I am really interested in Southern schools like Alabama, Auburn, Ole miss, Georgia, and South Carolina. Are any of these schools redneck or hillbilly-ish? I am looking for schools with southern charm. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Those schools are fine…not redneck.
Have you visited any?
That depends on what you would consider “redneck” and “hillbilly.”
No I haven’t visited any yet but I am going to. I am still trying to get an idea of were I want to go and what I want in a school. @mom2coll
I feel like redneck is such odd prejudiced stereotype built on assumptions and inaccuracies about the South. I’m sure that there are many students at each of those schools that Northerners (or others) would consider “rednecks” or “hillbillies,” but how can an entire school be “redneck”? What do you even mean by it - what’s the difference between “redneck” and Southern charm to you?
I guess at the root of it, the distinction assumes some kind of pronounced difference between Southerners and people from other regions of the U.S. - but I always say that central Pennsylvanians (where I currently live) are much more similar to Southerners in so, so many ways than they are to New Yorkers or Bostonians. And I think New Yorkers and Atlantans probably have more in common than New Yorkers and folks who live in rural Vermont.
I suppose it depends on how you define “hillbilly”. If you mean do they allow in (primarily Caucasian) students from Appalachia and the surrounding foothill areas, who may or may not be economically disadvantaged…yes, probably they do. So do Yale, Duke, and Ohio State.
If you’re using the pejorative definition and are envisioning educational institutions full of trashy, uneducated people who don’t wear shoes and spend their time drinking cheap alcohol, then no-- no moreso than any state uni anywhere else in the country.
Sigh. That’s all I can say to the OP, but I suggest the OP take the previous two posts to heart.
All the colleges on your list have some Southern charm, but consider visiting Clemson instead of University of South Carolina or in addition to it. If you’re going to Mississippi to check out Ole Miss, you may as well also visit Mississippi State. Definitely do visit UGA as Athens is a highly regarded college town full of Southern charm. You might want to also check out some private universities like Vanderbilt and Emory while passing through. Since you aren’t sure what you are looking for in a college, consider checking out some smaller colleges for comparison, such as College of Charleston.
You can do “virtual tours” of these places before making travel plans using a variety of online tools, but my favorite is to go to www.googlemaps.com, look up a university, and use the street view to actually walk around a campus and surrounding town (just drag the little yellow man over to the street you want to view and walk down). You can also search “restaurants” or whatever you are interested in once you’ve located a university, and that will pop up all over the map different places near campus, so you can get an idea of what is in walkable distance from campus if that is of concern to you. My daughter wants to be able to walk to many places while in college, so that’s a tool we have been using. It also gives you an idea of which streets in town to “walk down” virtually where you might be hanging out if you were a student there.
@missywilliams Didn’t we just, just talk about respecting the south? What is a northern term that is equivalent to red-neck? Nothing flattering. Unless you’re Jeff Foxworthy, I can’t see this sort of discussion going well for you if you do move south.
If you want to go to a place with charming people, perhaps it would help if you were charming yourself. Charming people do not go about calling other people “rednecks” or “hillbillies;” they get to know people as individuals. I’m not exactly understanding what you’re afraid of… Poor people? People who aren’t as smart as you think you are? People who have preconceived opinions about others based on a particular demographic that they belong to? People are people. Research the schools to find the best academic and financial fit, and visit as many as you can to experience their culture. But don’t form an opinion based solely on what part of the country a school, or its students, are from because charming people don’t do that.
@missywilliams: Please permit me to ask you a rhetorical question. Do you have many other unfounded prejudices?
I’m from NY. I went to an Alabama football game last year. Spent some time at a tailgate party with a student (and his family) from deep southern Alabama, near the Florida panhandle. About as “South” as you can get. His father was grilling up some venison from a deer that he had just bagged himself with a crossbow. They were all proud of the catch. Student spit out his wad of tobacco to eat a piece. He was telling jokes the whole time, some about his being a proud redneck. We also had a long discussion about football, terrorism, Israeli politics, the European economy, the midterm elections, and other topics. This redneck was thoroughly engaging and very intelligent. Had an actual theory about how football could solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. He was both funny and serious, and I totally enjoyed my time with him. I suppose those other major schools in the south are also filled with smart and interesting people.
I have lived in Alabama, California, Seattle, and now Ohio. I have also visited most every other part of the U.S. including Boston, NYC, Chicago, etc…
Of all those regions, the people of the South are by far the most polite and well mannered (the West Coast is a distant second). Good manners are a distinct sign of sophistication. If that is what you are hoping for, then all of the schools listed on your original post will exceed your expectations.
Because I now live in Ohio, I can assure you that colleges here are far more likely to disappoint you (in this regard) than any major university in the South.
I am sorry rendneck and hillbilly were not the right words to use. I am sorry if my question came of very snobby I did not mean it too
“Because I now live in Ohio, I can assure you that colleges here are far more likely to disappoint you (in this regard) than any major university in the South.”
Agreee with the above comment. 
I go to high school in the south now but I was raised in New York City. It’s not really hillbillies ( believe it or not I find the hillbillies at my school to be much more easier to talk to than the normal kid) but it’s just the Southern culture and the lack of diversity that gets me. The school self segregates itself. There are very few minorities other than African Americans. Most of the popular kids come to school dressed in polos and khakis with a dip can clearly visible in their back pocket or long southern belle shirts with yoga pants. Almost everyone affluent goes to Church. They are all right winged and if you are left winged or slightly eccentric it will be hard for you to fit in with other advanced placement classmates. They are all nice to you upfront but secretly gossip behind you with the other kids. Football is life here.
Compare that to NYC where there is so much diversity and where people are much more genuine and independent, it’s a vast difference.
Putting in my 2 cents here. I’m from rural Kansas, and I understand what OP means. Redneck, to me, means country people who are deliberately rude and/or intolerant. The rednecks here are the ones who chew tobacco and spit in the school halls, put on fake country accents (you are from Kansas!), and drive huge dirty trucks. The trucks would be okay, but they’re not for hauling purposes or anything, just for looks. The rednecks are not the nicest bunch.
As someone with who has lived in NY and in the South, I can tell u that northerners are plenty racist. Northern white people talk disparagingly about minorities of all shades when it’s only white people around.
The so called “lack of diversity” in the South criticism about minorities being just black people has more to do w historical immigrant/slavery settlement patterns. There are concentrations of hispanics in FL, and asians in urban TX.
True, the South is more politically conservative than the North, but college campus are left leaning. The big cities in the South are cosmopolitan places where people can read & write and they wear shoes, and they don’t spit tobacco juice, pick their teeth with straw, and hunt possum and gators.
FWIW, at my son’s elite New England prep school, the boys do chewing tobacco. And my son hears kids privately talking about the minority outreach kids in the school.
Why is this thread getting worse? No wonder there is endless fighting in the world.
No they are not redneck but they are heavily Greek based, which is pretty much the polar opposite