<p>My son is a senior. He is a National Merit Semi-finalist with incredible credentials, and has already been accepted. He has gotten several calls already from the Honors kids and Oklahomma, I have to say does an incredible job of wooing the National Merit kids. Here's my question, can people from the school give us a real feeling for the school. What's student life like, campus, classes etc. He will be coming in with probably 70-90 credits (depends on his final AP scores next May, but he has scored 5's on his previous 10 and is taking Georgia tech math classes now. He is looking to do engineering, plus business, and I would like him to dabble in social studies, since he loves it. Any help on info would be much appreciated. We are from Georgia and WILL get up to visit the school, just haven't yet. I thought he should see it in the winter. Thanks!</p>
<p>SORRY! just realized my post to general community was switched over yesterday!</p>
<p>ZBD5421…I’m the mother of a freshman NMS student at OU. So far, she is having a great experience. The NMS students and honors college students are treated very well. I think OU is well worth careful consideration.<br>
I’m originally from Georgia and a UGA alum. OU seems similar to UGA, much more so than to Ga Tech, if that helps. It is a football school with pretty large Greek involvement. Those are not at all my D’s interests, yet she has easily found organizations that fit her interests and is “finding her people” easily. </p>
<p>P.S. The winters are not extremely different from the Atlanta area. We have more very cold days and a little more snow overall, but we also have many winter days that are mild and some winters with no snow or ice. </p>
<p>Hi ZBD5421, my daughter hopes to attend OU and I’ve looked into transfer credit. You may already know this but if not I just wanted to give you a heads up that not all your son’s AP credits may be applied toward his major. This may vary by major but it looks like you can only apply 32 credits from AP or CLEP to your major and up to 64 transfer credit from a another college. I’ve heard that OU is very generous with granting transfer credit and that credits past what can be applied toward your major do count for your class standing and can be applied to minors. So if your son has 70 AP credits and 10 college credits he could have 42 credits applied to his major. If I’ve got this wrong, I hope someone will correct me! My daughter is only in 11th grade this year but because of this we are encouraging her to take dual credit classes instead of AP classes as she is well over the 32 AP credit limit for her major.</p>
<p>We are planning to visit OU in February and very excited about it! I’m hopeful that D16 will make National Merit but even if she doesn’t OU is still her first choice school. OU is one of the very few schools that offer everything that D16 is looking for. She will be meeting with a the OU college rep at her school tomorrow.</p>
<p>Before you decide to tour the school, contact the NMS office and see if it’s possible to arrange a tour of the College of Engineering as well as the College of Business. Given how hard OU works to recruit NMS, I can almost guarantee they’ll say yes. If it’s not possible, just walk in to the EPF (engineering practice facility), Price College of Business, and whatever else you may want to explore to see what the students are doing/ discussing. If he’s lucky, he may be able to find a professor who can discuss the merits of the program. </p>
<p>Yes, definitely go through the National Merit office when you set up his tour. They will bend over backwards to make sure your son sees everything he is interested in. They will set up visits with department heads, deans, etc. They’ll arrange for him to sit in on a class or two in his area(s) of interest. I would go ahead and contact the office now. They will assign a rep to work directly with your son and all contact goes through that person. They really want to be the first point of contact for the NM kids, and they treat them very well. </p>
<p>OU does have a strong reputation for being a “football school” and greek life is prominent. However, my son couldn’t care less about either and has found many friends and plenty of activities in which to participate. President Boren places a strong emphasis on (and puts a lot of money into) both the Honors College and the National Scholars program, so the school attracts some of the smartest students and some really great professors. My son is enjoying having kids who are on his level and who have similar interests. I have been super impressed with the research opportunities he has had and he is just a sophomore this year. OU just has a lot to offer. :-)</p>
<p>I second (or third) the advice of going through the NM office. D had two visits … one with me where we sat down witha NM rep and were advised of what OU had to offer, had a meeting with Dean of the Honors College and took a general tour of the campus and dorms. Her second visit she sat in on a couple of classes in areas of her interest and was hosted overnight in the dorms with a NMS. She had dinner with the NMS and a couple of her friends, was made to feel welcome and saw that she could have a social life outside of football and Greek. Those visits were important to D deciding that OU would be a good fit and the NM office made the experience very easy.</p>
<p>S1 transferred in a lot of credits as well. They get something like 19 just for a 5 on Spanish. While it is true they are not all useful credits depending upon the major, the credits affect the academic ‘class’ and after their 1st semester can make a difference in when they can schedule courses. NM Scholars get preferential registration anyway, but within that group they go by class standing.</p>
<p>Ours is like many above…not really interested in the sports or Greek life. I know the boys on the NM floor had a flag football team together…so they form their own social network. I could not be happier with how well the NM group has helped our son feel good about his choice…he is even showing some school pride and even asked for OU clothes for birthday/Christmas…very out of character for him.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all the replies! I’m embarrassed to say we have been so busy I forgot to check back, but we are trying to get a tour set up probably in Feb. but it is going to be tight with some other scholarship interviews he has. Do you think it would be better to wait until Feb. when we find out if he IS a finalist? </p>
<p>My son is also an NMSF. We will be going to the ScholarsToSooners event over Presidents’ Day weekend. That is simply the earliest we could have gotten there anyway since he didn’t decide to apply until mid-November.</p>
<p>However, I did visit with my NMSF daughter two years ago in September. You don’t need to wait until after Finalists are announced. The National Scholars office was very accommodating setting up a completely personalized and thorough tour that early and I have seen posts of people with high-scoring juniors who visited spring of junior year with similar experiences.</p>
<p>The only difference I have seen is that they did offer to pay for a night’s hotel for the ScholarsToSooners event but that also has a limited enrollment so I would encourage you to sign up ASAP if you got an invitation. I don’t know if that was sent to all NMSF who have applied.</p>
<p>I know the parents of two NMF’s at Oklahoma (a sophomore humanities major and a junior CS major) and both students really like the school.</p>
<p>@STEMFamily we are planning a visit that weekend too! D is only a ‘projected NMSF’ at this point since she is a junior I hope visiting during the SchoolarsToSooner event be a problem.</p>
<p>The ScholarsToSooner event is group events including a special campus tour on Sunday afternoon/evening, followed by individualized appointments/tours on Monday. I don’t think there are any other special events on Monday, so hopefully that won’t impact your D’s visit.</p>
<p>Unfortunately we can’t do the Feb. tour as my son is literally booked every week end with other scholarship finalist interviews each week end. I guess I should we should email and set up an individual tour/visit. I really wanted him to meet other NMF kids, but it just won’t work for us. :(</p>
<p>Half of the NMFs won’t end up attending, so I wouldn’t worry about meeting other merit finalists. Besides it’s not as though he’s going to exclusively interact with those who did well on the PSAT. Better for him to meet the full spectrum of students than an utterly miniscule percent of the overall OU population.</p>
<p>I agree with @whenhen that half (probably more) of the NMF’s in attendance won’t actually attend. I only meant that the Sunday tour was “special” because, as far as I know, Sunday tours are not otherwise available. They are just doing it so that people can get a full day of personalized activities on Monday, ending early enough that they can still get home Monday evening and thus not miss any school (assuming that most high school students have no school on the Monday holiday.) As far as I know, the Monday schedule isn’t any different that you would get from the National Scholars Program office any other time (other than perhaps shortened because the general tour is Sunday instead.)</p>
<p>TBH, we were already planning to visit that Monday anyway because our son has both Monday and Tuesday off of school.</p>
Thanks! I guess we’ll probably end up doing the first week end in march, at which time he will (or should) know his status on other schools. We do really want to see school as they have been SO nice, and interactive.