re: Alabama (the university itself) is freaking awesome!

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STEM schools apparently pride themselves on being pricks

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They do, because they typically can. I started as an engineering major at Auburn, and while the academic support people would try to help when they could, the competition for a limited number of slots in the upper level courses meant that they could and would only do so much. They openly admitted that they put pre-engineering students in hard classes to weed out those who wouldn't be able to hack it in the high level classes in engineering majors.

When I transferred to college of business it was a totally different world. Advisors sat down with you and looked at everything you had taken, needed to take, asked what your interests were and used that to suggest electives, etc

Congratulations to your son btw. That's a huge accomplishment no matter the school.

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I can also tell you from personal experience that Auburn, Texas and unfortunately LSU generally couldn’t care less.

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Well apparently you can't tell us this from personal experience because your son chose elsewhere.

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just apply and 4 out of 5 of yall will get in

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Hmmm...if "you will get in" is the low standard, every college in the SEC meets this standard for everyone in my family who has ever gone to college.

You still avoided any fact about BAMA academics, my entire point.

Do you have anything to back up
Bama by and large is not a great or even good academic institution? I'm guessing you will either a) say nothing or b) insert some random shite talk

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UT is obviously a better school than Alabama, but I will contend that the only school in the conference that provides an education across the board that is worth bragging about is Vanderbilt

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If you graduate from UT from the College of Natural Sciences or Cockrell School of Engineering, you can certainly brag about it compared to similar colleges at Vanderbilt.

It does tangibly benefit regular students because a lot of professors teach classes that they are at the top of their fields. I rather learn AI or Robotics from Dr. Peter Stone than mostly anyone else. I transferred to UT Austin from a Louisiana university, and I also took classes at another major research university that isn't in the top 50, though there are huge differences between the quality of professors and the quality of your peers in the classroom.

Georgia Tech is comparable to UT Austin where I did my masters.

My friend who graduated from Michigan takes undergraduate classes at ASU because his company pays for them, and he says that ASU is much easier than Michigan. It's almost like you are in the university version of kindergarten.

You can also see the differences between undergrad programs based on their preparation for graduate-level coursework. UT Austin prepared me far more for grad school than my Louisiana university would have or that other supposedly tier 1 university I took classes at.

Well my daughter is graduating from Texas in May too if that counts. (Lol) But she has been more interested in the sorority life and social scene than academics, and is going to have 3.3 or 3.4 which is really disappointing.

She will have to kill the LSAT to get into a good law school. I really dislike their administration with a passion for reasons I am not going into. Like most liberals they talk a big game but don’t back it up. I wish she would have just taken the free ride to Alabama or Ole Miss, or gone to Vandy. (It couldn’t have cost me more at this point)

Again, I would highly recommend Alabama to any parent, from my experience. They care about their students and will make every effort to ensure they are safe, and graduate on time. They also have an excellent law school. Tuscaloosa isn’t a great town but it’s ok.

Yeah, I worked full-time at bars and restaurants while in undergrad, so I definitely didn't have any care in the world for the Greek life stuff. I graduated only a few years ago. She'll definitely have to ace the LSAT. Did she go there as an out-of-state student from Louisiana?

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UT is a good school but they really don’t give a frick about their students. My daughter has had 6 different academic advisors, of which one was good. You are on your own at UT. My son has had one advisor and she is the best academic advisor I have ever seen. She gets shite done.

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This here, I'll agree with you on. I had like 5 different academic advisors and I'd always have to go over their head to the advising coordinator to get accurate information. But my non-academic counselor really cared and she was from Mandeville too so it was cool to relate to someone from Louisiana when I was having a hard time.

That's nuts. In my first year, I was out of state and got in-state tuition since I was an independent student. It's pretty easy if you work at least 20 hours a week. I wouldn't have finished if I didn't get in-state tuition. Then UT started the 75k or less income while I was a student and it wasn't retroactive.

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You probably know my daughter, (everyone seem too) she was Kappa but went out a ton with the thetas. She spent way too much time in the bars.

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Nah, I'm older than her. and I worked at fine-dining restaurants and cocktail bars so not much interaction with younger people. I was in math and cs at UT too.

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Ahh you are serious student. I think she is finally getting her shite together. She fell and got a very bad concussion right before finals her sophomore year and we lost that whole semester. They were zero help

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I wasn't serious about school until I got into my 20s, I was a terrible and lazy student in high school. But I'm sorry to hear that, man. I hope she is doing better. Did she have to withdraw that whole semester? In that case, that's good that Alabama will do stuff like that for their students, especially working with your son to be with you after your situation.

You're right, UT won't help students with stuff. They'll just tell you to withdraw. But UT doesn't really have online classes at all. Even after COVID they went back to completely in person. Though, they did give me a full tuition grant my last two years to help me graduate so I didn't have to take more time off to work.