your compliments to my son. I’m just happy to raise this kid of mine.
I realize that Columbia and Cornell are both very high-caliber schools, but the prices will be out of our range and we don’t want our child to fall under the pressure of loans. Plus he is dead certain that he wants to pay us back for his education and, well, him paying back that much will take a while. :D</p>

<p>“Is your son a NMSF?”
Unfortunately, it seems he missed the cutoff by one or two points according to the Guidance Counselor. He is a “commended scholar.”</p>

<p>“How much can you afford to pay each year?”
At max, 35k/yr. That’s tuition plus room and board. We feel better financially at around 30k/yr or less and we are now certain we will not get any financial aid. So it’s either full price, merit scholarships, or small private scholarships that a helpful mother told me about via PM (thank you :))</p>

<p>“I think that those in the most academic-demanding majors really don’t have time to party much. Yes, they may have party gatherings on an occasional weekend or for someone’s B-day, but they tend to more socialize in a much less party-animal atmosphere.
If your child is in one of those demanding majors, and perhaps chooses a themed dorm (honors, or engineering, etc), then he’s more likely going to find students who spend a Saturday night playing a video game or watching a movie…rather than tapping a keg.”</p>

<p>I see. Since my son will like to major in math and would like to possibly minor in chem, then he would be part of this group, correct? Alabama also seems like a very good option, but it seems sort of far. I’m not sure if this is a valid concern or not. :/</p>

<p>One question I feel needs to be addressed is whether my son’s concern of large classes is valid or not. He is somewhat reluctant to go to a larger school because he might feel, well, “lost in the crowd”. But, considering that larger schools often are better at accommodating for Muslims, you can see a problem. Do advanced classes typically have fewer kids?</p>

[turbo93]

<p>Depends on your definition of ‘large’ in both school and class terms. University of Louisiana did a great job accommodating Muslims and that was 30 years ago (I had a Muslim roommate for a semester in the dorm). Meaning the cafeteria would cook Muslim-spec meals and even make them available for Ramadan hours. But we had LOTS of Muslim students from all over (Indonesia, Malaysia, Lebanon, Iran, Saudi, African nations, and even come to think of it, my apartment-mate from Serajevo, Bosnia :)). And we were a mere directional state university at the time with 15k students, not a U of M or Ohio State or such. While we were an awesome party school at the time (drinking age in Louisiana was still 18) my roommates and their friends did not get into that, spending a lot of time in their favorite activities (soccer, endless debates :)). I don’t think a single room would be needed, the schools can handily accommodate a request for a roommate if needed. Should not be any different in other larger schools. A good source of specific info could be the Muslim Student Association in each school. </p>

<p>In terms of class size, well, no way around that. If he ends up at a State Flagship type school the 1st year classes at least would likely be huge. But they break it up into recitation and is more manageable. If he goes to a smaller school then the number of Muslim students will likely be a lot less :). My Bosnian roommate was the only one from Bosnia in the whole school (was still Yugoslavia back then, how time flies) and there were a handful from my country also. In my view, class size is not all that important 1st year at least, in the more ‘common’ subjects like math and sciences. In other fields (like my daughter who is in architecture at a 30k student state flagship) class size is 15-30 in arch classes. </p>

<p>I guess what it boils down to is opportunity. Sure, it must be nice for your advisor to come pick you up at the airport (as was the case with Mrs. Turbo’s small LAC 35 years ago versus a taxicab for me) but the opportunities for funding, research, interesting professors, and so on are more important than small class size. There’s enough honor societies and the like to keep the good students ‘visible’. At U of L we had a good sized math department but their own students had their own society, math student lounge, and the faculty knew them well (Mrs. Turbo was double major Comp Sci and Statistics so she wasted quite a bit of her youth in the math building…). It would be safe to assume that larger and better ranked schools have all that and more.</p>

<p>Apply to a bunch of schools that have similar offerings and see what comes out - and when it comes time to choose, another thing would be to look for interesting faculty members (based on research interests for example) and also classes offered. </p>

<p>Typically fresh/sophomore classes are the sea of humanity with hundreds of students in a class for lecture, with 30-40 or so for recitation. At that point it’s a gamble if he ends up with a TA that speaks English well, or with an Elbonian accented TA :). That’s a risk (compared to the no-TA smaller schools) but everyone seems to survive it well. By 2nd or 3rd year classes do get smaller. That would be a question to ask the primary department when you visit. By junior and senior year it’s a lot smaller. </p>

<p>Also look for a ‘support’ system especially for kids on scholarships - available free tutoring, and even (sigh…) study hall (DD1’s school has that).</p>

[BeanTownGirl]

<p>Re: class sizes. Lots of schools provide detailed info on class sizes. Often you can find this in the Common Data Set under the section “Instructional faculty and class size”. You should really check into this before rejecting larger schools because it can vary a lot by the quality of the college and sometimes by major. Cornell, which is pretty big, had 125 classes of over 100 students, however that is out of a total of 2,068 courses, and the majority of courses were small (e.g. 787 classes had between 10 and 19 students). And in the larger classes there are always small recitation sections that meet each week to review the material and answer students’ questions.
A really shy student can feel lost on even a tiny campus. My feeling is that most kids at a big school don’t feel lost if there is a good freshman orientation program, and if they join a club or activity of some sort. So having a group of fellow Muslim students would help him feel at home in a larger school.
I haven’t gone back to re-read all the posts about this student but it seems as though he would be a good candidate for merit scholarships at schools that offer them.</p>

[bclintonk]

<p>I think your son should look at a range of schools but this certainly should include your state’s public flagship, the University of Michigan, one of the nation’s finest public universities. The sticker price for a Michigan resident will be much lower than at private colleges and universities, and the financial aid for Michigan residents is usually quite good.</p>

<p>Because of Michigan’s large Arab/Muslim population, there’s a large and active Muslim Students’ Association at the University of Michigan which provides invaluable services to Muslim students. The university has two residence halls that provide halal options at every meal during the regular academic year, and there are a number of on-campus cafes that provide halal options and numerous restaurants around town that are either all-halal or offer halal options. </p>

<p>The Muslim Students’ Association can also help with housing options, including roommate matching even for freshmen, which can be a big help in addressing issues like early morning prayers, as well as tying into a network of students with similar interests, values, and religious affiliation. The Muslim Students’ Association also provides a campus chaplain and several options for Friday prayers, and the university cooperates by providing a number of “reflection rooms” at various places on campus that students can use for any form of prayer, meditation, or reflection, at pretty much any time of day or night. MSA also provides special evening meals during Ramadan. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.muslims.studentorgs.umich.edu/aboutmsa.html[/url]”>http://www.muslims.studentorgs.umich.edu/aboutmsa.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[ucbalumnus]

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@Pennylane2011

the Kosher parve/dairy foods would not contain meat

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<p>Be careful about the definition of “meat” here, since kosher parve includes fish. However, it is appears that Muslim rules on fish are not especially strict other than the scale requirement.</p>

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@Pennylane2011

I agree with choosing a male only dorm if possible, and if not, perhaps an all male suite ( with like minded room mates)- or an honors dorm, substance-free. Still it’s hard to avoid all partying in the dorms.

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<p>All-male dorms might actually be rowdier than coed dorms, as men tend to be rowdier than women.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

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@BosnianIraqiMom

Our son has told us that he is very interested in pursuing further education after college, probably graduate or possibly medical if he finds that interesting. These schools, as I understand it, are very expensive as well (usually more so than college) and lead to a lot of debt on the shoulders of the graduates.

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<p>Medical school is typically very expensive. However, PhD programs in many subjects are often funded so that the student gets a tuition waiver and a living expense stipend. Be aware, however, that biology and chemistry job and career prospects are not that great.</p>

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@BosnianIraqiMom

We expect none to a little financial aid.

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<p>At each university web site, put “net price calculator” in the search box. This will lead you to the university’s financial aid estimator.</p>