There’s been a lot of discussion of late here on College Confidential about how minorities and those from other parts of the country might fit in at UA. Although we can all offer input and opinions (including those who’ve never set foot on campus), no one but you can decide if it’s the right place to spend the next four years of your life. But, honestly, that’s true about any school, and I highly recommend visiting your final choices, if at all possible, before you make such a huge commitment.
That being said, I thought I’d share a video the university just released from Get On Board Day last week. I think, if you look past the students being interviewed and observe the crowd visuals, you will get a pretty good representation of the student body.
Greek Life at UA gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, but there’s so much more to the school than fraternities and sororities. See for yourself and Roll Tide!
Hi! Coming from a less biased POV here. Let’s be honest, obviously Bama is going to try to portray themselves in that way. As do ALL colleges. They try to portray themselves as overwhelmingly diverse. As does my college which actually doesn’t really have that much racial diversity. NU’s diversity is reflected in other ways, but they do make an effort to portray themselves as more diverse than they really are. It’s called marketing.
@CaliCash, I specfically suggested in my initial post that the viewer “look past” the marketing effort being made and observe the students milling around in the background, or are you now implying that all those students were planted to make the school look more diverse than it really is?
I’m a parent of a current UA student. I may be biased to some degree, but I have NO DESIRE to see a student for whom the school is not the right fit choose it. I was trying to be helpful. I think one could question your “less biased POV” at this point and conclude that you have a bit of an agenda with regard to UA. For a budding journalist, you might want to check that.
I do not have a bias against Bama. In fact, I actually spent money to apply to Bama and I got in. So there is no reason for me to have an agenda against them. For a long time poster on CC who knows that I was considering Bama, you might want to remember that.
You also did not say look past the marketing effort. You said " I think, if you look past the students being interviewed and observe the crowd visuals, you will get a pretty good representation of the student body."
So that’s what I did. I looked at the student body and the crowd visuals. No, they are obviously not planting students of color in there. But it would be extremely naive to think that they are not choosing certain clips of footage that have a lot of students of color in them.
Great video! In addition to showing a racially diverse student body, there is diversity in body types and in accents, as well. I commend UA for putting this out.
Regarding the marketing aspect, bringing diverse students to any campus has to begin with marketing in order to break down stereotypes. Diversity rates on campuses can be checked through the Common Data Set. That information is out there already. But videos such as this SHOULD include clips of different segments of the student body interacting with each other to show all students what is possible on campus. I have no problem with a university editing its marketing videos to show themselves in a positive light.
I think it’s also a good video to observe what a student wears on an average day. There have been threads in the past asking this and sometimes the answers sound like if you’re not wearing khakis and button down shirts for young men that you won’t fit in. I saw many t-shirts and even cargo shorts and gym shorts.
Hello all! We are from the Northeast (Connecticut) and my D is considering 'Bama. Several people have suggested that the culture may be too much of a change. Any thoughts on this?? Everything I’ve seen and read so far have been very positive.
We just came back from our second visit and live in the Midwest ( Kansas). I believe that 47% of student population are OOS. We thoroughly enjoyed everything the UA has to offer; academics, campus, facilities, faculty, and the city. It did not seem like 37000 students on campus. Just kick back and enjoy walking around the campus.
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Hello all! We are from the Northeast (Connecticut) and my D is considering 'Bama. Several people have suggested that the culture may be too much of a change. Any thoughts on this?? Everything I’ve seen and read so far have been very positive.
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This question always cracks me up. What do NE people think the South is, some sort of 3rd world nation??? It’s part of the US. Do they worry about such things when they travel the country? Do they worry about such things when they travel ABROAD?? lol…uh…no…they trot off to Europe, Asia, or wherever with little thoughts to whether the culture will be too much of a change. Do they worry about sending their child to college in the Midwest? The West Coast???
Unless these folks will find being around friendly and helpful people and MUCH BETTER weather to be too much to handle…
Betty Boop, we are from CT also and have had 2 kids go to Bama. My son graduated in 2014 and my D is junior. Both have loved it. When asked by people here what is different down there they say that the people are friendlier, the guys treat the girls more respectfully, etc. No negatives whatsoever!
Those of us in the middle class aren’t traveling all over the world, lol. However, even if we were the difference between vacationing vs living someplace else is vast.
Speaking for myself, my concern would be how many describe things like religion discussions, saying sir or ma’am constantly, visibly present guns, confederate flags, and maybe other things I’m not thinking of at the moment.
I’m not saying that I wouldn’t send my child to southern schools. On the contrary, posters here have made UA in particular sound like a fabulous place. But I can see why people ask the question, especially if they haven’t yet read a lot of posts here.
I’ve never seen anybody visibly carrying a weapon in Alabama other than the police. I see fewer Confederate flags there than up in the North (somehow people in the North have a fascination with it). People are more religious in the south, but they’re not pushy about it. You’ll see people talk about their religious beliefs openly, but that’s it. I’m agnostic so I just let it go and it’s no problem. If you do decide to go UA, the plusses far outweigh the negatives.
@BettyBoop45 you may have visited some schools in your area and find a kind of regional ‘culture’. A more important question would be (after visiting and liking what UA has to offer) is how the logistics will be XXX miles from home, and if DD is comfortable with being further than some of the more regional schools. One needs to look at what the school has to offer and how it stands against the other schools. My DD is a sophomore at UA and is very happy there - she is working incredibly hard on her academics because she loves being there (engineering major, STEM MBA honors program).
I agree about the friendliness on campus - and I can relate with having gone to a large southern campus for grad school (TAMU) which didn’t seem so large with the friendliness. One foreshadowing aspect is that your DD would be a part of UA alum - which are getting to be all over the country just like TAMU alum are. We love that TAMU joined the SEC. And parents who don’t follow college football, beware, if your student goes to UA, a strong chance that you will get hooked. H who usually watches mostly NFL has gained more and more interest in college football, and my interest was very low before friends’ students went to UA - now I am pretty informed and watch all the games, and attend a few.
I think this is a polite way of expressing concern about open racism or in-your-face religiosity (specfically, Christianity).
My experience is very much the same as @NoVADad99’s (#15). (I live in suburban Philadelphia and just saw a kid riding an ATV displaying the Confederate flag in my upper middle class neighborhood after the last snowstorm!)
@BettyBoop45, my best advice (especially if you or your child are an ethnic or religious minority) is to visit and decide for yourself. Since becoming part of the UA community, I’ve made friends with folks of every race and color, and across the political spectrum, from all over the US. It’s been a refreshing experience and something I wanted to my son to experience too, which he has.
We are from the Midwest and visited UA with my D on a regular school day. The school seemed pretty diverse to me and very welcoming. D has visited other schools and didn’t like “the vibe” at some of those. She liked the vibe at UA and said she thinks she would be happy there.
Still considering her options but UA is definitely still under consideration and I would be perfectly happy if that was her final choice.