May 8, 2015
We are continuing our series on looking at colleges outside your
comfort zone by starting a virtual tour of public colleges and
universities in the Southeast region. Detailed show notes with
links to all the colleges mentioned in today's episode are at
http://nycollegechat.org/29 In our last two episodes, we started
our virtual tour of colleges across the U.S. to try to stretch your
thinking about colleges that might be attractive to your child. As
you recall, we started with five states in the Great Lakes region.
As we said then, we are looking at four-year colleges only,
reasoning that students headed to a public two-year college are
highly likely to go to one in their home state and are not,
therefore, looking to leave their own geographic region—at least
not right away. Again, we want to make it clear that there is no
statistical basis for the colleges we are going to spotlight in
this episode. No college has asked us to choose it, and no college
has paid us anything to choose it. These are entirely our own
choices. To be sure, some of the colleges we are spotlighting will
require that your child have very good high school grades and
college admission test scores to get in. Others will be a bit
easier, especially if a college is looking for out-of-state
students to enhance its student body’s geographic diversity. But,
because each student’s profile of grades and test scores and
extracurricular activities and outside-of-school experiences is his
or her own unique package, it will be up to you to look at your
child’s high school record to see which colleges might be most
appropriate. Two general notes: First, when we talk about the
colleges and universities in this episode, we are going to be
talking about the main campus—that is, the one that most people
associate with that institution—in those cases where an institution
has more than one campus. Second, because enrollment figures are
not necessarily comparable as reported by various colleges, you
should use the figures we provide here just as an approximation of
the actual campus enrollment, but one that is good enough to help
you understand whether the student body is the right size for your
child—roughly, small, medium, or really huge. 1. The Southeast
Region As we said, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (an agency of
the U.S. Department of Commerce) has divided the U.S. into eight
regions, with each region’s covering four to 12 states. Today, we
are going to start to look at the states that make up the Bureau’s
Southeast region, which has 12 states. Because we thought that
would be a lot of states to investigate as a group, we have divided
the Bureau’s Southeast region into the Southern Southeast region
and the Northern Southeast region. We will start with the six
states in what we call the Southern Southeast region: Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. For
those of you who are listening in our home state of New York or up
into the New England states or across the country in the Pacific
Northwest, I am going to guess that most of you do not consider
almost any colleges in these states for your child, with a rare
exception. We would like to see whether we might change your mind
about that. 2. Flagship Public State Universities Let’s start with
the flagship public state universities in these six states. Each
state has one, though some are better known nationally than others.
They are all good schools, and I would argue that at least a couple
of them are great schools. While these universities have smaller
branch campuses in other locations in their states, it is the main
location—that is, the flagship of each state’s public system—that
we will talk about here because that is the campus that is most
respected and most widely recognized both in the state and outside
the state. Some of these flagship campuses attract students from
far away states more often than others. For some, an application
from a student in New York is not so commonplace; in those cases, a
New York student with decent, but not spectacular, high school
grades and college admission test scores might have a real chance
of being accepted. As we have said before, colleges like to have
geographic diversity in the student body. And remember what we said
in Episode 27 about flagship campuses: They are the place to be, if
you graduated from high school in that state. Why? Because they are
relatively inexpensive, academically respectable, well regarded
across the state and across the country, super-competitive in
sports arenas, chocked full of student clubs and activities, within
driving distance of home, and a social hub for high school
classmates. So, these flagship campuses draw a large portion of the
best high school students in the state, which understandably drives
up the average high school GPA of entering freshmen. So, what are
these flagship campuses in the Southern Southeast region? They are
the University of Mississippi in Oxford (commonly known as Ole
Miss), University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, University of Florida
in Gainesville, University of Georgia in Athens, University of
South Carolina in Columbia, and in Baton Rouge. These universities
are located in different kinds of settings—from picturesque small
college towns to small cities to state capitals—but they have a lot
in common, like enviable warm weather. These flagship campuses have
a lot of students. The typical number of undergraduates at these
campuses is around 25,000, but with closer to 33,000 at Florida and
only about half that many at Ole Miss. The total undergraduate,
graduate, and professional student enrollment tops out at Florida
with almost 50,000 students. All of these campuses are going to
feel big to incoming freshmen. Partly because of the small-town
charm of Oxford, Ole Miss might feel the least intimidating. The
history of racial integration of the student bodies of some of
these schools is part of our national memory and the personal
memories of those of us who were alive in the early 1960s. We
remember the 1962 enrollment of James Meredith, the first
African-American student at Ole Miss. But something that I did not
know was that the University of South Carolina had first admitted
African-American students in 1873, thus becoming the only Southern
public university to admit African-American students during the
nation’s period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Then the
University closed for financial reasons in 1877. When conservative
leaders re-opened it a few years later, it opened as an all-white
institution. And while we are talking about “firsts,” I also
recently learned that the University of Georgia was established by
the General Assembly of Georgia in 1785, making it the first
state-supported public higher education institution in these United
States. That’s quite a legacy. These flagship universities have
from 12 to 17 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools and
colleges—from liberal arts and sciences to every kind of
career-related field you can imagine. Here are some of the more
unusual ones: LSU has a School of the Coast and Environment; South
Carolina has a College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management;
Georgia has the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources;
and Ole Miss has the Patterson School of Accountancy. Overall,
these universities offer from about 70 to 140 undergraduate
majors—which should be plenty to choose from. Like other big
universities, each one has hundreds of student clubs and
organizations and about 15 to 20 men’s and women’s varsity sports
teams (plus club sports and intramurals). They are all part of the
Southeastern Conference, and they treat their sports and sports
rivalries seriously (can you say Crimson Tide?). Attending sports
events are a part of college life at these universities—as are
fraternities and sororities for many students. Each of these six
flagship universities is well enough known to attract students from
many states and foreign countries, but the most of the
undergraduate students attending these campuses are home grown. For
some of the universities, that could mean that a solid application
from outside of the state would be viewed favorably, and your child
could likely get a great education at a cost lower than a private
school in your home state—that is, before any financial aid package
is figured in. More important, as we said in an earlier episode,
these six flagship universities are better academically and more
widely recognized than many private colleges in the U.S., and there
is no prestige in attending a private college that is not as good
as a great public university. All of these flagship universities
have proud alumni and alumnae, many still living in the state and
sharing a network of friends who are also alums—and returning to
the campus on weekends to see the big football game. In fact, since
1851, 25 governors of Georgia graduated from the University of
Georgia. So, I guess it is turning out a quality product. When we
attended the National Association for College Admission
Counseling’s college fair in New York City a couple of weeks ago,
we had a good conversation with Anastasia Sailer, the University of
South Carolina’s Regional Admissions Representative for New York,
who did a quick audio pitch for NYCollegeChat. Be sure to listen to
it in our recorded episode. 3. Other Public State Universities In
these six Southern Southeast states, there are also other public
universities—not branches of the flagship campus, but other
universities in their own right, some of which are as well known as
the flagship campus. Like the state of Michigan, which we talked
about in Episode 27, with the University of Michigan and Michigan
State University, both Mississippi and Florida have very
substantial second well-known public institutions: Mississippi
State University in Starkville and Florida State University in the
state capital of Tallahassee. Each has about the same number of
undergraduate students as its state’s flagship university:
Mississippi State with about 16,000 undergraduates and Florida
State with about twice that many. Each offers a broad array of
colleges and undergraduate majors: Mississippi State with eight
colleges and about 65 undergraduate majors and Florida State with
16 colleges and about 85 undergraduate majors. Each is a good
choice for lots and lots of students. Interestingly, the state of
Florida also has a newer public university (established in 1963)
that has grown to be larger than both of Florida’s historic public
universities. That newer one is the University of Central Florida
(UCF), with its main campus located in Orlando plus a double
handful of regional campuses in the central part of the state.
According to UCF’s website, UCF is the second largest university in
the U.S., with a total of about 61,000 students, about 52,000 of
them undergraduates. UCF has 12 undergraduate and graduate colleges
and offers about 90 undergraduate majors. The most unusual of those
colleges is the College of Optics and Photonics, which is the
science and technology of light—that is, lasers, LEDs, LCDs,
optical fibers, and imaging systems for applications in industry
and medicine. South Carolina and Alabama both have nationally
recognized public universities (perhaps especially during football
season) that I bet many people think are private, given their
nonpublic-sounding names: Clemson University in South Carolina and
Auburn University in Alabama. Clemson was founded on the estate of
Congressman and two-time U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun, who
passed it on to his daughter and son-in-law Thomas Clemson, our
country’s first Secretary of Agriculture. Clemson Agricultural
College, originally an all-male military school, opened in 1893.
Today, Clemson is a coeducational university with a broad array of
eight schools and colleges, including, of course, the College of
Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences. The University serves
about 16,000 undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students—mostly,
from South Carolina, but with several hundred each from states as
far away as New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Let’s look at Auburn, which started as an all-male private liberal
arts college back in 1859 and now is home to a full slate of 13
undergraduate, graduate, and professional colleges and schools and
a total of about 26,000 students (about 21,000 of them
undergraduates). With 15 varsity sports, Auburn is another proud
member of the Southeastern Conference. While most students come
from Alabama and, next most often, from nearby Georgia and Florida,
Auburn draws from states across the U.S. Fewer than 100 come from
New York, however, so Auburn might be interested in a good
applicant from our home state. One more word about public schools
in South Carolina: The College of Charleston, located in what some
people believe is the prettiest city in the South, serves a
somewhat smaller student body of about 10,000 undergraduates and
just 1,000 graduate students, including some New Yorkers and New
Jerseyans. Undergraduates have a choice of 59 majors in seven
schools, focused mostly on the liberal arts and sciences (plus
business and education). And a note about the College’s history:
Founded in 1770, the College of Charleston is the oldest higher
education institution south of Virginia and the 13th oldest in the
U.S. Its founders included three signers of the Declaration of
Independence and three framers of the Constitution. It was both a
private college and a city-supported college before it became part
of the state’s public system in 1970. There is one last public
institution to spotlight today, and that is Georgia Institute of
Technology (commonly known as Georgia Tech), located in Atlanta. A
top-ranked public university by anyone’s standards, Georgia Tech
provides a “focused, technologically based education” (taken from
the website) for about 14,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate
students. It offers degrees in six colleges (Architecture,
Computing, Engineering, Sciences, Business, and Liberal Arts), with
“more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that
consistently contribute vital research and innovation to American
government, industry, and business” (taken from the website). Your
child is going to need excellent high school grades and college
admission test scores to get into Georgia Tech. To help balance out
its academically rigorous reputation, Georgia Tech also has 39
fraternities and 16 sororities on campus and 17 men’s and women’s
athletic teams. John Heisman, remembered for the Heisman Trophy
that bears his name, became Georgia Tech’s first full-time football
coach in 1903 (interestingly, he had previously coached at both
Auburn and Clemson). As we said earlier, all of these public
universities (and there are even more in these states than those we
mentioned here) would cost an out-of-state student more than a
public university in his or her own state, but less than most
private colleges. So, consider looking at public universities
beyond just the flagship university, for the special programs or
the appealing locations or the sense of history and tradition that
they offer. Listen to the podcast to find out about… The disparity
between high school grades and college admission test scores for
students at some flagship public state universities Weather
conditions that you might want to alert your child to in these
states Writing a college application essay especially for a college
outside your geographic region Find links to all the higher
education institutions and programs we mention in this episode at
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