I toured Ole Miss the other day and absolutely fell in love with the school. The campus is beautiful, the size is perfect, and I loved Oxford. I am from Wisconsin and have a full-tuition scholarship at Ole Miss and Alabama which are the two schools I am considering. I really like both schools and could see myself at either one, but I was leaning towards Ole Miss. One thing kind of concerned me though. I was worried about fitting in. I am sure that it wouldn’t be a problem at Alabama with the size, but Ole Miss is much smaller and it sounds like everyone is very preppy and into greek life. Being from the north, I am not that into Greek Life or the preppy look. I am more of a boots and jeans type of guy and I wear more comfortable clothes. Would I have a lot of trouble fitting in there or is the idea that everyone is very preppy at Ole Miss more of a stereotype than fact?
My son had been to both schools too this summer, as well as Miss St. He was having the same thought as he is a pretty easy going guy, not a “greek” person. But we did not see a whole lot of students due to summer so cannot really say even though that’s what we had heard from others that have gone there or have visited there. But after watching the Alpha Phi Sorority video, he’s leaning towards Bama - lol.
We thought Miss St was more of a " jeans/t/shirt" type of school and he liked that too. We are from Kansas. The size of Ole Miss and Miss St was more appealing even though Bama is so nice but bigger. I would say by going back and looking at old threads about Ole Miss help some. Sounds like a lot of students don’t stay with Greek life after their fresh/soph yr.
All 3 have very enticing academic scholarships. He’s wants to study mechanical engineering.
We also visited in the summer (early July), and the few students we saw didn’t seem that preppy. I’m not sure our son would care that much if anyone else dressed like him or not. He’s about as far from preppy as one can get. He’s from the DC suburbs, and doesn’t stick out at all there. He did like it, and said he would be happy there, but prefers and urban campus.
Thank you for commenting. I’m not too worried about what other people are wearing. What I’m really concerned about is if everyone is preppy, snobby, and aarogant. I was willing to bet that was more of just a stereotype, but I wanted to see what other people thought
When we were there this summer, we met another ME student from Atlanta. He is a soph and had nothing bad to say about anything that Ole Miss had to offer, especially for OOS students. I would say he was much like you and my son. The question I asked my son is “can u see yourself at Ole Miss for 4 years”? Right now it’s a toss up between the 3 with the slight edge to Ole Miss and Miss St.
my son is a sophomore from Ohio and can’t get enough of Oxford and Ole Miss. He pledged Beta, has a ton of friends from all over the country and comments about how down to earth people are versus Columbus where we live. The friendliness you witnessed goes on all year. Some people are preppy but that has nothing to do with the way they treat each other. Wear your Carrharts or Vineyard Vines or your Nirvana T shirt. No one will look at you differently. Unless you are wearing a Packers T shirt!
I wore boots and jeans all the time at Ole Miss 30 years ago, usually with a nice, starched, button-down. I thought it looked good then and still do, although I rarely wear boots any more.