Visit results -- not right for my DD

LucieTheLakie
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 16:36:09 +0000

“all female tour guides were wearing the required dress, pearls and heels”

I agree this is what I think of as a “professional look,” but one of the things that impressed me when my son and I finally visited UA at the 11th hour on spring break his senior year of HS was the range of impressive young women we met. The first was an ACE (CoE "Ambassador) from Huntsville, who was wearing khakis and a nice blouse with the UA logo. (I’m guessing this is the ACE “uniform” for tours). The second was an Honors College frosh from San Antonio who met us for lunch. She was dressed in what I’d characterize as classic liberal arts student “dress” attire (a pretty sundress and sandals).The third was dressed much more formally (in a crimson red suit with pearls IIRC). She was PR student (or recent grad) who led the formal campus bus tour. She very polished and well-spoken. All three really wowed me for different reasons. The weather was just getting mild after a very long and harsh winter that year (even in Tuscaloosa), so we really didn’t witness a lot of that “norts style” until we attended Bama Bound in August.

@Bloke123, I don’t think the OP actually had any reservations about UA. Her daughter did, and it turns out it wasn’t the right place for her. Was she focused too much on the negatives once she got to campus? Who can say? It’s entirely possible she was comparing everything to Pitt, and UA paled in comparison. For her. And that’s totally understandable.

I personally don’t think it was a wasted visit. (We had a similar disappointing experience when we visited one of my son’s top options. I loved the school; he was ready to leave by lunchtime on an ASD!) You can’t really know about any school until you visit. I, frankly, was shocked my son didn’t want to apply to Pitt because on paper it sounded perfect for him, especially as far as his safeties went. And he had several friends who’d applied there as their safeties too (two of whom are happy sophomores there now).

They can only go to one school. It’s great if they fall in love with the least expensive option, but that rarely happens in my experience. I’m just so grateful that after visiting three schools in two weeks (all for the first time) my son felt UA was the best overall fit. He surprised a lot of people when he chose Bama. Even me (and I was completely sold on the school after our visit). That it was by far the least expensive option was just icing on the cake.