<p>Hello, I am a current high school senior from the northeast who is looking to go to Ole Miss. However I am concerned by the typical stereotypes of a southern school (racism, very conservative, etc) so I was wondering if people could tell me what the school was like in that regard. I am not liberal, or conservative, I am defiantly not racist in any way, and come from a fairly affluent background.</p>
<p>Also I am concerned by the fact that I will not know anybody at the school. I defiantly intend on joining a fraternity so if anybody could tell me what fraternities I might fit into or which ones I should stay away from that would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Also if anybody knows anything about the real estate program at Ole Miss I would be very interested in hearing about it.</p>
<p>I appreciate any help anybody could give me, the thought of attending Ole Miss both excites me and makes me nervous.</p>
<p>There are students on the Ole Miss campus from Alaska, New York, California, South Dakota and many other states and countries. Some, like you, come to campus not knowing anyone. If you choose to get involved, it’s a lot easier to meet people. Greek life, student government, intramurals… all great ways to get connected. Students also have various viewpoints ranging from Christian to atheist. The President of the Human Rights Campaign just spoke on campus yesterday to a packed auditorium. </p>
<p>Check out the B-School website for more on the Real Estate program. <a href=“http://www.olemissbusiness.com/programs/bba/majors.html”>http://www.olemissbusiness.com/programs/bba/majors.html</a></p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Fairway99: </p>
<p>My son started at Ole Miss in September. We are from California and never would have considered Ole Miss except that they offered a generous National Merit scholarship. We visited the campus last November and loved it. </p>
<p>We went to campus again in late August to drop off our son and attend orientation (they have separate student and parent orientations), and loved it even more. The campus and surrounding town were every bit as beautiful as our first impression told us they were. This time we had more of a chance to interact with people, both students and faculty, and again we were very impressed. You had people like the Director of Admissions (and others) giving out his home phone number and his cell phone number for parents to call if they had any concerns or problems that they needed help with. </p>
<p>Of course Ole Miss has a lot of racial baggage from its past. The perception of it being a racist place is exacerbated by the fact that it used Confederate imagery for a long time, even after it began admitting black students. I don’t know a lot about the school during those days, but I can say that we didn’t see any trace of racism while we were there. On the contrary, it seemed to me that blacks and whites went out of their way to be nice to each other. Both black students and white students would say hello to us, open doors for us, offer to help carry things to our son’s dorm room, etc. We were blown away by the niceness. </p>
<p>By the way, my wife is a non-white immigrant and our son is mixed race. Again, if anything, my wife felt that people went out of their way to be nice to her, both on campus and in other places like restaurants and stores. My son hasn’t experienced any problems whatsoever since we dropped him off. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to say that it’s shangri-la. I’m sure there are some racist students, and some unfriendly students. But frankly, you’re going to find that anywhere, even in the northeast. All I can say is that we didn’t see any trace of it when we were there. </p>