<p>He won’t be closed out of taking Honors sections. Even if classes don’t open during his orientation, it is likely that seats will be available at some point after he registers and he can grab a seat by swapping sections. Also, he will see the benefit of priority registration in the spring. Hopefully something will work out so he can also be reassigned to the super suites if that’s what he wants. It’s disappointing I’m sure, but that’s why Housing and posters here warn others repeatedly not to deposit late. I hope it works out for your son. </p>
<p>Thanks, @bamagirls. I know it will all work out, and so far he’s okay with the housing situation (not going to re-start the debate about whether attempting to adhere to the spirit of his signed Common App pledge that he wouldn’t enroll in any school he wasn’t planning to attend constitutes “depositing late”), but it’s just starting to feel like everything related to Honors (aside from AA) is going to be a struggle.</p>
<p>And it’s not that he wanted a “super suite” so much as he really wanted to be assigned to live with fellow honors college students. After he received his Paty assignment in late May, he could have chosen to be reassigned to a suite, and it probably would have happened already, based on the experiences of others who are posting here (some of whom didn’t even APPLY to UA until late in the spring), but when given a choice between “suite” and “honors,” he chose “honors” and now he just has to wait it out. </p>
<p>He chose UA over some other really great schools because he believed the Honors College would give him that smaller community of like-minded students and access to smaller, discussion-based classes within a large, vibrant research university. Time will tell if that ends up being the reality or just a nice marketing campaign that got him to the school. </p>
<p>I’m sure he can be happy at UA, regardless, but he was assuming all the nice housing and special courses he was told about and/or shown would be open to him if he ended up attending. So far it’s not really working out that way.</p>
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Let’s not go there, okay? @LucieTheLakie’s son deposited quite a bit earlier than several other students who, according to reports here and on FB, have since been assigned to Blount, Ridgecrest, or other honors housing while he remains in Paty. UA dropped the ball, and this family has every right to be upset. They have, despite that, handled things calmly and patiently, for which I give them enormous credit.</p>
<p>Now, about honors classes . . . what M2CK said was accurate: the bulk of honors spaces are released during honors BB sessions, because that’s when the bulk of honors students register. But that does not, in any way, shape or form, mean that additional seats are not reserved for those students who do not register during the honors-specific BB sessions. To the contrary, rather careful planning goes into assuring that honors seats remain available for all BB sessions at which honors students will be registering, and that continues right up until the final sessions in August. The more honors students attend a particular session, the more honors seats are opened up at that session.</p>
<p>I can’t guarantee that a kid who registers in August won’t get stuck with an 8 am class, or have to do a chemistry lab that runs ’til 10 pm at night . . . but even those kinds of issues can often be resolved by checking course availability regularly and often once the kid has registered. Schedule changes occur, and they occur most frequently during the final weeks and days before classes start.</p>
<p>And if all else fails, your student needs to go the professor and request an override to be allowed into a class that’s already technically “full.” If you look at class sizes for prior years, you’ll find quite a number of courses where actual enrollment exceeded the designated capacity. But your student needs to be assertive, and ask for what he wants. The worst that can happen is that the professor will say no - either because fire reg’s limit the room capacity, or because he or she knows that an identical course is open and available at another time, or will be the following semester.</p>
<p>You are welcome to disagree, dodgersmom, but it’s true. I do hope it works out for your son LL.</p>
<p>Be aware when making sample schedules that some of the large science classes have required recitations once a week in addition to lab and lecture time. Last fall it was impossible to take both honors physics and honors chem because the recitation for CH 117 (where all test are also taken) overlapped with the only lecture time for Honors physics. My student ended up shuffling an elective at the last minute to take regular physics w/calc and honors chem 117, but it was a stressful realization. </p>
<p>Naturally the bulk of the honors seats for fall semester are released at honors BBs… it is why they have them. If they didn’t have honors BBs, it would be too hard to release those honors seats since there are fewer of them. Aren’t there about 25 BBs? How would they release 15 seats for a class that only has one section or two?</p>
<p>One reason why they added later honors BBs is because those who were in states that graduate late were at a disadvantage. </p>
<p>LucietheLakie…even if your son doesn’t get all of his honors choices this semester, there are still 7 other semesters where he will have priority. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that he wont get any honors classes this fall, I am just saying that if he somehow doesnt, he will still have many opps. </p>
<p><<<
Wow, I sure hope that’s not the case, because it was never communicated to us that honors courses would only be made available to students who were able to go to Honors BBs. And we specifically called to find out if my son was going to have a problem if he couldn’t attend any of the Honors sessions, which were all completely filled, BTW, when he went to schedule his BB back in mid-May. We were told there were NO practical disadvantages to attending a regular session.</p>
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<p>I think I would call that person back and correct them. If there truly were no advantages, why bother to have them? Maybe the person was thinking in terms of info presented??</p>
<p>That said, there probably will be some dept honors courses open…is he interested in Honors Deductive Logic in Philosophy? What is his major?
He may need to be patient and see what is open right before school starts.</p>
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<p>what is going on with housing? any news?</p>
<p>did those other kids get pulled in? Personally, I have an issue with “pulling in”. It is one thing for a student to pull in ONE child, but I dont like one early depositer pulling in 3 late ones, which isnt fair to those who deposited before the late ones.</p>
<p>LucieTheLakie: I think that there are a few things you or your son should be doing if your son still wants a Housing reassignment: First, when was the last time that you communicated with housing? Does your son still want an Honors Suite or would he now take any available suite? If he has changed his mind, he needs to let them know. Have you communicated with Housing recently? Called or only emailed?? Housing gets bombarded with requests, I would be calling several times a week. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.</p>
<p>For Honors classes, you need to contact the Honors registrar and see what is going to be opening in the way of seats. If no seats are available, have you son wait list the class, or as suggested above write to the professor requesting an override.</p>
<p>I’ve spoken to and emailed with several people in housing over the past two months. I called and spoke with someone in the housing office early last week; I was calling to follow up on a lengthy message I’d left the week before on the voicemail of one of the people who supposedly does the actual assignments. (I’d been put through to her when I called to find out why it appeared other students were getting reassigned ahead of my son.) She’s never returned my call. </p>
<p>Everyone swears they go in order of the request of reassignment, so all I can do is take them at their word. </p>
<p>I’ve also asked here on CC if there will be an honors floor in Paty, where my son was assigned, and so far no one from the housing office has responded. I’ve been told Paty has been extensively remodeled, but then I hear from the parents of students whose kids lived there the past few years that it’s very rundown and that the bathrooms and dorm rooms are poorly maintained. I’ve also been told we can’t visit Paty when we’re on campus for BB at the end of the month, so there’s no way for us to judge for ourselves. </p>
<p>My son wants to live in honors housing. His preference is for a suite because that all he’s seen firsthand, but the honors overflow in Blount would probably be fine too.</p>
<p>My son is going to work on setting up some possible schedules this week. Once he knows which classes have honors sections that fit, he can call the honors registrar to see what will be open. I didn’t realize there is a separate registrar for honors, so thanks for that info!</p>
<p>Lucie, I wouldn’t worry about your son being shut out of honors classes. They will continue to open up honors seats - I believe they do it in proportion to the number of honors students who attend a particular Bama Bound.</p>
<p>My D is a rising junior. She will be taking her first honors seminar this fall. With the exception of EN103, she has not taken a departmental honors class - her first semester that was because they were full (and FWIW my D went to the first honors BB session), and subsequent to that it was because she didn’t like the time or the teacher or there was a conflict with a class that was a bigger priority for her. In spite of this, she’s having a wonderful experience. Most of her friends are good students and great people and are in the Honors College. She was in honors housing, but that’s not why. The reason is that she did Outdoor Action. She met many, many Honors College students during that one week of OA. During her first semester, the vast, vast majority of her friends were either kids she met at OA or kids she met through the kids she met at OA. </p>
<p>Is your son planning to do one of the Actions? If so, he’ll be surrounded by honors students and will almost certainly make great friends. He can also join the Honors College Assembly. There are benefits to the Honors College (and to being surrounded by like-minded students) that go far beyond discussion based seminars. Your son will love priority registration. While my D can’t get every class she wants, simply because some classes she wants are at the exact same time as other classes she wants, priority registration has helped her immensely. I hear horror stories about kids at other state flagships who can’t get the courses they need in order to graduate in a timely fashion - that has NEVER been an issue for my D. When I say she’s not getting the class she wants, I mean she’s not getting her first choice professor or her desired time (although she usually does!), not that she’s not getting a needed course.</p>
<p>As for housing, I personally like the system because we deposited early (even though D didn’t decide on Bama until the spring) and it worked really well for us. I do understand your frustration, though. I would keep at it, but even if your son ends up in Paty, that might be just fine. Paty doesn’t look so good compared to brand new suite-style housing, but it doesn’t look bad compared to the dorms most of us lived in. I met an incoming freshman in the Honors College just yesterday who is assigned to Paty (and hasn’t requested a change), so there will be other honors students in there, although there is no designated honors area. And if it turns out that there is a real problem in Paty with a roommate or whatever, what I’ve seen Housing do in other situations gives me confidence that they’ll handle it appropriately for your son. I know of a couple students who had real roommate issues and they were dealt with promptly and to the complete satisfaction of the students and their parents. And these were students in Honors Housing - there are some hard partying, problematic roommates in Honor Housing (and all schools). Fingers crossed that your son gets into his dorm of choice!</p>
<p>Lucie who have you spoken to at Housing?, I think it might be time to go straight to the top with the Executive Director Steven Hood . Write him a brief synopsis include the “no callbacks” then follow up with a phone call.
Phone: 205.348.9364
Fax: 205.348.7135
Email: <a href=“mailto:shood1@sa.ua.edu”>shood1@sa.ua.edu</a></p>
<p>Sorry to divert the topic; </p>
<p>Does anybody know when results for emerging scholars this year? </p>
<p>I know this may be off-topic but when do the results come for emerging scholars? It seems, with previous searches, last year (or 2012, idr) that the application was available in march/april/may with results in June. Because it opened first of July this year, I read the faq that selections will be mid-July. Also, previous threads say that people got it “at different times” of the month; will this be the same this year?</p>
<p>Who is running ES these days? Do you know?</p>
<p>No idea… my only info is the webpage</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer to your question, xscreenname, but you might get a better response if you start a new thread and mention Emerging Scholars in the thread name. </p>
<p>@xscreenname, so sorry for hijacking your thread! </p>
<p>And thanks to everyone who’s offered assistance and advice re my son’s situation. No better community on CC than the Bama one, that’s for sure!</p>
<p>No problem. </p>
<p>Regarding 121 classes: </p>
<p>If I take ME121 first section, that’s all I need to do for the rest of that semester? Also is it a pass/fail class? Finally should I take, for example, ME121 first section then ECE121 third section to see which one I like? </p>
<p>Regarding MA227:
I looked at Fall 2013 and the capacity varies between about 75, 70, 68. This year, it looks like all classes are capped at 68,66,64… 0 remaining. Does this mean I cannot take MA227 this year? Should I take lin. alg or diff. eqq instead?</p>
<p>^^
Arent there some Freshman engineering classes you have to take? </p>
<p>@screenname - These are questions you should ask when you get to Bama Bound. You will have an advisor there to help you with registration and to answer exactly these kinds of questions. I’d suggest writing down your questions ahead of time, so you can go over them with your advisor quickly and efficiently.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it would be smarter to try and take Calc III before either DiffEQ or Linear Alg. </p>
<p>The xx121 classes are not P/F - they are graded. Students can take classes P/F, but the stipulations for this are outlined in the course catalog - here is the link to that page (look for Pass/Fail Option tab): <a href=“http://courseleaf.ua.edu/introduction/academicpolicies/gradesandgradepoints/#passfailoptiontext”>http://courseleaf.ua.edu/introduction/academicpolicies/gradesandgradepoints/#passfailoptiontext</a></p>
<p>I dont know what u mean m2ck. I was following the UA mech eng. workflow … <a href=“http://me.eng.ua.edu/files/2014/05/BSME-Curriculum-Flowchart-Fall-2014.pdf”>http://me.eng.ua.edu/files/2014/05/BSME-Curriculum-Flowchart-Fall-2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>will do dodgersmom</p>