My son is a junior and qualifies for full tuition + and will apply for several of the other competitive scholarships. He is visiting Bama (full tuition), and Ole Miss over spring break this year. He is considering majoring in political science or maybe economics but nothing to do with engineering or a foreign language. While it is extremely early, he is thinking about law school.
His top choices at the moment not considering cost are University of VA and William and Mary. We can “afford” this but at the same time it would be nice to save that money for school after college or our retirement
My kids are both going to college next year (one is graduating a year early), and they are likely to pass on Ole Miss. This isn’t for certain. It’s nothing against the school, but we are local, and they just don’t want to feel like they are in 13th grade.
If your son is going to be in the honors college, then Ole Miss is head and shoulders above Alabama, with special small-enrollment classes for lots of subjects and a required honors thesis. I suggest you look at the honors college page on the Ole Miss website, as I think it lists courses that are just for students in the honors college.
As far as national rankings go, Alabama is ranked higher than Ole Miss. Ole Miss is a smaller campus in a smaller town, which I consider a plus. Alabama has a better football team; Ole Miss has a better Game Day experience.
Ole Miss is slightly more generous than Alabama, since it offers extra money for entering freshmen with a 3.5 average, and it’s much easier to get a competitive scholarship that would bring one close to a full ride. Alabama’s scholarship is for eight semesters, both undergraduate and graduate, so a student with a good bit of AP or dual enrollment credit could get several semesters of free law or graduate school.
As for UVA and William and Mary, they offer a completely different experience, and I’m confused about the dollar figures you’ve stated. You will still have room and board expenses at Ole Miss and Alabama unless your son is offered additional scholarships. In any event, you just need to figure out what your net cost of attendance is likely to be for each school, list the positives and negatives, and then go from there. UVA is the third-highest ranked public university in the country, behind UC-Berkeley and UCLA. For those with the money, it might be worth paying for, but that’s a personal decision.
My son is the fourth child my wife and I have sent to college. Each child attended a different university and none of them attended either my or my wife’s Alma Maters. These children, unlike us, have had the unique benefit of searching for and choosing a college that fits their personalities and lifestyles. All four of my children were on scholarship for college - even then, due to living costs and incidentals it cost about $60-70K in total for their educations. This was a bargain in comparison to what some parents pay, but with Ole Miss, the potential exists for these out of pocket expenses to be even lower.
My son has qualified for full tuition at Ole Miss as well as several other schools. He has been accepted at eight colleges where he has been offered scholarships and we can afford to send him to all of them. His attitude is for me to save my money to pay for his graduate school as he is planning on getting a PhD and will need it then.
In your case, law school is not free and you can save your money for that expense. Ole Miss has an excellent Business school, a well renown Honors college, and one of the nicest campuses and college towns in America. It offers a good education for a phenomenal price. A good portion of the student body comes from out of state and the degree becomes even more affordable when you look at all of the competitive scholarships they offer in addition to the automatic ones. They stack scholarships up to the entire cost of college. For us it became a no brainer - especially since he liked the campus “vibe” during our two visits.
All of this praise comes from someone who has several degrees from a rival SEC school so you can trust that it has been given grudgingly.
@EarlVanDorn. Thanks for your reply. I made a mistake in my earlier post. I didn’t mean that was the cost for R&B board but total cost.
We have basically told him that we will fund an education equal to a full W&M undergraduate education. So if he goes to somewhere on scholarship he would save that money for further education. We could always decide to pay additional later if we felt that was the best thing to do at the time.
He is also an athlete who would like to be on the team and that is a factor but will likely get a very minimal scholarship if any at all. While being on the team is definitely a factor, it is not a deal breaker. I think the best fit for him as far as the team goes is W&M but we need to find out more. He may not be able to make the team a couple of the schools.
@LastGoRound Thanks for your reply. While he is considering Bama, he do not like them now in football at all and will try to overlook that when deciding on a college. He knows that would probably change if he went there but he doesn’t like Nick Saban at all
I wish they determined the competitive scholarships earlier because he is going to have coaches that want to know where he wants to go earlier than March.
All - What do you recommend he see when he goes? In addition to the campus tour, He is going to meet with someone at the honors college at the Lott Leadership Institute. He is planning to stay a full day and part of another.
@Windows16 We had a one on one with an admissions counselor who answered our specific questions. The campus tour is interesting and informative. Our guide did it walking backwards. We arranged an afternoon meeting with an Engineering professor as it is the area my son was interested in. On our second visit we had a second one on one with admissions and scheduled time at the Sally McDonnel Barksdale Honors College. As far as Oxford goes, we used Tripadvisor to choose some great restaurants and traipsed around the square window shopping. It was somewhat low keyed but fun.
@Windows16 , this may or may not impact you, but the William and Mary Promise is intended to lower debt for lower and middle class students. It may impact the numbers you show above. UVA has a similar model.
