re: What is up with BR area rich kids going to school at U of Alabama?

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I'm from Louisiana and went to Bama because I can't stand Baton Rouge. It's a mid size city with big city problems. Tuscaloosa is a college town and everything a student needs is walking distance. Tuscaloosa is kind of a dump but it was a lot of fun and the area around the university is perfect for college kids. Every time I went to Tuscaloosa, Oxford, or Athens I wondered how any one could go to school in BR and feel that they were getting the same experience.

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Yeah, I don't know how anyone gets the whole college experience at LSU either.



Fwiw, I hated everything about Tuscaloosa and Oxford. Too much a hick-town feeling.

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They don't get a college town atmosphere.

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And you know this how? You literally just said you didn't go to LSU.

because I've stayed with friends there a few thousand times.

First 18 years of my life were on LSU campus, I was ready to gtfo.

it's interesting. my daughter signed up for the ACT and I've gotten 4-5 pieces of mail from Alabama(among a tons of other schools). they are recruiting hard. Not sure if just in LA though. I'd disown her if she went there, but i can see the desire to escape LA. Fortunately for me, I've been brainwashin her to go to LSU since she was in the womb. TOPS, biotch!

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Whenever this stuff comes up people talk about how close LSU is to New Orleans as some big selling point. I could count on one hand the number of people I know who spend more than even just Mardi Gras there in a given year that aren't from there.

It may be an awesome place to have nearby, but very few people use it.

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This is a very good point. My brother lives in the Mandeville area and goes to just about every Alabama home game and it takes him about 4 and half hours to get to Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa is arguably the closest out of state SEC campus to New Orleans and Baton Rouge. When I was in school at Alabama, it was quicker to get to New Orleans than it was the beach. I think the proximity of Tuscaloosa to New Orleans is an underrated factor.

I can't point fingers at the kids who grew up in Baton Rouge and left because I got the hell out of Arkansas & currently attend LSU. I didn't even grow up in Fayetteville but if I would have went to the University of Arkansas, it would have been 13th grade.

Academically, Alabama isn't at all superior to LSU. I have a friend from home who's studying Real Estate/Finance at Alabama and we've both talked about how much undergrad is a joke. Alabama might manipulate/focus on areas that will improve their yearly US News Best College rankings but the education you receive at these two universities are very similar. I wouldn't trade our alumni base for theirs either

They're just the hot thing to do right now & if you add in the fact that Alabama has 3 times the amount of full time recruiters that LSU has definitely plays an affect. They've done a good job the past few years selling their university, placing white columns on anything & everything, & increasing out of state numbers. However, I believe LSU has done a good job working with what we have due to budget cuts. Some of the students I know from out of state come from VERY prominent familes out of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Tampa, Richmond, etc with a good majority of them having no prior connection to LSU. There's no reason to freak out, the Baton Rouge private school kids who decide to leave are being replaced by students from Jesuit Dallas or Lovett in Atlanta.

I don't think Baton Rouge is that bad. There's definitely room for improvement (bars, crime, etc) but the city has continued to improve the years I've lived here. I would rather live here than Tuscaloosa for 4 years tbh

eta: Give me Athens all day everyday over BR though

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Tuscaloosa is kind of a dump but it was a lot of fun and the area around the university is perfect for college kids. Every time I went to Tuscaloosa, Oxford, or Athens I wondered how any one could go to school in BR and feel that they were getting the same experience.

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I recently visited Tuscaloosa and felt the same way.

UA is a draw for some of the Jewish faith.....seriously

Agree to disagree. The majority of my friends stayed in the same circle and didn't want to run into my ex gf every night at Bogies

To my it would have been four more years of the same bars we were already going to senior year of high school. Leaving BR to go away for college forced me to grow up drastically.