It wasn't initially ds's number one either. He and his dad flew in to visit UA and decided that they might as well see UAH too. They both hated UA but loved UAH. UA rolled out the red carpet, but UAH had a lot more substance. At that point they didn't even bother to visit the other schools on his list, especially since none of them were local to us. I better add - I know lots of people have found UA to be a great fit for them and with plenty of substance and opportunities! No disrespect intended. This was their impressions from their tour and personal meetings.

My son is graduating from UAH in electrical engineering this May. I just started a thread with our experiences.

In the class acceptance thread, there was a request for a UAH thread. Since my son is graduating from there this May with an Electrical Engineering degree, I figured I would go ahead and answer some of the questions. I was unaware of this school until this year when I saw so much talk here and at CollegeConfidential. Now that my son has been admitted with free tuition, he is curious about it. If you ever have time to share, please consider starting a thread to tell us about the place. Are many of the students living at home? Is it a suitcase school? How do you find the culture there, if your family is not from the South? My son is friends with several local students, but none of them live at home. Up until last year they lived in the dorms, but now most of them live off-campus in apartments because the school ran out of dorm space due to its growth. I believe a new dorm will be finished by next fall. When we were looking at schools, he was not at all concerned that it was supposed to be a suitcase school. However, that has definitely not been the case. It wouldn't even be possible in his friend group. They are from all over the United States, including Alaska, Washington, California, Maryland, Illinois ... I suspect many of them were drawn there for the same reasons as my son. They initially looked at UA because of their scholarships and didn't like it. The culture question is a little bit harder for me because that's not really the type of thing my son talks about. I do know that many of his friends are involved in Christian groups on campus, but that's the type of friends he had in high school too. Politically, my guess is it's probably middle of the road. We are not from the south. I think the school is a great place. The opportunities he's had are phenomenal. I would say that he is a big fish in a small pond, because he has the scores, intelligence and drive to succeed at any top school, but there are a lot of students at UAH that fit that description. We chose it for the great merit aid and engineering opportunities in Huntsville, as did his entire friend group. Since he started his freshman year with two full years of dual enrollment, he only needed 3 years at UAH. In that time he has been a Teaching Assistant for an engineering class for a year and a Research Assistant for a year. He had a great internship in town his first summer and an REU his second summer. He has batted away many other offers of internships, both local, and across the country because he couldn't possibly do them all. Along the way he decided that he wanted to get his PhD directly after his bachelors and has been admitted to several top 10 electrical engineering programs. He is now deciding which one he wants. We have not had a single bad interaction with that school. It is full of wonderful, caring administrators and professors. Perhaps that plays into the culture question. Of course some professors are better than others, but you'll have that anywhere. My son is a bit different in that generally he likes the hardest professors best because he likes to be challenged, so RMP wasn't that accurate for him. I've also been impressed at how good they are with scheduling. If a class is full - they open another section or move rooms around in order to fit everyone.

Thanks for the links gardenmom5. I had poked around the site but missed those. I think maybe I'll try to set up ancestry sharing with one of my close family members first to make sure I'm not sharing anything I don't want to with the distant stranger.

I recently received my 23andMe results. I chose to do open sharing with my dna relatives. A couple days later, a distant match contacted me asking for more information on the side of my family tree where he thinks the match is. Unfortunately, I did not have any useful information for him. Then he made a request with me to share "Ancestry Reports." What does that mean? If he's already a DNA relative and can see where we match from those reports, what further access does he get if I accept his request to share Ancestry Reports?

I have family members who have done 23andme and some who have done Ancestry. In all but one case, the results were very compatible with what we expected. The one with unexpected results was an in-law of mine who had been adopted. He had assumed what his ancestry was based on his skin tone, but the results pointed elsewhere.

Please DO NOT QUOTE. I may need to delete. Our dear, sweet, precious daughter passed away from epilepsy. She was 18 years old. Delete/Edit .....Thank you everyone for taking the time to read about my lovely daughter. I greatly appreciate all your kind words, thoughts and prayers. I'll be forever grateful for the time we had with her and for the compassion she taught us and those she encountered throughout her life to have for those who are silently struggling. Be kind. Be gracious. Accept and Include. Encourage your children to do the same.

City Mouse, Could you share more about this? I know a young lady with aspergers who would love to have a summer job, and ideally would like it to be away from her parents so she could experience some independence. Thanks!

Inland is usually safer, but certainly not always. And you often do not know until it is too late. IMHO, everyone who evacuated early from any part of Florida was being prudent.

I lived in the Kissimmee area during Charley. It was unbelievable. We did minimal hurricane prep because it was not forecasted to hit us until it took a last minute turn. The damage and destruction was unbelievable. If I am ever anywhere near a hurricane again, you better believe I will be stocking up on water and non-perishable food. It took days and days of toiling in the hot, humid Florida climate to free our yard / driveway / shared private road of trees / branches / debris. It takes a lot of water for the human body to be able to continue to function under those conditions. We had a well and no electricity for at least a week. And as others have mentioned, when seeing people buying cases and cases of water, you don't know how many people they are buying for. 5 kids, 2, dogs, elderly neighbors, friends who can't get to the store themselves. You just do not know. And about evacuation... Yes, I would very much consider evacuating even if it has not been ordered. Because hurricanes change directions. Because the damage and destruction can be intense, even if living inland. I know. I lived it. It was bad.

I know a young lady who is currently there. I also know several other sets of parents, but don't actually know their children who are there. Everyone seems to like it very much. It seems to be fairly popular with active Christian youth from the surrounding states. Sorry I don't have any details, but hopefully this helps.

No, gun owners do not have an obligation to automatically disclose this to visitors. If you, the visitor, want to know, then ask.

https://gfa.asu.edu/ Arizona State University Global Freshmen Academy could be used for dual enrollment. Open to anyone, no application, all online, $200/credit, but you don't pay unless you actually pass the class with at least a C. Math is self-paced thru Alex. Other classes have definite start and end dates.

If it requires an access code (hate those!!), then we only buy new. We've only done a rental once. It was the one time when the savings was significant enough to warrant it. I've always been concerned that Amazon or whoever will say that it was returned in poor condition and charge me, or that we'll forget to return it at all. And, yeah, we nearly did forget. Once or twice we've bought International Versions and saved quite a bit of money. But it is a gamble because there are some differences - like different problems (an issue only if the professor assigns those). The vast majority of textbooks I buy used from Amazon. Their new price is almost always less than the university bookstore. But usually I buy used, "very good" or "like new" books. I try to start shopping up to 2 months prior to the start of the semester. Often the best deals (used on Amazon) do not come with fast shipping. If I can't find reasonable savings buying a book early and my kids are pretty sure they won't actually need the book, then we wait until class starts. Books that they'll never need again, we try to re-sell back to the university bookstore or to Amazon. I tend to use Amazon the most, because with Alibris/AbeBooks/etc. I really have to wade through the international versions to find the U.S. ones.

Agree. All of it can count as PE credit.

Quill, I truly appreciate your willingness to stick to your POV. It can certainly be hard to stick your neck out on these boards! And I do agree with almost everything you've said.

Thanks for replying. I'm not disagreeing that it can be dangerous. Just curious if everyone here preaching it (not driving while tired) actually practices it.

I've read most, but probably not all of the posts. The driving tired part has me intrigued. Seriously, have all of you who are stressing the harm in this (and I don't disagree about that) never driven tired before? Being 45 minutes from your destination, do you actually stop and get a hotel or pull over and nap in your car? I'm am actually curious if this is what you do every time you are driving and start to feel tired - especially when you're within 45 minutes of your destination.

In my experience, it's the studio. We've been through 3 dance studios over the years. One was definitely cringe worthy in their costumes and moves, no matter the style of dance. Usually their rec classes weren't as objectionable as their competition classes. The other two studios were very family friendly in their costumes and moves, no matter the style of dance or level of class. I liked these studios much better :)

Well, I do believe that the most successful/skilled people are those who started at the bottom and had to work their way up. But that does not mean that I hold a grudge against people who were born into money. However, I certainly *do not* consider someone who was born wealthy and never did anything more than live off the inheritance to be successful. Nor is that the kind of person who should be running the U.S. economy.

I'm surprised that people took issue with my statement that businesses want to hire successful people. Really? If you owned a business - any kind - you wouldn't be looking to staff it with highly competent employees? (Regardless of whether or not this always happens - that's not the debate. The debate is, who should be hired? who is the best person for the job (high level economics position for the U.S.)? Or at least I thought that's what this thread was about - but based on responses, I may be wrong about that.)

I agree that handing out jobs via political appointees is a bad idea - I never said or implied otherwise. I'm not sure we are disagreeing here. The top jobs should go to those with experience and success in the subject matter. I would not hire a successful daycare worker to be an economic advisor for the U.S.A., nor a highly skilled plumber, nor a well-respected art historian. I would hire someone with skill, knowledge, and success in economics/business. From there, you eliminate those who are skilled at playing politics and manipulating the higher-ups. There are still plenty of strong candidates to choose from.

Yes, but I would not want someone with a teaching background- or many other backgrounds, running the economy of the United States. No matter how successful they are, most people with these jobs are not prepared for high level administrative positions.

As an employer, you want to hire employees who have a good track record of being successful. Why would this be different for high level federal/economic jobs? Being wealthy, in general - though not always, shows that you have been successful in employment and handling money. Being poor doesn't necessarily mean that you can't perform well in those jobs, but it is an indicator that you have not yet done so. Obviously, one's wealth should not be a litmus test. Rather ones experience and success, which can lead to great wealth. I think it's vitally important to have people in high positions who have already had the experience and been successful at it. That said, there are jobs available for people of all experience levels and that is a good thing. Even in the business world, those with the most success and experience usually have the highest positions. There's a reason for that.

My kids never really read "level" type books so I'm not sure of their difficulty. Generally, they started with Dr. Seuss books then within a year advanced to full chapter books meant for upper elementary age. They started reading the Dr. Seuss books at ages 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5, but were building the foundation prior to these ages. It was not our experience that early readers don't do as well with comprehension later on. They always tested at 5-8 years beyond their age/grade and usually maxed out the standardized tests. One got a perfect score on ACT reading without studying at all. This dc was also probably my most prolific reader throughout school, reading nearly every spare moment.