I care about all of you and do not want you guys to make the mistake I did:
I went to the university for 2 weeks and went there to stay four years. Let’s just say I withdrew after everything I saw. The university is absolutely beautiful. They don’t even require an essay (I personally think they take most students for money). My roommate also withdrew and went back to Philly, and I went back to Chicago. The third roommate almost withdrew also. I pledged a fraternity called Alpha Kappa Lambda (Popular one) and I withdrew my bid and left the university from all the horrific things I saw. When my mom called them they said that on average, 200 people per day withdraw within the first couple of weeks. Crazy right? You can call them and ask them if you’d like. The school does a great job of marketing, but my experience was absolutely miserable. Watch out from the University of Alabama. @mom2collegekids helped me and she was the reason why I went. She is very helpful and everything she said was true. After I settled, I realized I wouldn’t last 4 years, and I was not going to put a burden of my parents to struggle to pay the tuition. I’m planning to transfer to either UPenn, Georgetown, Penn State, Maryland, NYU, USC, and GWU. Good luck to all. By the way, I was popular all throughout all high school and hung out with everyone. Partied, but the school was not for alot of people, not just me. I am transferring from a community college to further focus on my goals and to broaden my chances at success and improve the lives of people. I have realized the purpose of my life. Good luck to all once again and I hope you guys all find success in your academic careers and lives.
I am sorry you had a bad experience, but in my opinion 2 weeks is not adequate time to adjust to a completely new environment.
Back when I went to college, I spent most of my first year completely miserable. My freshman year, I lived in 2 dorms with 3 different roommates (in traditional 2 person dorm rooms) and I struggled with my choice of major. I gave serious thought to transferring or even dropping out over my first winter break and then again over my first summer break, but decided to ‘stick it out’. I made the choice to live alone and change my major and eventually found a group of friends I fit in with. In spite of the bad start, I still look back on my college years as some of the best of my life.
My son struggled when he first went to Alabama. He struggled with homesickness, with his long distance relationship, and with finding his place after choosing to go 500 miles away where he knew no one. I told him he HAD to stay at least a semester and then if he was completely miserable, we could discuss the issues and options. After one semester, even though he was still struggling, he decided to stick it out until the end of the year. He’s still there 4 years later (he even extended his time there with a co-op).
I too am curious about “all the horrific things saw” because I know that Tuscaloosa and Alabama are by no means perfect places, but from all the times I’ve visited there since 2011, most of what I’ve seen I would see at all other large, public universities too.
So you were paying tuition at Bama (which means you didn’t qualify for the Presidential), but think you’re going to just transfer to UPenn from community college? You do realize the majority of full scholarship students at Bama wouldn’t have been admitted to UPenn, right?
Also, if your parents were struggling to pay Bama’s tuition, how will they pay for any of these privates or out-of-state publics you’re now targeting?
I’m sorry, but your post is simply not helpful without additional information - specifically what were the horrible things you saw in two weeks that made you leave Alabama. If your purpose is in fact to help people, you need to give them sufficient information to make a decision based on their own circumstances.
My daughter is in her fifth year at Alabama and has been very successful there. She has had a good experience academically and socially. However, I know that not every kid is a fit, and I know students who have transferred for a variety of reasons, many of which would not be applicable to someone else. If you want to be helpful, get specific. Otherwise I don’t see the point of your post.
@IvyLeague2 What are the horrible things you saw? I haven’t heard anything but good stuff about this school.
So it’ll be interesting to see from another POV.
It’ll be helpful for high school seniors like me making a decision if you explain.
I think what it mostly tells you is that Alabama takes a chance on some lower stats kids, who are more likely to struggle (the lower end of the middle 50% of ACT/SAT is significantly lower at Alabama than it is at Georgia and Florida), and that there are a lot of kids paying high OOS tuition who realize too late that they can’t really afford it. There may also be kids who were forced by their parents (or otherwise felt compelled) to take the big scholarships and then realize it’s not a good fit.
There are a lot of reasons why a student would leave a school, and I’m not saying that the reasons I cited are the primary reasons (I don’t know), but if I look for differences between UA and UGA and UF, those are things I immediately see. I would not ignore the differences in the freshman retention rates, but I think it’s too complicated to put too much weight on without digging further.
What Beth’s mom said…18.1% (based on the 2015-2016 CDS) of the incoming freshmen were in the bottom 1/2 of their high school class. Also, cost plays a big role, since without merit aid, in-state and OOS students can find UA very expensive. Likely a not insignificant number of low SES in-state students drop after the first year.
There was a thread in the parents forum, about UK moving away from merit aid and more toward need based aid. The reason had to do with trying to retain and graduate academically capable students, that were dropping out for financial reasons (based on UK’s research).
Great points- Beth’s Mom. UGA is really not comparing apples to apples. I am not sure of exact percentage, but UGA’s enrollment is in the high 80’s (in state) due to Hope and Zell Miller scholarships. It is an awesome school and my second child (first child is graduating from Bama in May…and she loved every stinkin’ minute of it) may be attending Georgia. It is between UGA and Bama (Presidential scholarship) for him. I agree there are many factors that lead to withdrawing or transferring from Bama.
I’d bet UGA and UF have a much higher percentage of in-state students, thus they have more students who are already familiar with the area and culture.
My son is a freshman and loving it but his roommate’s friend did not like UA and went back to Chicago at the semester. At least he tried it for a semester. I would imagine that is common among many schools.