<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I’m an OOS student looking at University of alabama and am wondering what’s cool about this school? Ive heard the area is awesome, but what about the school?</p>
<p>Why did you choose University of Alabama? (Or, if you havent chosen it, what’s your favorite thing about it?)</p>
<p>Also, what’s your least favorite thing and what would you change?</p>
<p>My older son visited several schools (including Auburn) before he visited Bama. Once he visited Bama, he never wanted to visit anywhere else. </p>
<p>He loves Dr. Sharpe (Director of CBHP and now Dean of the Honors College). There are 4 very different honors programs and there are many honors courses. </p>
<p>Also, when my son visited, he sat in on several classes and really liked them. </p>
<p>The school is also very beautiful and has really good looking males and females (so both sides are happy about that!)</p>
<p>There are lots of majors and the profs seem to really care about the students. </p>
<p>Before my younger son visited, he announced that there was “no way” that he’d go to the same school as his brother. But, after being on campus a few times (for football games and to help his older brother move into his dorm), younger son didn’t want to apply anywhere else.</p>
<p>Least favorite thing? It will be harder for my kids to get tickets to all the home football games once they graduate.</p>
<p>UA really is a special place. It is an outstanding school that combines the best of academia with a classic Southern atmosphere. Football is one of the first things that many people think about when they think of Alabama, and the program is consistently one of the best in the nation (Can you say 13?) But the academics are also very impressive. The UA Honors College is one of the best in the nation, with several different programs and hundreds of unique course offerings.</p>
<p>Alabama’s Greek system is among the best in the southeast and the nation. UA Greeks are very active in campus life and leadership and crank out a huge number of philanthropy hours every year. Social life at the Capstone is tops.</p>
<p>Don’t rule UA out, especially with your guaranteed scholarship. I was accepted to several very fine schools across the Southeast (Furman, Auburn, Davidson, Washington and Lee, Wake Forest) and I turned them all down for a spot as a freshman at Alabama this fall. Incidentally, UA was the last campus I visited and after I toured I knew that it was the place for me.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already done so, please visit the campus. Alabama, unlike some other state public flagship universities, actively recruits out-of-state students. They take good care of the OOS’ers as far as scholarships go, provided you have the right numbers.</p>
<p>Good luck with your college search and Roll Tide!</p>
<p>I first heard about UA by reading CC. I was looking for a school that offered good merit aid and the fact that Alabama awarded guaranteed scholarships, I decided to look into the school. Once I did that, I knew that I wanted to attend UA. Due to the distance from home (i’m from WA), my parents weren’t too sure at first, but as soon as we set foot on campus, they agreed that I should attend UA. </p>
<p>Besides the beautiful campus, superb academics, and affordable tuition, what I liked best about UA is that the entire school is committed to helping you achieve your goals and dreams. At other schools, it felt like I was going to sacrifice many of the things I wanted for myself. UA accepted all of my AP and dual enrollment credits on very favorable terms so that I entered UA as a junior with 75+ credits (other schools wouldn’t grant elective credit), encourages me to take a double major and get a master’s degree, provides ample extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities that interest me, and offers very plush and comfortable living arrangements (like the honors super suite residence halls) at an affordable price (I have a full tuition scholarship). If anything, UA has exceeded my expectations.</p>
<p>UA does treat it’s OOS students better than most state schools. That said, it still occasionally forgets that many of its students are not from Alabama or adjoining states. Off-campus transportation is one of the things that most needs to be improved and fall break should have been kept a 4-day weekend and something been worked out to still cancel classes for the GA State game and so that OOS students can go home then and stay over Thanksgiving for the Iron Bowl. All in all though, my complaints are very minor and could and do occur at many schools. </p>
<p>Roll Tide!</p>
<p>i agree about the fall break. that was not news we were happy to hear.</p>
<p>I didn’t get have much of choice. I got 50% off tuition because one of my parents works for UA. I probably would have gone somewhere else if it were financially feasible. UA was very different back then. None of these superdorms and water parks and opulent dining halls were here back then. I lived at home obviously, but if I lived on campus, I would have lived in New Hall, because that was THE honors dorm (other then Blount Hall, but you had to in A&S to even apply for the Blount program).</p>
<p>If you can imagine, there was basically nothing north of a line connecting Paty Hall, AIME, and Bevill except for Rose Towers and trees.</p>
<p>My son never gave Alabama or any school in the deep south any thought. He wanted to attend an Ivy, Washington U. in St. Louis or Duke. We live in rural Virginia, and he did not like our schools, either. Thought UVA was very busy. Was not a fan of Virginia Tech (one of his dear friends was a victim of the VT shootings). Thought William & Mary was not very pretty (although everyone else seems to like the place). At the same time, he was National Merit, and our Virginia schools do not give much in terms of merit money.</p>
<p>As the economy started to fail, the National Merit offers rolled in from all over the country. My husband and I told our son that he needed to select one offer, just in case the economy did not bounce back. He looked at everything and picked Alabama, because it was the closest to home. We went for a visit in December 2008. It was 22 degrees. We did not think our son really liked the school, although the rest of us thought it was really nice. But, as we started our eight-hour drive to a relative’s home for the holidays, our son said he could see himself at Alabama, but doubted that he would be there.</p>
<p>Just after the holidays, I asked him to apply to the computer-based honors program. He did so reluctantly, because he did not believe he would earn a spot in it, and of course, he really had no intention of attending Alabama. He was selected to CBH, but he chose to wait to offer any response until he heard from the half dozen or so schools that would not announce their admissions decisions until late March or April. </p>
<p>He got into some outstanding schools – all with nice merit awards. But Alabama still had the best offer – full tuition, honors housing, a National Merit stipend, a stipend for research/study aboard and a laptop. He also had spots in three honors programs and the school would give him 65 credits for his AP classes (no other school offered that). </p>
<p>Now, he has a chance to double major, maybe even, triple major. He will be researching for an econ professor this fall. He is active as an honors college ambassador and works with the SGA. He has some great friends at UA like Sea_tide and some of the others on the Alabama threads. </p>
<p>And he cannot wait to go back to school this fall.</p>
<p>I chose Bama because it was the home of the Crimson Tide, and I listened to Bama games on the radio as a child. I became enchanted with the occasional pictures I would see of the campus. As an undergrad in the late 80s and early 90s, I enrolled in the Honor’s Program. My knowledge base, wisdom, and intellect increased dramatically in my days at UA, and for that I will forever be grateful. </p>
<p>UA’s campus has an incredible sense of place. As a student who didn’t always feel like I had much in common with others, I took great comfort in the lush green of the Quad and the distinctive, harmonious, and traditional architecture of the campus. I always felt like I was at home there. Still do.</p>
<p>I entered Alabama in the fall of 1970, back when you would start about the middle of September…you know, back when the earth was still cooling!</p>
<p>Tuition was, I believe, $350 a semester for 15 hours. </p>
<p>No one in my family had attended college. I had only visited a couple of campuses, and that was with my Girl Scout troop. We came to the university for some sort of statewide scout meeting. Later I traveled to UA to see our high school team win the state championship at Memorial (now Coleman) Coliseum. There was no such thing as a “campus visit,” or if there was, my parents wouldn’t have brought me anyway.</p>
<p>I just fell in love with UA. It was a beautiful campus. I loved being around the other young people, of course, and everything was exciting and scary. I still feel like I’m going home every time we visit the campus. I wish DD was still in school there - she was in a hurry to get her degree and get married!</p>
<p>I probably chose Bama for all the wrong reasons to choose a college. I was born and raised in Philly/South Jersey. </p>
<p>Older brother went to Penn St, older sister went to a school (Kean) in north Jersey. When it was my time I just wanted to get away from home and everybody. I was a huge sports fan and went about looking for colleges based mainly on their sports programs. Though I grew up a Penn St fan I always admired Alabama. The basketball team was pretty good back then too under Wimp Sanderson.</p>
<p>Anyway, I applied site unseen, got accepted, drove down and first stepped foot on campus 3 days before classes started for late orientation. Until then I had never been further south than Maryland.</p>
<p>I immediately fell in love with the place. I don’t know how to describe it but the place is magical to me. I get goosebumps to this day every time I get back on campus for a football weekend. </p>
<p>I took my “son” (little brother born when I graduated from UA in 1992) down for a game his freshman year of high school. Needless to say he felt the same thing I did when I first stepped foot on campus. Despite numerous attempts by our older brother to get him to go to Penn St, he’ll be a freshman at UA in 3 weeks. </p>
<p>UA might not be for everybody, but it’s HOME to me. Roll Tide!!</p>
<p>As for complaints…</p>
<p>There’s no “perfect college”. Every college is going to have a few rules you don’t like, a few policies you don’t like, a few people you don’t like, etc. </p>
<p>All in all, my kids have had very little to complain about. Certainly they had a lot more complaints about their K-12 years. LOL</p>
<p>NJBama, I sent you a PM. Wonder if you know another guy from Jersey who was at Bama when we were there. He was a roommate of mine at Rose Towers.</p>