It’s been my experience that many southern schools have tons of northerners these days. My S attends school in NC and the northeast is among the largest contributors to the freshmen class. He attends a private school so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I’ve heard it’s similar at several other peer privates in the south. I guess if the ivies are out, there’s a certain attraction to getting out of the cold.
In my part of Maine (mid-coast), most people are super polite and friendly. I find it a welcome contrast to Mass, where if you accidentally bumped someone at Market Basket, they’d look as if they’d follow you out and slash your tires.
LOL @IlamBehini ! I was wondering about that one, too. Years ago–I mean many, many years ago, my grandmother was a debutante in Alabama, but that interest seems to have skipped my parents’ and all subsequent generations!
I’ve got both northern and southern roots, and was raised on the west coast. In my extensive experience (because I’m old and have moved a lot), the cultural friendliness you find on the west coast and in the south is a veneer. It’s people doing what they can to fit into the social order. In the north and in particular in New England, friendliness is not socially expected behavior, so you don’t see it as frequently. But underneath, of course, there is the same mix of kind, fake, evil, gracious, selfish, altruistic people you find all over the world.
The danger for a northerner who isn’t used to loud friendliness is that they might mistake what is really just pro-social behavior for true friendship at first. But you quickly learn that everyone is overtly polite and that this politeness is just the first face people show. In the south, as in the north, it takes time to really know a person.
Kids who went to Bama or Ole Miss from our central Ohio HS have had mixed success. A few hated it and transferred a semester or year in, a few stayed south. Anecdotally the ones who chose it because it was free or cheap tended to be the unhappy ones. I know of 2 students in D’s grade who just couldn’t wait to Roll Tide, and their parents paid full OOS price for them to do so.
Visiting will be important.
PS: People in Ohio smile. And say Good Morning and all that. No culture shock there.
Have you considered universities in the West? Generous merit for OOS students can be had at Arizona State, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas, for example, especially if your child is a national merit semifinalist/finalist.
I’m not disparaging southern universities, just suggesting alternatives.
We are from Michigan and many friend’s kids have gone to school in Georgia, NC, Alabama, Louisiana, etc. They loved their experience. Greek life is optional in any case, and a lot more affordable with big scholarships.
It’s all relative. I was born and raised in Massachusetts and went to college in Connecticut, so New England was my benchmark for polite and pleasant social behavior. I spent one summer during college in Israel and, at first, could not believe how rude the Israelis were. I’d walk into a store and they wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence. They were often, umm, let’s say, abrupt.
I was talking to an Israeli about it one day and his take was that he found Americans really phony. He had been in NYC not long before (hardly the capital of smiles and friendliness). He was staying in a hotel and when he came down in the morning and the woman at the front desk asked how he slept, it didn’t ping friendly to him, just fake and annoying because he knew she didn’t really care. It gave me a whole new perspective.
My understanding is that Europeans generally think Americans (even northerners) smile too much. We come across as untrustworthy because the smiles don’t seem genuine.
One person’s pleasant social lubrication is another person’s fakeness and insincerity.
I love travel for the opportunity to see things from new perspectives.
I would imagine one factor in successfully going to college in a different culture is the ability to see things from a different point of view.
I’d also urge any northern kid going to school in the south to learn the true meaning of “bless your heart.” I have enough southern friends to know that that phrase is NOT as kind as it sounds.
While not a Southerner, I will say that I generally find Southerners to be the most polite Americans.
I don’t know if California falls into the Northerner category, but my California-raised daughter had no problems at all attending college in Tennessee.
@simba9 As a NY’er, who has been all over, I have personally found the friendliest people to be from California and the South, especially Kentucky (their friendliness was off the charts). And I just love Californians. The ones I have met are just so easy to talk to, laid back and seem really sincere. So it’s no wonder your D fit right at her TN school.
As for the OP, a few months ago we toured schools in Virginia and NC, and my family just got such a good feeling. The schools just have a different vibe than schools in the Northeast. The thing is, the schools we saw have an abundance of non-southerners attending, but they still felt different, in a good way. I would think the easiest adjustment would be to attend a school where there’s a lot of geographic diversity. From what I hear Alabama is attracting kids from all over so you get the best of both worlds.
@millie210 Actually Europeans think we look stupid smiling. Now I am a frugal with smiles as a Northerner but that dour POV that cheerfulness and friendliness is somehow deceptive or undesirable need not be imported to our shores. The world is already a depressing place. We don’t need anymore grimness.
Southern people tend to be polite, and the campus environment is only somewhat different from northern schools in general.
However, the cultural elephant in the room for students I have talked with is struggling to get comfortable living in a place where people have beliefs that are in line with, and support, candidates like Roy Moore and Jeff Sessions in large numbers.
Millennials just tend to be more concerned about, and less tolerant of, potential sexism, racism and bigotry than prior generations. Many of them just don’t want to live around people who they believe think like that. Even if they will not really see this mindset every day on campus, the news about Alabama has already colored their view of the state.
The south tends to be a lot less racist, and a whole lot friendlier than the north in my experience. People tend to communicate more and have a better understanding of each others perspective too. Perhaps that is because in general the area is more religious and less socialist.
Not only is the south less preferable to some, but it can be downright bad for someone’s health. I had a friend who followed merit scholarships to Georgia only to be slowly worn down mentally by people who supported cultural attitudes and political policies that directly affected his wellbeing. The cultural environment forced him to transfer to a school along the coast of FL (in-state), a much more liberal area. While some schools are becoming more liberal and generally academic institutions are more liberal, the effects are not unnotable for sure.
Have to totally disagree w/ the above statement. Knowing many college kids and soon to be college kids, they really don’t seem to be all that concerned about politics, I find most of them indifferent. They’re concerned about friends, SO’s, grades, and good times, and closer to graduation, finding a really good paying job.
DS is a junior at Bama, and no he does not have a colored view of the state, lol.
With a 16 hour drive, he doesn’t come home all that often. With 60% of students from OOS, he has a large number of friends from all over the country, including AL. He lives in a terrific off campus housing complex, that was possible due to the full tuition & engineering scholarships he received. Our in state schools offered him next to nothing and I have encouraged DS not to move back up North.
Like most things in life, your attitude can make a experience a positive one or negative one. I think many kids can’t let go of their high school life, their original group of friends, & moving out of their comfort zones is scary. Many of DS’s friends went to colleges within a 2 -3 hour drive and come home often. I am very, very proud of my son for making the decision he did, and making the best of it.
I think you being in southern Ohio is better than people (like myself) from the Northeast. I do believe the culture in the deep south is much, much different that what we have up here. You may be able to avoid it if your student remains on a diversified campus but I would caution venturing off campus and interacting. They have certain ways of doing things in the south that northerners just don’t understand. Sadly it is getting much, much worse. Peoples views on things are really becoming polarized.
Um, no. Racism takes many forms and is present in both regions, but having southern hospitality in front of someone while politically supporting policies that enforce structural racism is usually very draining on populations that are affected by racism. The north tends to have their racism much more hidden for a variety of factors we don’t need to detail in this thread but does not mean that it is worse. Much of the racism in the north stems from beliefs that because you’re liberal, you can’t also be racist. The reality is usually that pretty much everyone has been ingrained with racist beliefs at some level and one must fight those learned instincts in order to prevent affecting actions and thus affecting those hurt by racism. Compared to the south, to understand someone’s perspective and still hold to racist views and act on them is in my opinion much worse.
As far as “religion and socialism”, I would love for you to cite any evidence of correlation, or even evidence of socialism being more present in the north than the south. Your claim is pretty easily is proven false and is likely just a parroted talking point from sources themselves that are likely contributing to racism across the country. Your comment exemplifies the exact type of statement that is exactly the reason people are reluctant to go to school in the south.
Just because you aren’t heavily involved in politics does not mean you don’t have political beliefs, and those beliefs do not influence your actions. I wouldn’t characterize the people at my friend’s group as very political, but their views on issues that come up daily made an inhospitable environment for my friend (gay male) to the point of transferring. I think it’s easy to miss that when you don’t personally experience it, and it should be a consideration when going to a school in the south. Not all schools are alike, either. I don’t have experience with Bama, and it’s possible that the campus is a lot more liberal than that of my friend. You just have to do your research case by case. I don’t mean to say that all southern schools are like this, because they clearly aren’t.
Another consideration is selection bias of which students at which colleges care about politics and the like. It’s possible that those who end up at Bama usually are more indifferent to those factors than students who end up at other schools.
I assume that Hippy Hollow was not one of your swimming spots? 
Ummm… I hope you mean something other than saying that he is not black…