My son will start college at The University of Alabama next month. We met some very nice parents when we at Bama Bound, including one mom who directed me to this site and also told me about some social media sites (but I do not have a Facebook account).
Here are some questions I have. Hoping someone can answer.
I believe the fees that showed on my son’s bill today are not covered by his scholarship. Is this correct?
How do we get football tickets for us parents?
When do we need to start to look for apartments for his soph. year?
Correct, fees are not covered by the tuition scholarships (for engineering students that get the additional stipend it is credited towards expenses, including the fees).
If you go parents weekend, there will be information sent out to purchase tickets (although not very good tickets and you can get better deals), if you don’t mind sitting in the student section your student can ‘upgrade’ their ticket at the ticket office and get a paper ticket and then they can get another ticket donated to them or purchase another student ticket which is less expensive, for other games you can buy from resellers near the stadium the day of the game or use internet resources like StubHub - depending on the game you want to attend the prices will vary A LOT.
You will get a lot of conflicting advice about when to start looking for apartments. The first question is when do you plan to be in town? My son’s freshman year the only weekend I planned to be there to visit him during the first semester was during family weekend, so I encouraged him to start looking before that, so that he would have a list that was narrowed down for me when I was in town. Personally I encouraged my son to sign a lease before coming home at the end of his first semester so that he had plenty of options available. However others here will recommend waiting to spring to sign a lease so students are more confident with who they want to live with and won’t have issues with changing their minds or people backing out of leases.
There will be plenty of apartments available in the spring, but there are more limited options for some styles such as 1 or 2 bedroom units and spots will fill more quickly at the more in demand complexes such as East Edge since it’s very close to campus or whatever new complexes may open just because they’re shiny and new.
Thank you. Are there resources for learning about the off campus apartments? I know for my niece (who goes to a school closer to our home) she had to sign a year out ahead of time to get a place. It is good to know there is not the pressure here.
@SS2020, you can use the search function on this forum to get loads of info to all of your questions. On the UA forum page, look for the magnifying glass next to the page numbers. Since you can’t PM me (you need 10+ postings to ‘earn’ that feature), let us know via here if you see what I’m referring to. Good luck! (…and welcome!)
You are welcome to post all your questions here, but there really is a wealth of information on the Bama parents Facebook pages . . . I would hazard a guess that there’s no question you can think of that hasn’t already been posted there at least once, if not numerous times. (On apartments alone, you could spend hours perusing what different parents have posted.) Maybe it’s time to get a Facebook account . . . (Even if you never post anything at all yourself, you’d have access to all that information.)
The only time you’d ever need to make contact with anyone is just at the beginning - to be added to whichever FB groups you want to join - after that, you’ll never need to speak to anyone ever again. There are two general parents groups, as well as a group for parents of the Class of 2020, and various other groups for resale items (really very handy!), dorms, fields of study, and I’m not sure what else.
@mom2collegekids
Hi! I am also looking for a decent place for my family to stay on July 28 & 29. We are bringing my daughter to tour the campus, and my 13 yo is tagging along. We have an appointment with the honors college on the 29th. You seem to know A LOT of info about UA and Tuscaloosa! Can you recommend a hotel or area that we should stay in? We are coming from Austin, TX. Thanks!
@dodgersmom I am afraid my comment made me sound anti-social. It is not that I don’t want to speak to anyone ever again. I just prefer to stay away from the politics and drama on social media.
So would we all, I think. (Or most of us, anyway!) But for many things these days, dealing with Facebook is just the price you pay. You can keep a low profile, though, and there’s no harm in that . . . until one day, a year (or even a couple of months) from now, when you know the answer to someone’s question because you’ve already “been there, done that” yourself - and then you’ll jump into the middle of it, just like the rest of us!
@SS2020, just make sure you create enough of a presence on FB (including a few random, real photos) that the admins of the FB groups you want to join can see that you’re a legitimate parent.
And DO check you “Message Request” folder because most groups will send you a message to confirm you’re a real parent. It’s a separate folder from where you receive messages from your FB “friends.”
(Even if you never post anything at all yourself, you’d have access to all that information.)