Everyone tell me about Bama…S has applied however we have not had the time or money to visit yet. What are your thoughts? My S loves band and plans on majoring in Engineering because he loves math. Will not be interested in Greek life.
@carachel2 I think not going greek at Bama will not be an issue. My daughter wants to go through rush, but it would not surprise me is she doesn’t accept a bid. I think the honors community would make for a great fit.
@Tgirlfriend Maintaining a 3.5 GPA for an engineering major will be incredibly difficult. Grades of B and C are very common (from what I hear) for engineering students at any engineering program and those grades would put your scholarship in serious jeopardy. Personally, I know my kid, and I would not choose a scholarship that requires anything more than a 3.0 to maintain.
If you are very serious about TAMU, I would ask admissions what percentage of engineering students are able to maintain their Academic Scholarships for 4 years. I’m willing to bet the percentage is low.
@Tgirlfriend …did you guys do the engineering admissions session @ TAMU.
I gotta say I left not feeling encouraged. It sounds like a crazytown first year …gotta have a 3.5 to be even competitive to be admitted to their engineering major of choice. They don’t even have room for all their admits on campus and they are farming them out to Blinn. NO way in heck am I going to pay full on prices to A&M so they can shuttle my kid to the Blinn campus. It is ridiculous.
Your kid will in NO way have even a remotely personal education at A&M. It is a mass cattle call.
@flatKansas omg, I’d be steaming over that one.
If it were me my next call would be to TAMU and tell them what your situation is, and see what they recommend. If they say it is the way they way it is, I’d get it in writing from them and go back to the registrar. At this point the registrar may give you what you want just to get you to go away (a technique I’ve used successfully many times).
There’s a spot on the Common App to list all of the colleges the parents have attended. I have 10. I’m stumped as to whether or not there’s even room for D to list all of them, or should she just list the one I have my AA from and then the one I’m currently attending. On the one hand, I’m not applying to colleges, and I don’t think I matter that much. On the other hand, I don’t want to hurt her chances for colleges by deliberately leaving out some of mine (and therefore being technically less than truthful). My grades were all super good-it’s just so weird that I’ve been to so many. I don’t know what to do.
@Tgirlfriend My D17 and I visited Bama in May and totally feel in love with it. Everything from the campus tour to the honors college meetings made us love it that much more. We are 15 hours away, so we found flying in, and driving from Birmingham very easy. The campus was easy to navigate. There is a Publix right on the corner of campus, which is a plus for my Celiac DD. Decent hotels are close by with great area to eat and shop. My daughter loved the greek houses, but we realize that might not be for everyone. We have looked at a lot of schools and what Bama has to offer is like no other. We had a campus tour, met with the HC and had a meeting with a HC representative, toured Culverhouse with a student and then met with a professor. We also have a few friends with kids at UA, so that has been really helpful as well.
@STEM2017…great idea!! I will do just that thing. @jeepgirl…I think he would like the honors community way better than the Greek life. Is honors hard to get into and stay in? Does anyone know if Bama takes dual credit courses and if they figure the dual credit in the GPA for graduation? My S will have 27 hours of dual credit with at least a 3.7 GPA. When does Bama send out acceptance letters?
@jeepgirl …honestly I would feel better about my kid flying into Birmingham than driving the 3-4 hrs down I-35 in Texas to UT on her way back home from a weekend visit.
I worked trauma and ER for years and those of us at the local trauma hospital fondly refer to I-35 as “the slaughterhouse.” There is a fatality wreck on that highway almost daily. UGH.
@Tgirlfriend …go read the Bama forum. It is a wealth of information about all of that. A great group of informed and helpful parents for sure.
@carachel2 …would you mind posting that link to the Bama forum because I would love to join. ;
OK, so D17 is off at band camp in WI for a week. So, what do I do? Well, I should go back through all the scholarship pages of schools on the list to make sure things haven’t changed, at least for the ones I haven’t done so.
But, instead, I looked at the Parents of 2016 thread for dorm room ideas (they’re going nuts over there), and then create an Amazon ‘College’ wish list, and drop the good ideas in there for next year. 
You’re welcome.
Visits: We are really out of time and $ too - but we still need to find a couple safeties she loves. Luckly these are all in driving distance. We have quite a few that will only get visited if she gets accepted:
Reaches: (all pretty dependent on raising ACT in sept)
Notre Dame - only if accepted - however we did visit SLU which I hear is pretty comparable (we just can’t afford it)
Vanderbilt - Visited last Spring
Boston College - won’t visit unless accepted
Matches:
Rhodes College - loved the visit
UofRichmond - won’t visit unless accepted
Wake Forest - won’t visit unless accepted
Lafayette College - won’t visit unless accepted
Safeties: (we still need to visit these and narrow down to 2)
Truman State - Planned Visit in Sept
MissouriS&T - Planned Visit in Oct
Pittsburg State - Planned Visit in Oct
Drury University - Planned Visit in Oct
We have a few more schools that dropped of the list that may get added back in if the Sept ACT score puts her reaches truly out of reach but those applications don’t really require much more than the common app.
@2muchquan Yep. Already got the dorm room wish list put together. Hoping to start picking stuff up this month on back to school/college clearance. 
@Tgirlfriend because you won’t learn unless you do it yourself
On the left of the page there is a section called ‘Colleges and Universities’. Click on that, go to the letter ‘A’ listing, and find ‘University of Alabama’…and there you are. There are multiple interesting threads there.
@MotherOfDragons What exactly does it say re: colleges parent attended? If possible to read it as completed, I’d put only schools where you received a degree and your current school. I don’t have the question in front of me and not at a computer right now.
@itsgettingreal17 it says “total number of institutions attended” (I’m looking at a web page that references it in general since I do not have access to D17’s actual in-progress common app), and there’s a drop-down box with number choices. I am worried that if I put 10 it’s going to look so weird that one parent has been slowly taking night classes forever at whatever college was available/affordable to get her degree.
@MotherOfDragons I was going to say the same thing as @itsgettingreal17 - I’d include any place that offered you a degree and the place you are currently attending. Done.
@MotherOfDragons I’ll check it during lunch and see what it says. I, like you, may be overthinking things, but the fact that they ask to me means there will be some judgment assigned, which is why I don’t like the question in the first place. Where I went to school is irrelevant, in my opinion. That I have a degree or not should be sufficient.
@MOD I left out numerous schools that my wife attended for just a pre-req and what not. It’s not so much “why do they care”, but just because they will never check and I think they are more curious of terminal degree schools. YMMV.
Catching up here. Driving and public transportation Little public transportation here in the heart of the Midwest either. There is a city bus system in Des Moines but driving is way more common, especially as most commute from the suburbs. I don’t think a thing of jumping in the car for an hour or two to go to sporting events, entertainment, etc., but probably wouldn’t go more than 30-40 minutes just to eat. I also don’t think it’s a problem to drive 5-10 hours to do something but that would probably involve at least one overnight at the destination.
Essays Total doldrums here. I love that reference @2muchquan! Makes me think of old map legends: Here there be monsters
Where is the JOTD?
Bama S will apply and is also not interested in the Greek system. Maybe it’s easier on boys? We haven’t visited yet. We hope to set aside time this fall, but it may wait until after acceptance/merit notification.
Tours Other than Bama, I believe we’re done. S may apply to a few schools not visited but we’ll wait to see them.
Thank-yous I’m in the camp that believe email is OK, and possibly preferable. However, S received some handwritten notes from some staff at schools he visited (the notes beat us home) and he mailed a thank-you to those.