My daughter is accepted at Auburn, Clemson, and Penn state. She has ruled out Penn state simply because she’d rather go someplace warm (we are from the northeast). My take on auburn vs. Clemson is that Clemson is the slightly better academic school, but Auburn to us seemed like one of the friendliest schools we’ve ever visited. So it will be a tough choice. She is also accepted at Georgia and Florida, and they are still in the running too. She is accepted into honors at Florida and Auburn, and still waiting on honors for Georgia and Clemson, and that is a fairly significant factor for us. We visit Florida for the first time in two weeks.
Wow, those are all amazing choices! Congrats to your daughter! That does sound like a tough choice and I don’t know which school I would pick if I were in her shoes. You will have to come back and post when she makes her decision. It’s tough debating between the place you feel most comfortable at and the place that is perceived to be the best academic school. No one has a crystal ball to know exactly how their child will potentially grow and flourish in any specific set of criteria. Thanks for weighing in on the Clemson vs. Auburn debate, I hope your visit to Florida goes well and your daughter feels like she has all the information she needs to make the best choice!
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I have a sophomore at Auburn and a D26 who will be starting there in the fall. Another consideration (depending where you live) is Auburn is a lot easier to get to if you need to fly. It is an easy 90 minute drive to Auburn from ATL vs. 2 1/2 hours to Clemson. Clemson really felt “in the middle of nowhere” to both of my kids. S24 ended up not applying due to that and D26 applied and is awaiting notification but has already committed to Auburn.
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Not to mention 18 daily shuttles from airport to Auburn, every day including holidays.
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and you gain an hour going EST to CST, which helps, at least psychologically 
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I have a daughter at Clemson. We fly Reno NV to Greenville SC (GSP). GSP is only a 45 min drive to Clemson. I really don’t find it hard to get to at all.
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Great choices! My oldest daughter is at Clemson and she ultimately chose between Auburn, Georgia, Florida, and Clemson. Tough call, but she really liked the vibe and small town feel at Clemson. The great thing; there is something for everybody.
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You are lucky there is a direct flight. No direct flights from Boston so you then add the time and complication of connecting flights if you want to fly into GSP.
It sucks outbound though- we learned never to schedule early flights out of ATL
I believe Breeze has direct flights to GSP from Providence…May not be convenient if you’re north of Boston.
Yup- Providence a bit of a schlep from us, esp if a Friday afternoon.
Thanks! Another major factor is cost of course. She has received generous scholarships from Auburn, Georgia and Florida so far. We are waiting to hear from Clemson (we only know she is getting a scholarship, but not how much). But Clemson already starts higher for OOS. She is also considering VT, where she got accepted into honors, but we have not heard about scholarships there either so that is on the back burner. At this point Florida and Auburn are the frontrunners. She loves Auburn, and she likes what she has read about Florida. And both are honors, with good scholarships.
I’m curious, did your daughter love Georgia as well? We have toured UGA but not Auburn (yet). D26 loved the campus and vibe at UGA. I’m curious to see how Auburn will feel as compared to Georgia.
Your daughter literally cannot go wrong! I think the next several months will be both nerve-wracking and exciting for all of us as we wait for the last decisions/merit awards to arrive!
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She liked UGA, but not nearly as much as Auburn, but to be fair it wasn’t apples to apples. At Auburn she got a personalized tour in her major area (wildlife science) and we did a campus tour. At UGA we spent the night in Athens and walked the campus ourselves, but couldn’t do an official tour because it was a weekend. Perhaps this is superficial, but the campus of Auburn felt a lot more manageable to her, both in size and because it is flatter compared to UGA. But that personalized tour at Auburn also really resonated with her. And lastly, I don’t know how fair this is, but we are from Massachusetts and she got the feeling that Auburn felt a bit more comfortable for someone not from the south compared to UGA. We are contemplating a visit back to UGA to get a better feel, but there is only so much time!
I hear you about there being only so much time! We are in the same spot trying to figure out how to visit the schools she has yet to hear from (if she’s accepted). It didn’t make a ton of sense to visit every school in person when they were so far away and now it’s hard to find a weekend and you can’t predict when it would be ok to miss school when scheduling admitted student visits.
That is interesting to hear what your daughter thought about those two schools since we haven’t seen Auburn yet. My daughter absolutely loved UGA but we haven’t visited Auburn yet (going this weekend) so I don’t know what to expect. My husband and I were a bit concerned that part of her love for UGA was the amazing tour we had. It was incredibly polished, energetic, and professional. All other schools paled in comparison after that for the excitement the staff and students had for their school. Each tour guide took some time during the tour to walk and talk to each student one-on-one for a while and my daughter really connected with the young man who led our tour. He was kind and intelligent and I’m sure she felt a personal connection to the school after visiting. It sounds silly but I’m guessing she felt like everyone there would be the same way.
I don’t think it sounds superficial at all to feel like a campus is more manageable because of the size and layout. I feel like they are envisioning themselves there and also reacting to other things they see/feel in the campus that they can’t articulate.
It’s also interesting to hear you say your daughter felt like Auburn might be more comfortable for someone not from the south. That is one concern I have for her going to Auburn and I’ll be interested to see how the culture feels compared to where we live ¶. She wants the experience of meeting people from all different kinds of backgrounds and cultures and doesn’t feel like she would get that from any of our in-state schools.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with both schools. I’m excited for your daughter, all the schools she has to decide between are absolutely amazing!
MA parent here with a sophomore at Auburn in the Wildlife program and a daughter headed to Auburn in the fall for nursing. Auburn’s wildlife and forestry program is incredible- my son only just recently changed his major so is new to their program but they have been great. We all loved UGA when we toured but it did not have the family feel that Auburn does. There is just something about the entire Auburn community that is unmatched.
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For any families that have taken an Admitted Students tour already, can you share what was covered? Was there anything specific to major Colleges/Departments? Was a dorm/housing tour included, or did you have to book that separately? Thanks in advance for any insight!
We have not gone on the Admitted Students tour yet–we’re scheduled to go next week!–but in the confirmation email I received it recommended booking a housing tour separately. On the Visit tab of Auburn’s website there is a link to book housing tours. They seem to have tours of several dorms/off campus apartment buildings most weekdays and you can tour one, several, or all of the buildings listed.
The email also suggested emailing your student’s college to set up a time to meet if you wanted to do that as well, so I don’t think that’s part of the tour either.
If they end up including a housing tour or department presentations as part of the admitted students tour, I will come back and re-post to let you know but it seems to be handled separately.
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We just spent a day in Gainesville and did a tour at UF. Also had some individual meetings. The academic quality was very clear. The combination of the honors program and scholars program my daughter was admitted to was very impressive. And the new honors dorms were amazing. All that said, it doesn’t seem like a good fit. Just our impression, but students there didn’t seem too happy. We heard a lot about the grind. My daughter is a hard worker, so that isn’t an issue. But we just had a much better feeling after being at Auburn. So my daughter currently has Purdue, Georgia, Florida, Clemson, Virginia tech, Penn state, Texas A&M and Tennessee. But right now Auburn is her #1.
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Sounds like your visit was a productive one if she could clearly feel that UF wasn’t the best fit for her, despite everything pointing towards impressive academics. Aren’t you so glad you were able to see it in person??
We toured Auburn on our own on Sunday and then as part of an admitted students tour on Monday. My husband and I were so impressed with everything we saw, from the unmistakable happiness all the students around us were feeling, to the kindness of everyone we met, to the support offered to students to help them succeed. I think DD really liked it a lot but is wondering how difficult it would be to get shadowing/volunteer hours in Auburn since she is thinking pre-med/pre-PA. She applied to several schools that have a large hospital nearby and it seems as though clinical hours could be easier with that setup. This is just an assumption on our part though, so I think our next steps are to find out if Auburn students are at any sort of disadvantage for shadowing opportunities. She’s also considering Penn State though and I don’t think it would be any better there either. we’re going for an admitted students day at PSU in a couple of weeks. I feel like at this time Auburn is her parents’ first choice, lol but we need to do a lot of research in the next few weeks. They mentioned yesterday that dorm room selection will begin mid-March so it’d be nice for her to know her answer by then.
Your daughter has some truly amazing choices, do you think she’s close to making a decision or does she have any other schools left to visit? After seeing Auburn yesterday I can 100% see what people are talking about when they say it’s a special place. I want to go to college there, lol!