<p>Thanks everyone for all of your follow up comments. Blount looks like a good program; very similiar to the Honors Programs at many of the other colleges we’ve looked at. The required residential feature really forces the students to forge goodclose bonds with the other Freshman. I’m sure that students who participate in it probably love it. Guess, I’ll just have to see what my DD thinks now!</p>
<p>Just to chime in here, my son is a mech eng major, so he didn’t look into the Blount program, but we met several kids in it at our Bama Bound session, which we shared with them, and at Family Weekend.</p>
<p>Incredibly impressed with them. Very well read, conversant in a variety of subjects, and just very, very nice kids.</p>
<p>As my son is in Riverside West, I asked about their dorm. It’s a beautiful building that we often pass when visiting campus. They do share a room, unlike the private room that the super suites have, but the kids we met did not have a problem with it. </p>
<p>Maybe you can arrange a visit to the Blount dorm when you visit campus?</p>
<p>This little blurb was in the recontracting letter I just received this morning:</p>
<p>Students who are not currently living in Honors Housing will not have the option to move to Honors unless they are Honors College students currently living in Blount, Harris or Parker-Adams Halls. </p>
<p>So it looks like starting off in Blount housing is not a barrier to moving to the honors suites later. You may want to check further.</p>
<p>One problem that I see is whenever you change rooms/halls as a returning student, you lose the best opportunity to get housing. You have to wait a bit. </p>
<p>those who are returning to the same suite/room have an advantage.</p>
<p>What is the scholarship situation with Blount. S received an application to apply in the mail today. There aren’t a ton of department schol in Arts & Sciences, but a lot of them are Blount. Does anyone know how much they are, criteria and whether they stack with oos merit scholarships?</p>
<p>Bumping up for info on Blount. I know we have a plethora of engineering/math students, but there must be some A&S people around. I think I am going to have S set up some time to talk to someone when he is at 'bama in 2 weeks. And… see the actual dorm(s) since I hear they are “horrible” They mention an interview process. I assume this isn’t something they fly you in for?</p>
<p>ldinct: You can stack the Arts & Sciences scholarships. My son is in A & S as an econ/poli sci/math major. Many of the scholarships that he has seen in the various departments are given to particular class status (such as for a student’s senior year). His girlfriend, however, did land a nice scholarship from the biology department. It covers four years and was retroactive to her first semester of her freshman year. My son does have some friends in Blount. If you have some particular questions, perhaps you can PM me and I’ll forward them to him.</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear that the Blount (pronounced “Blunt”) Program is now open to students of all majors. The people I’ve met who are in Blount seem to really enjoy the program. I do know that Blount is not under the Honors College umbrella, although it seems now that students in BUI get many of the same privileges as those in UHP, IHP, CBHP, and/or UFE.</p>
<p>As for the housing situation, the Blount housing building is nice, but not as nice as the Ridgecrest residence halls across the street/walkway. If it was at a school where most all of the dorms were traditional-style, people would be talking about how nice the Blount housing is.</p>
<p>It may be a little too “new age” for S, he likes “the traditional College experience”. I am not sure if it is like that or not. I mentioned living/learning and I think he envisioned work and talking about work 24-7, which I’m sure its not like at all. Now of anyone in his class he is the one talking about interesting stuff later with the teacher, so I don’t know why it doesn’t sound appealing.<br>
Apart from the additional scholarships I think he should look into anything Arts & Sciences oriented, its all about the opportunities.</p>
<p>On what SEA_tide said, my brother-in-law graduated from Bama in 2004 and when I told him I was living in honors housing, he was like, “Oh, Blount? Nice!”. Then I had to explain the whole new honors housing situation.</p>
<p>But yeah, when I said Blount was bad earlier, I meant in the eyes of your average incoming honors student. The honors suites are seriously tipping the balance for some of us in our college decisions (because other schools, like Rhodes, for instance, have normal dorms and we’re not interested). As I understand, when compared to the usual freshman dorms you’ll see – like the ones lacking AC up at UNC that one of my friends told me about – Blount is really nice. Just not the nicest Bama offers. But it may be worth it for the sense of intellectual community? I’ll try to check them out when I go to T-town on Monday.</p>
<p>You could say it’s the other way around. Blount is supposed to a call-back to the old-style British universities where the colleges were close-knit communities of scholars and tutors who studied, lived, and dined together.</p>
They mention an interview process. I assume this isn’t something they fly you in for?</p>