has anyone done the self-guided tour? Because of a work conflict we had to change our date that we’re visiting next month. All of the tours are filled up now.
Do you think it’s worth it to do the self-guided tour? My daughter will only be a junior so we have time to visit again if she narrows her school choice to UA.
I should mention that it is a 10 hour drive for us & we will be visiting 3 other schools on this trip.
I think it’d be beneficial. When will yall be in town? I might could meet with her if she’d like to talk to a student and I could show her my dorm and all. I’ve met with a couple prospective students who were in similar situations. What’s her major? Would she be interested in a sorority?
How kind of you! My daughter is thinking of going into law but I don’t think she has decided on her undergraduate degree yet. Her friend who is coming with will be premed. I don’t know if the girls are interested in sororities.
We will be arriving in Tuscaloosa on Thursday night Aug 6. Probably get there around 6-7pm. We’ll probably leave kinda early Friday morning. We’re heading to Huntsville to tour that campus then.
I’m free after 7pm on Thursday and I have to help move in the freshman at 8am on Friday. But if she wants to talk to a current student feel free to PM me. I’ve lived in quite a few dorms, have Greek life experience, was premed for a little and I’m honors.
If you don’t mind sharing, what other schools are you visiting? I am thinking of doing a southern college tour including UA in a couple of months.
@mary879800, you have not left a great deal of time for an organised tour of UA, so of course a self-guided tour would have to suffice. Truly, if you are coming all this way, you really must make UA a stop on your road trip. And, if you can rearrange your other stops to allow a bit more time for this, even better.
Couple of tips. First, do not count out the general tour quite yet, even if it is full. You can hang around and see if there are some no-shows. There often are.
Second, if you are planning to be an Honors College student, the HC arrange private tours for students all the time (not so sure during the summer months, but it is worth checking if they can arrange something for you). (there are separate threads about this) If you will not be an Honors College student, I would contact whatever departments/schools within UA you feel you might be interested in. Many have their own set of student ambassadors (I know engineering does), and these students are specifically chosen to give tours to prospective students. Some might not be around during the summer months, but you might be surprised that some are.
If you can be on the UA campus for a bit of time on that Friday morning, you could perhaps arrange a meeting with someone to walk you through things. I would be as assertive as you can about asking for some one-on-one time with someone at UA to answer your questions - you are driving a long way and you want to make the most of your time there. Be sure to tell them this. There will not be many students around, but feel free to stop people on the campus and engage in conversations with them. Be bold! You will learn a lot of unexpected things…and, I’m betting you will walk away with good impressions of how friendly and accommodating everyone is. Good luck with this!
If you think your child will qualify for the honors college (28 ACT 3.5 GPA 1250 M+CR SAT), then contact the Honors College and they will set up a tour for you.
In the email to the below listed HC people, include:
Student’s name and contact info
Date and time of the Campus tour that you’ve reserved.
GPA and test scores (include likely NMSF if applicable)
Likely majors
Interest in Computer-Based Honors and/or UFE
Career interests (including med, law, etc)
Anything particular that you want to see. If you have an interest in seeing the new Science and Engineering Complex, the TV or radio stations, the B-school or what-have-you, let them know.
Honors Recruitment
Susan Alley
270 Nott Hall
205-348-5599
susan.alley@ua.edu
Kayla Fields
kdfields1@ua.edu
They will arrange the rest of the day…meeting with faculty, honors people, touring honors dorms, etc.
Sometimes mail goes to their SPAM folders, so call them if you haven’t heard back within a few business days. They do an excellent job and work very hard.
Wow! Thanks everyone for the info! Yes, my daughter (and her friend going with us) will both definitely qualify for the honors college.
We are coming from Chicago and visiting colleges along I-65. So, on our list are UA, UA-Huntsville, UK, WKU, and now my husband wants to stop at University of Louisville. These are our first college visits. Next on our list are colleges in the Ohio area, then we’re going to look in the Iowa area. I then want to check out some schools out east.
My goal during these initial visits is for my daughter to get a feel of the campus. I’m pushing UA because of the attractive scholarships they offer. The other schools on the list seem to have merit scholarships but they are competitive.
I’ll have to figure out if we want to meet up with the recruiters now or wait until our next visit. We only have 3 days to visit the schools.
mary879800 - Hope your family has a wonderful trip! Let us know how it goes! As I’m sure you already know, Illinois sends a large contingent of students to UA each fall 
My son will be a sophomore and can’t wait to get back.
I want to second this. When we went to take the “Guided Campus Tour” (that was arranged along with the rest of our visit by the Honors College), they broke the group into two and ordered a second bus to accommodate everyone who showed up. Worth a try as it’s a very worthwhile experience, and the air-conditioned bus is a HUGE perk. 
When we visited in Spring 2014, my son was primarily interested in engineering (he’d already been admitted to the CoE), but as I’d told the HC recruiter that he was also considering majoring in math, the recruiter arranged for my son to meet with John Wingard, Assistant Director of Student Services, in the College of Arts and Sciences. Just a lovely, lovely guy, and he did a pretty hard sell with my son (trying to lure him to switch from engineering), so I think they’re very anxious to get top students in CAS. (I was impressed with the healthy competition between the colleges, frankly, and I suspect it’s that way among all of them.) John’s phone number is 205-348-1670.
Good luck on your visits and enjoy the experience, @mary879800! You and your daughter will learn a lot about what she does and doesn’t want visiting so many schools.
I also encourage setting up a meeting through the honor’s college if at all possible. When my son was in high school, we visited 9 or 10 schools and most just offered a pretty standard tour and after awhile they all started to run together and it was difficult to remember exactly what we saw at which campus.
While the general tour of UA will give you a feel for campus, a meeting with the honor’s college will help you learn about the school and if it’s a good fit.
It was 100% because of our meeting with the honor’s college during our first visit that UA stayed in consideration for son. He will soon be beginning his 4th year on campus.
We were just there a couple of weeks ago. We used the guided bus tour and they had a handful of open seats so gui it would be worth trying to get on even without an appointment. The campus is just too big for a self-guided tour. Very large but wow! The Honors college was great too. Susan does an awesome job of explaining things and they do a lot of neat stuff. The mech eng professor was also very nice to talk to and gave us a tour of the buildings. Scholarship offers for ACT/GPA are one of the better schools ( Miss St and Ole Miss too).
Do contact the HC. Let them know about your time constraints. They will work within those limitations so that you can quickly get to your next destination.
It’s much more efficient to have them set things up…you’ll waste less time looking for things.
Thanks so much for the info. I emailed the honors recruiter & she immediately emailed me back to tell me we will get to visit the honors college along with other places. We’re going to cancel our Huntsville tour to stay all afternoon in Tuscaloosa. She’s arranging lunch with a student & then a full campus tour!
So, it looks like we’ll be doing the self guided tour at Huntsville instead.
Thanks again!!!
SUPER! If you have any time left (or on another visit), do try to take the bus tour as well - it gives you a good feel for how the campus is laid out and a bit of history (and it’s air conditioned, as mentioned already). Your personalised tour will be great and well worth your making time for it. You can save your other schools for another time, perhaps. 
We just finished our UA visit. The honors college had us meet with several people including a tour. We were very impressed with the school.
Thanks to everyone here for your help.
Very happy to hear that you enjoyed your visit!