<p>Auburn just came on the radar screen because of the possibility of great merit aid, both for possible NMSF and National Hispanic Scholarship. </p>
<p>You can see my previous post to the Emory list for stats on my son, a junior, who is a super strong student.</p>
<p>I would love to hear more about any of these things at Auburn. My son has never expressed an interest in attending school in the South besides Vanderbilt and possibly Davidson. We are wholly unfamiliar with it but Auburn sounds like an interesting school.</p>
<p>I was trying to find out if undergrads can take grad level courses because my son’s taken a lot of college math and physics and will probably need graduate level courses by his sophomore year.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo,
you should really call someone in admissions to get the most accurate info., but auburn has been wonderful in academic scholarships for my son. you have “…Christian support at Auburn” in your title doojiggy. my son has gotten really involved in auburn umc’s college group. he looooves it!! in addition to sundays, they meet on thursdays and call it “Dive”.
he also helps adults learn english in a hispanic church during the week. his major is spanish.</p>
<p>"The university began, though, as the small, more humble East Alabama Male College, which was chartered in 1856 and opened its doors in 1859 as a private liberal arts institution.</p>
<p>“From 1861 to 1866 the college was closed because of the Civil War. The college had begun an affiliation with the Methodist Church before the war. Due to dire financial straits, the church transferred legal control of the institution to the state in 1872, making it the first land-grant college in the South to be established separate from the state university. It thus became the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama.”</p>
<p>This article says it was a Methodist school before it was a state school - it does not say it began as a Methodist school although I have read that elsewhere.</p>
<p>The first college my D visited was Vanderbilt, the second was Davidson College. Davidson especially is a fine college from an acedemic standpoint. My ‘D’ gave up on Vanderbilt after seeing Davidson, she liked the small town, the ice cream parlor in the little downtown, etc.</p>
<p>Both of these give few merit scholarships and both are expensive though they claim 100% of financial need. </p>
<p>We visited 12 colleges in the last year and a half… big, little, public, private, ivy, southern wannabe ivies, rural, suburban, urban… </p>
<p>My D is going to Auburn University for a couple of reasons. 1) The private schools will not take but just a few of the 41 college credits she has earned while in high school. 2) Auburn gave her massive Merit money and her college is virtually free. 3) She can go to Vanderbilt, Emory , Harvard, Princeton, Stanford (Davidson has no graduate stuff), debt free for her Master’s Degree if she continues to perform well and desires to do so. </p>
<p>Even though Auburn is a larger college… the town atmosphere with Toomer’s corner, Blue Bagel. southern hospitality , etc. reminded her of the small Davidson environment. We also believe you will find more Christain support at Auburn than the others. Undergraduate Math and Physics are generally similar at high-end privates and honors colleges at public schools… But if the eventual goal is masters/doctorates, the 1st 4 years are less relevant (except for debt). I have no idea about music, but I would assume a college the size of Auburn would have more opportunities than Davidson, but Vanderbilt and Emory may have better options. </p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed response on why your D chose Auburn. Being debt free is certainly a great reason for choosing a school and it sounds like your D has some great qualities that will take her far. Congratulations to her for getting such great merit scholarships!</p>
<p>Did your D get accepted into some of the other colleges you mentioned like Princeton, Stanford, etc? Are you from the south? I always like to get the whole picture of a student and their choices.</p>
<p>UTD is on the top of my son’s safety schools (great chess program, great merit aid, great church in the area, strong in the sciences) but I think Auburn would be a very good safety school, as well, for all the reasons you mentioned. </p>
<p>We are not Methodist but I am guessing (thinking? hoping) that Auburn has a lot of variety in the Christian community and that my son would find a fit. We are part of a body of churches, Sovereign Grace Ministries, that would be considered essentially reformed with a more contemporary worship style. I don’t know anything about the south but I do know that a friend of ours who used to be a part of our church teaches at a private Christian univ. in Georgia and has really enjoyed life in the south. (And he’s from Canada!)</p>
<p>As far as the small town feel, I don’t know what my son would think without visiting. We are in a large city and he is used to that. It’s not like NYC but more suburban feeling within a large city. He really likes Pittsburgh and Philly and NY was too much. He didn’t say whether he thought Princeton seemed too small, so I think he could be happy in a smaller town; hard to say, though. My son is enamoured of Nashville because of the music scene but he’s never been.</p>
<p>I wish we had the money for him to visit more schools but he’ll likely apply to most sight unseen. We will visit Harvey Mudd and possibly some other schools in California and perhaps he’ll buy himself a ticket to visit Nashville this summer. That’s why I value these lists so I can get as much info as possible about schools and share that with my son.</p>
<p>I never meant to say that Auburn leans Methodist, just that it still has many students who are comfortable with their religion. Princeton Review, four years ago, listed Auburn as one of the schools where some substantial percentage of students say that they pray daily - most other schools on the list were conservative denominational schools. Auburn has parties for those who want to party and plenty to do for those who don’t. And some of those who party are also among those who pray daily.</p>
<p>here is a link for some of AUBURN’S (mostly) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES. ^^</p>
<p>my son has now joined the worship band at auburn umc(dive). hardly knew anyone and immediately became involved in a weekly freshman guy group, sunday services and the worship college ministry on thursday nights. looooves it!</p>
<p>they’ve had several overnight trips etc… a group of them are going to haiti for a short-term mission trip next month. (my son won’t be joining them, as he’s going to work at a Christian orphanage in honduras for the whole summer.) i’ve talked to several others whose kids have gone to various Christian ministries and are very happy, too.</p>
<p>If your son is looking for a more contemporary style of worship, he should check out RUF (Reformed University Fellowship). They’re kind of like a youth group for college kids. Very cool group. They have a lot of freshman welcome activities going on in the beginning of the year.</p>