The University of Alabama Visit Report by Rose808

Visit Activities:

Campus Tour: Yes - We had a personalized campus tour set up by the Honors College. It was very well organized, very informative, and the campus is just beautiful!

Classroom Visit: Yes - Daughter sat in on an Honors College seminar and enjoyed participating in the discussions.

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Campus:

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Everyone we met just seemed to be genuinely nice people. Our two student tour guides were extremely personable, very knowledgeable about the campus, and just all around fun to talk to.

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I can't say enough about the staff of the University of Alabama. The time we were given by each individual we met was just incredible!

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This campus is beautiful. Everything you would imagine the ideal college campus to be!

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Once again, the campus is stunning. The grounds are well kept, the buildings are beautifully maintained, the facilities are top notch!

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We toured the four-bedroom, two-bath super suites, with kitchen (full-size fridge, microwave, sink) and living room/dining area. Digital cable in all the rooms, a rec room and more. Fabulous!

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Very safe campus. See the full report below for more details.

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Beautiful campus, friendly students, top notch facilities, fabulous opportunities for research and internships.

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Off-Campus:

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The Strip is right off campus and has a great variety of restuarants, everything from quaint cafes to BBQ to Japanese to Greek to Italian. You name it, they got it!

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Seems like a very nice, clean town. Super Target is nearby and the university has a shuttle bus that the students can take to get there as well as other places around town.

Campus Visit Notes for The University of Alabama

Visit Description:

Bama has done it again! We arrived with high expectations, and they sure delivered. I hope I can do them justice in my report! Oh, and before I get started, brief history of us. Husband and I brought our daughter and her two best friends over from Hawaii for this tour. D is interested in computer science, her two friends are interested in nursing and human nutrition.

First off, the weather was beautiful! Sunny skies, cool crisp air, the leaves changing colors. Really, really beautiful!

My husband and the three girls met up with Jami Gates (coordinator of student recruitment, Honors College) at 9:00 at Nott Hall. This is the one part I missed, as I was just flying in that morning. Anyway, here they received their agendas for the day, with most of the day spent together, but they did separate at one point to visit their respective departments.

Our first tour guide, Lauren, met them there and then they headed off to tour the dorms. I met up with them at Ridgecrest South. As has been reported on here, the dorms are magnificent. This particular dorm has a basketball court outside, with little areas for cooking out. Inside it has a rec room with a pool table. Our tour guide was incredibly nice and very informative. She and the girls talked non-stop about everything from dorm choices, campus life, food, classes, and my daughter's favorite question, "Do you see the football players on campus?" Which the answer was yes.

Next up, the girls headed back to Nott Hall to sit in on an Honors Seminar, Southern Values, taught by Dr. Louise Cary. My husband and I headed to the Ferguson Center so I could get some much needed caffeine! The Ferg is a great place for the students to hang out and socialize as well as study. The girls reported that they enjoyed the class discussion and really liked the professor.

Next up was our meeting with Dr. Witt (President of the University of Alabama). What an honor! We met with Dr. Witt, along with one other family, at the Rose Administration building. We had a great discussion about the tremendous growth at the university. There is a new building being finished about every 90 days. UA is growing in population and they're building the infrastructure to support that growth. We learned that 40 percent of the students are from out of state! He went into great detail about many safety features on the campus, such as being able to call for a ride if it's late and you don't feel comfortable walking across campus alone, to a GPS emergency alert system that works with your phone. He informed us that the university has allotted $55 million for scholarships this year!

Next on the agenda was lunch at Lakeside Dining with one of the Honors Ambassadors, Kate. We had so much fun with her! She was so personable, easy to talk to, and once again very informative. Oh, and yes, she does see the football players on campus

At this point we split up. My daugher headed over to Shelby Hall to meet with Dr. Brown, associate professor of computer science, while the other two girls headed over to Doster Hall to meet with Dr. Niuh, assistant professor, human nutrition. My daughter had a great discussion with Dr. Brown. Okay, I have to admit, math and science is not my thing, so I'm not sure what they were talking about half the time, but I have a little cheat sheet here to help me out. He told her about the 100P program (loop). My D seemed very interested in this. Here's a quote from the handout: "In the 100P program, students are freed from the classroom; students instead work on 100 concept- and research-related problems throughout their undergraduate careers." Anyone who wants more info on this, let me know and I can provide it. Anyway, she also talked about double majoring, the scholars program, internships, etc. I was amazed at how much time everyone spent with us. We had such a tight schedule, we were usually the ones apologizing that we had to move on.

So next we meet back up again at Nott and Jami takes us via golf cart to the new Capstone College of Nursing. I could spend paragraphs telling you all the great things about this program! It's very competitive to get into for one. Average GPA last term was a 3.8, but they have a 98 percent pass rate for their graduates (national average is 80 percent). The simulators they work on are just amazing! This facility is top notch. Anyone interested in nursing needs to take a tour!

Jami came back for us in her golf cart and then took us over to the rec center. Another great facility! They've got tons of fitness classes every day, everything from yoga to Zumba to kickboxking, which is taught by Jami

Now we head back to Nott for our info session on the Honors College. Jami was waiting for one more family to join us before she got started, so we were relaxing in the reception area, when Dr. Morgan (Associate Dean of the Honors College) came up and introduced herself to us. She invited us into her office and we spent the next hour chatting, laughing, learning more and more about what a great school we have chosen. It's amazing to me that someone in Dr. Morgan's position would spend so much quality time with us when we weren't even on her schedule. I know my daughter will be in great hands next year when I drop her off at UA!!

Roll Tide!

Hotel/Lodging Recommendations or Comments:

We stayed at the Home-towne Suites. Highly recommend it!

Dining/Restaurant Recommendations or Comments:

Nick's in the Sticks for a great steak at a great price. Dreamland BBQ.
Big Daddy's (yummy gyros!)