We live in Maryland, so my son will be spending weekends and some breaks at school. Does the school “clear out” with local kids heading home for the weekend?
No. I’m sure there are some who go home, but my daughter who is out of state has never said anything about her friends going home. I think with so mamy OOS students most will be on campus during the weekends.
No, definitely not. With over 50% of the school being from OOS (and not from simply across the state line in GA), that doesn’t happen at UA.
it doesn’t matter what “local kids” do…there aren’t that many “local kids”. Too many are from OOS (60% of the frosh class) or are from other parts of the state and it’s too much of a pain to go home.
We are instate, but we were 2 1/2 hours away when our kids were at Bama. It took too much time out of their weekend to come home very often.
It is wise to ask this question about weekend desertion, of whatever college you are considering, especially if you’re one of the ones who needs to stay in town. UA is not what is referred to as a ‘commuter’ college where people exit on the weekends. Far from it.
Freshman do tend to go home more often than older students their first year, for obvious reasons, but if you didn’t go home, you would not be alone on campus during breaks and weekends. In football season, students do stick around more, and there are a lot more visitors in town. It’s pretty festive.
As well as domestic out of state students UA has a fair number of international students who certainly won’t be going home at the weekends. My son has several international friends and they all went out for lunch together last Thanksgiving. He said it was fun to see some of his Chinese friends experience Thanksgiving food.
We’ve found it easier than we thought having him away. We exchange emails and chat together on Skype on Sundays. We’ve even watched a couple of football games “together” with him calling in on Skype which worked out surprisingly well.
A fair number of the Regional kids do go home, but by no means is it a ghost town.