MSU is one of the colleges my son is considering. We are from MD and he will need to fly. Is there a ride share program organized or recommended transportation for OOS students who need to get to and from the airport for holiday breaks? Just wondering how complicated this process will be.
This is what I have found out so far. We are from Kansas City area ( Kansas side) and MSU is one of the schools my son is looking at, as well as Ole Miss and Alabama. I do know GTR is only about 15 minutes away while the others are 2 hours. This is from admissions counselor for our area:
"I would love to help you with this! The closest airport is the GTR airport, but all flights go through Atlanta. The next closest airports are Birmingham, Memphis, and Jackson. Many students from Birmingham, Memphis and Jackson attend Mississippi State. Most students do not have a problem finding a ride to one of those airports with the friends they meet at school.
As of right now, the university does not provide transportation to and from the airports. We are in the process of working on rideshare program for students to utilize.
I would love to put you in contact with a student. I cannot guarantee I can find a mechanical engineer to put you in contact with, but I definitely can find someone from the Midwest. Let me know what you need me to do! "
In Maroon and White,
Leanna Baldner
Mississippi State University
Admissions Counselor for Missouri and Parts of Tennessee
Leb199@msstate.edu
(901) 591-6744
MSU Watermark Image
Thanks for this information. We will visit the campus in January. Good to hear they are trying to organize a ride /share program.
Here is some other info from an actual student from Colorado.
I’m apologizing in advance for this lengthy email. I want to make sure to answer you thoroughly!
Yes, I have used GTR. It is great and very convenient. It only goes to Atlanta, and is usually a little more expensive. It also only has like one or two flights a day. So usually I opt to take the cheaper route and just enjoy the drive to Memphis, however, GTR is a great option!! It’s only 15 minutes from campus. You will have this same problem in both Oxford and Tuscaloosa - the closest “big” airports will be a one or two hour drive away probably!
First of all, if Aaron is wanting to do engineering, then Mississippi State is by far the best choice of those three schools. We have an absolutely phenomenal engineering program. As a land-grant institution, we were founded as an agricultural and mechanics college, so engineering has always been a HUGE part of Mississippi State. I can’t stress enough that this would be an AMAZING choice for Aaron if he is wanting to pursue engineering.
As for Starkville, this is a wonderful college town. It is small, but it is great. One thing I encourage prospective students to think about it what do they do in their hometown that they think they could not do here? When I was in high school, I would go to the movies, go get dinner with friends, and besides that I would pretty much stay at home, watch tv, work on school, hang out with my friends at each other’s houses and that’s all. You can do all of that in Starkville, too.
I have never been in Starkville for a down weekend and been bored. There is always something going on. During the fall, football keeps everyone busy. During the spring, there is baseball. There are exciting weekend events such as Bulldog Bash (largest free outdoor concert in Mississippi) and Super Bulldog Weekend. When there is a “down” weekend, it is nice to relax and not do much. So even though there may not be a ton to do in Starkville, in all of my three years of being here I have NEVER regretting coming here because of the size of the town. Ever.
Also, although Starkville is smaller, it has some great aspects to it. It doesn’t take long to get anywhere, for starters. There are AMAZING restaurants here. We are Mississippi’s college town - we have great food! There are many local restaurants (Strombolis- pizza, Little Dooeys - BBQ, City Bagel, Starkville Cafe, The Biscuit Shop, The Veranda, Restaurant Tyler, Bin 612) all of which are SO good! There is a move theatre here and a wildlife refuge with tons of beautiful land to explore not far from campus. Also, Starkville is in a great location that it is only 2 hours from Jackson, 2 hours from Birmingham, 5 hours from the beach… so if you need a get away weekend that isn’t very hard! We actually have a larger population than Oxford I believe, so the “small town” feel would also be at Ole Miss.
Mississippi State is the best part of Starkville, though. This university is so great. I grew up visiting State so I knew I wanted to go here. I have always loved it. I wasn’t even interested in looking at other colleges because every time I walked on campus I knew I wanted to be here for school. I love the traditions of State. I love the history. I love the people here. We are the people’s university - and we take that seriously. The people here are extremely friendly and helpful. The students here are involved, and there are so many ways to get involved beyond your schoolwork. Some of my closest friends are engineering majors who also get involved on campus and they absolutely love it.
I was in the honors college, and I chose to leave this semester. I am a communications major, and they didn’t have a lot of honors classes available for my major, so it was becoming more of a burden than a benefit for me, personally. However, I still absolutely respect the honors college and think it is a great program! If you have more questions about that, let me know!
The negatives of MSU - well, I guess the size of Starkville would be the only thing I can think of - but, like I talked about earlier, that obviously has not caused me to like MSU any less. I do wish we had a Target!!
As for the actual campus, I am being completely honest when I say to this day I don’t have a single complaint. I love our campus, our student body, our administration, and our faculty.
The dorms are great. There are two styles - new construction and traditional. New construction are the newer ones where you and your roommate share a room and the two of you share a bathroom. The traditional ones are the community styled bathrooms, but you will still just have one roommate. All dorms on campus are great. For more information or for virtual tours, you can visit the housing website at http://www.housing.msstate.edu
The student body is incredible. Everyone is so kind, and like I said earlier, a lot of people get involved. There are over 300 student organizations to get involved in. One thing I will mention here is that greek life is definitely different here than it is at Ole Miss or Alabama. Here, it is only a little over 15% of the population, where as at those schools it is much more. Here, if you don’t go greek, you are in the majority, and you are sometimes even more involved than those who are greek. I am greek, but the majority of my good friends are not. It is not “segregated” here into greek an non-greek. We are all just Mississippi State students.
I hope this helps. I tried to hit everything. I could talk for days about Mississippi State and how great it is and how much I love it.
Also, have you visited campus? I would love to show you guys around if you ever do.
Please let me know if I didn’t answer any of your questions or if you have any further questions. I would love to continue to answer them! 
Best,
Claire Winesett
MSU Roadrunner President
WOW. Thanks for passing along this info to me. Some great details to know. We look forward to visiting in January. He is thinking about majoring in business.
If he is thinking about majoring in business, Ole Miss would be worth a look too.
We visited MSU today. The university will run a shuttle to GTR starting this fall.
We enjoyed our visit. The campus is beautiful and has a feeling of home. It’s not overbearing or large. Not sure what university our son will choose. MSU is a long way from home so I wonder if he will choose it in the end.
We are headed back that way next month for Insight Days. We are flying into Birmingham on a Thu, stay and look at Alabama on Fri, and than driving to MSU. We would have used GTR if it was just a MSU visit. Great to hear they are offering the shuttle. I had also read about a bus shuttle from Starkville to Birmingham that is going to start up. Cost was about $17.00 each way, which is pretty good. I will try and find the article again and post. I think it came out of Tuscaloosa. There is also a Zip car rental service.
MSU campus is nice and your right, not overbearing. I liked it’s campus a little better than Ole Miss ( even though it’s very nice too and we are headed back that way next month too). The key to any campus: the homey feel and can your son see himself being there for 4 years.
What other schools is he looking into?
So you heard there are plans to have a shuttle service to the Birmingham airport? Share more info as you receive it. I know he liked MSU but figuring out the airport is going to be challenging. It will be very expensive to fly out of GTR several times a year. I wish there was organized transportation to the larger airports for major holidays at least.
I forgot to say he is considering WVU but I dont like the campus, the mountains and just didn’t get that feeling of home. He expressed those feelings initially and we were happy. Then he shocked us by applying.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20120406/NEWS/120409871
http://mlc.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ACR-Express-Pricing-and-Lin-Run-Schedule.pdf
Here is the article and than I also pulled up price sheet.
You never know what are kids will do - lol.
I forgot that I actually read something a while back on CC about this and the reviews were not that great. I am just going to wait and see what he decides and we will figure it out from there. I found out there was a student who graduated from our area last year at MSU. I had a chance to talk to her mom. They use a cab service for reliability. Once her daughter had planned a ride with a student and then it fell through at the last minute so they have been using a cab service.