<p>@irlandaise @Gator88NE why were 'Bama and Auburn brought up? I was never criticizing those schools…</p>
<p>@twoinanddone responding to one of your earlier comments…
If I live in the Northeast, why would it matter if no one in the West has heard of Stetson? I’m not planning to live in the West.
You say that my future classmates, wherever I go, would “look down” on me for not having perfect grades. Who said that they have to know my high school grades? Who said I had to tell them?</p>
<p>Many people in Florida haven’t heard of Stetson, or if they have they think it is in Tampa, where the law school it. I live 1 hour from there and hardly anyone has heard of it, for academics or sports. We went, we saw, we did not apply or even schedule an interview. They sent a thousand post cards, and we still didn’t bite. You said you wanted a big name, big sports school. Stetson isn’t it. You are impressed that it is ‘#6’ but it’s #6 in regional universities, ranked below Elon and Rollins, and I think it is much less prestigious than either of those (and not nearly as beautiful). It is not a prestigious school, especially when compared with Ole Miss or Miss State or Alabama. Regional ranking is nothing. I’m not putting down Stetson as it’s fine if it is a match for you, but don’t think that it’s better than Ole Miss or the others. It is a tiny little school, most sports are ranked in the bottom of D-1 sports. I don’t know where you want to live after college, but no one in the NE will have heard of it either.</p>
<p>You look down on southern schools because the gpa and other scores are so low. Your gpa is not impressive (I think your SAT score is). If you get into several of the schools you are shooting for, many of your classmates are going to have much better stats. You will be the one at the bottom. Why would you get better treatment than you are willing to give those at southern schools? All you seem to be concerned with are stats and ranks, not with the quality of the students at Alabama who might have a 2.8 and a 1900 on the SAT and a very compelling reason why. You want admins to listen to your story on why you are more than your stats, but are unwilling to give that same courtesy to anyone at a southern school.</p>
<p>Ole Miss is getting a ton of students from Texas and Georgia, as well as other states. The reason is because it is views as a pretty good school, is in a safe, small town, and is affordable. For the past several years the freshman class has been majority out-of-state, although junior college transfers tilt the balance of the university as a whole back to a Mississippi majority.</p>
<p>In Texas, the now-Seven-Percent Rule means that there will be some students with as high as a 32 on the ACT (and a correspondingly good g.p.a.) who can’t get into UT. Georgia is keeping virtually all of its students instate through the Hope Scholarship, which has driven the average ACT at UGA to 29 or 30.</p>
<p>I suggest that those who want to reflexively criticize Ole Miss visit first.</p>
<p>@twoinanddone you know what, you’re right. If people who live as little as one HOUR from your school still haven’t heard of it, then there’s a problem. Because Stetson are so small (they’re even smaller than what I would ideally prefer), they tend to be very aggressive recruiters. Their recruiting style is one of the reasons I applied. Most regional schools really aren’t big-name at all, as they are just that: schools that are reputable in their region of the country, but not so much elsewhere. To shed some perspective on this, I live in New Jersey. There is only ONE other New Jerseyan that is a potential member of the C/o 2019 on the Facebook group that I am a part of. The majority of students are Floridians. </p>
<p>To be fair, when I said “big sports school”, I only meant that I preferred a D1 school to a D3 school; Syracuse is the biggest sports school remaining on my list, followed by UMass Amherst. My two safeties (Stetson and Rider), as well as SUNY Binghamton, are very weak at sports despite being D-1.</p>
<p>I’m actually really unsure if I’m even going to attend Stetson. I’ve done a lot of research; the school is located in a very sleepy town, and a lot of the dorms are run-down. Stetson asked me to commit within two weeks of acceptance, but b/c I much prefer the likes of UMass and Bentley, I had to get my decision period extended to the usual May 1 deadline. If I hear good news from UMass, then…sorry, Stetson.</p>
<p>You have a great second point as well. Assuming I do end up at either of my top three schools, my GPA will have been quite a bit lower than those of my classmates. There are many Southerners who are academically brilliant, just as there are Northerners who are total airheads. I wouldn’t feel lesser than anyone, though. I had to struggle a lot in high school, and I really worked and studied hard to get that SAT score. Of course I would want to listen to a Southerner who also had to overcome a lot during high school.</p>
<p>My sincerest apologies if I came off as rude, arrogant or disrespectful to you. :)</p>
<p>my bad @lbad96 - I (upper case I) and l (lower case L) look exactly the same … surely you can see why some of us messed up your screen name - especially since there is another name with an i </p>
<p>At any rate you stating " Ole Miss is only useful for football; the students are very close-minded and ignorant, stuck up, shallow, and racist." makes you no better than any student at Ole Miss who MAY be ONE of those things - and I think you would be hard pressed to find a student who is ALL of those things as you state. But even if you did - I guarantee you would find at least one at every single college across America. </p>
<p>I lived over half my life in MN and the other half in MS - being a “northerner” does not excuse your judgmental attitude. I know people all over the country and the people in MS and all over the South are some of the kindest people I know. Do I know ignorant people in MS - sure. I also know a lot of ignorant people in MN. </p>
<p>Are the schools lacking in MS - you bet!!! That is why I work my butt off to make sure my kids go beyond the minimum of what is offered. Why I insist they take advanced classes and why I teach them at home as well! My children are smart! Most of their friends are very smart. My sister graduated from the same MS high school that my children are/have graduated from and she is one of the top Ins attys in Chicago. She is SMART!! Educated in MS! Imagine that. Guess what she graduated from … Ole Miss (gasp). I attended Ole Miss too, but transferred after a year to be closer to home and went to Univ of South AL and got a great education. </p>
<p>@tlcmommi4 yeah, totally understand why you got my username wrong lol. Don’t worry, most people do. And I apologize if I offended you; I shouldn’t have come off so shallow in my previous comments. I’m sure your sister and your children, as well as many of your friends, are real intelligent, hard-working, down-to-earth people. I wish them all, and yourself, much success :)</p>
<p>Geez now I feel bad for being so harsh. But thank you for saying that and acknowledging your error. Good luck to you and your future college career. </p>
<p>We were not responding to you but to the OP’s original post (a 2.57 GPA for the football team at Ole Miss). Bama and Auburn are peers to Ole Miss (southern flagship universities and members of the SEC) so it could makes sense to do a comparison…</p>
<p>My younger son seriously considered Ole Miss and Mississippi State. He loved the Ole Miss campus and the town of Oxford. Got into its Honors College, which is tough to gain admission. He just felt the school was a bit more liberal arts for his tastes. He also loved Mississippi State, and it offered him nearly a full scholarship. The business school is excellent. He really hit it off with one of the deans, and almost went there. He also loves Alabama, where his older brother attended school on a full scholarship (he’s now at UVA Law on a full ride).</p>
<p>There are many outstanding schools in the South. Many offer incredible scholarships, and that may be the only way a student can graduate with little or no debt (this is the case for my sons). They still receive excellent educations while enjoying many opportunities that they may or may not receive at other schools. </p>
<p>Georgia is losing engineering students who did not get into GT to Auburn and Alabama with scholarships. Lot of good engineering schools in the south but they do not offer the $ like UA and AU. </p>
<p>I don’t know about Georgia, but Texans did like the Blindside movie and its actors. Made Ole Miss look like a sweet spot for the numerous kids who happen to be unable to crack the top percent or score above 1300 on the MR SAT. For many, it has become very difficult or very expensive to stay in state and, at the same time, easier to land admissions and even merit money at the SEC football temples. </p>
<p>In the meantime, it is nice to hear that a football team such as Ole Miss might graduate a good number of students with a passing GPA. </p>
<p>Since I see that same thing on The University of Alabama Parents Facebook page, I know why this happens. OOS parents are always a bit more nervous about sending their kids “elsewhere” so they latch onto a source of info (CC or Facebook) where they can ask a million Q’s. There are over 1200 members for the current year. </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids I’d probably think they were just trying to get a feel for everything, if it weren’t for all of them frantically looking for roommates already and stating how they’re “100% going to Auburn” or “for sure going to Auburn” (which is getting annoyingly repetitive, but beside the point). Like I said, this isn’t really statistically meaningful, I know, but it’s interesting how many out-of-staters are genuinely interested in a Southern school.</p>
<p>(Mostly, I figure the Alabamians have no reason to be active on the group, as it’d be easier to find roommates/dorm buildings/information living in state and being familiar with it, anyway.)</p>
<p>“As far as attracting women I don’t think they need to add liberal art majors to do that. There are plenty of smart STEM women out there.”</p>
<p>Sidetracking the thread a little, but no, there aren’t plenty as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s a nationwide problem that we aren’t attracting and retaining women and men in STEM in comparable numbers. GaTech’s freshman class is typically less than 40% women; graduating classes are less than 1/3 women. So they aren’t attracting women equally as freshmen, and then the transfers are overwhelmingly male. I don’t think there’s any coed school in the country that thinks such a gender ratio is ideal.</p>
<p>My post regarding GT was to point out that people can’t have expect all athletes to do the same academically as the rest of the student population because they spend so much time on their sport. Which is why a teams GPA may be lower and certain majors may be chosen.</p>
<p>“My post regarding GT was to point out that people can’t expect all athletes to do the same academically as the rest of the student population because they spend so much time on their sport.”</p>
<p>I appreciate that this is a widespread viewpoint, but I think it’s rotten that so many people don’t expect average academic performance from athletes. If it’s true that grown adults choose to run these athletic programs in a way that prevents average performance (which I’m not sure I buy), then they’re in the wrong. We rarely make these excuses for the hundreds of thousands of students who work full time while in school or those who are involved in other exhausting and time-consuming activities. My guess is that if you looked at the editors-in-chief of campus daily newspapers, presidents of 300-member Greek chapters, secretaries-general of Model UN, etc., you’d see higher than average GPAs, not lower.</p>
<p>I go to high school in Mississippi (I don’t really consider myself a Mississippian considering I moved here from New York in 2011 and spend my summers in New York), and this is very surprising. People being recruited in my school by Ole Miss are honestly not very bright academically (maybe 2.1 High school GPA taking very easy schedules). </p>
<p>As for the Ole Miss controversy, Ole Miss is currently my safety. During my time here in MS though, I haven’t made much friends (not sure if being from a Muslim brown family had anything to do with it), so it’s definitely a safety I will only attend if all my other options reject me or I can not afford them. </p>
<p>As for ignorance in Mississippi’s school system, yes there is ignorance. Lunch tables here are self-segregated and there is not really much embracing of diversity here. </p>