Thanks. I just emailed to set up our visit in March. Looking forward to seeing what we think-- we’ve heard such positive responses here. Right now DS has Alabama number one. Hoping it will be a good fit, DS is not the most extroverted nor social and is not thinking about Greek Life at this point.
With DD! that is a jr at UA, we did not do the personal tour, did not have the time.
With DD2 that will be at UA Fall 2016, I emailed our recruiter. She did not arrange our personal tour. She gave me a contact at UA. I emailed the head of that department about 2 months out and told them of her plans/major, what day we would be there, that she was free for the entire day and would not be doing the regular tour. Told him she would like to sit in on a class, etc. He got right back to me that day and asked a few more questions and told me they would have a day planned for her. Two weeks prior I did send an email confirming our visit. He responded with her entire day laid out. She sat in on 2 upper level classes, all of 10 people in each. One was hands on and the other was more of a lecture class. One of the student ambassadors was in the class and connected with her as we were told. She took her to lunch, they talked about UA, the department, etc. Then I met up with DD2 for our meeting with the head advisor for the department that arranges internships, explains all of the various paths she could take, gave us a history on the department, etc. VERY INFORMATIVE!!! All of it.
If your recruiter is hesitant to arrange a private tour or does not respond, do not hesitiate to reach out to the department head.
When I scheduled our tour with the honors college, I just specified that son wanted to sit in on an entry level engineering course and also that we wanted to speak with someone about co-ops and/or internships and they scheduled everything.
Thanks everyone. Have emailed and will await the response. Thanks for the help. Now we just have to wait and see what we think in March. It will certainly make the application process easy if DS loves Alabama especially with the scholarships.
We arranged our visit with the Engineering department. It was a full day from 9 - 4ish. We got tours for 2 of the majors we were interested in - Aero and Materials/Metallurgical and also a general engineering. We also had the honors presentation. Our campus tour was quite different though - in that ours was walking (started across from the Ferg) and we went to the dorms and other walkable areas - but didn’t get to see the stadium or anything requiring a bus!
If at all possible, don’t schedule your visit during UA’s Spring Break. You’ll want to experience kids on campus. I have to say that the school shows extremely well, and the people are fantastic–it has been a great freshman year for our DD.
We also scheduled our tour through the honors college a couple of years ago. I failed to schedule the general tour, so missed the rec center and stadium parts on that visit. Our engineering portion of the scheduled agenda only included a visit with a professor. Another family was with us during that and the professor was going to take them on a tour, but we had another appointment to get to. So he had us stop by the receptionist and ask her to see if anyone was available at the end of our day to take us around. We left a cell phone number and within an hour, she called back to let us know that a tour had been arranged. Very accommodating!
Thank you for this fantastic report! I visit UA in March. It is my #1 at this point.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/news/20160924/ua-trustees-approve-44-billion-budgets FYI: HM Comer is about to undergo a major renovation to make it look more in harmony with the new buildings to which it connects.
Excellent review. We were just there last weekend. The tour was one of the best campus tours we have had. I was favorably impressed. Hard to argue that more elite schools are worth $200K more for 4 years. Our child will decide in the end but I will be pleased if she chooses UA.
It is a different type of campus relative to others we have visited. The feel is not regal, old school, grand. It is more like a southern, really nice, movie set. Everything seems pretty new. All of the people are nice, almost comically nice. We were looking at a campus map and a young man tried to help us and he was just a prospective student there on his own tour. The guys at the university store chatted us up about the weather and our visit. When we visited places out east we felt more like the Clampett’s visiting Beverly Hills in that their welcoming was infused with “tolerance.” Just my take. But I have nothing but positive comments about UA.