Hi all, my son and I attended a UA prospective applicant reception at the JW Marriott Hotel in Houston, Texas this past Monday. We’ve attended these type of receptions previously for some of the private schools like Vanderbilt, Duke and WashU. The Alabama reception stood out in a couple of respects. First, there was about 5 times as many people at this reception than at any of the other recruitment events we’ve ever attended. Based on the sheer numbers alone I can tell there is alot of interest in UA here in the Houston, Texas area. Second, UA actually provided food and I’m not talking about your cookies and carrot sticks, they actually provided mini-sliders and kolaches. There was a wonderful speaker at the reception who is a parent of UA student from the Woodlands, Texas. Her daughter is a national merit scholar at UA and she spoke about this community on College Confidential. She mentioned that there may be a presence by the community on a dedicated social media site so I’ll keep an eye out for that.
The good times continued for my son who is high school junior as he received his SAT scores from January’s exam last night. The first time he took the exam back in November her received a 1300 CR+Math which put him at the Foundation in Excellence Scholarship level (one-half out-of-state tuition). He raised his CR+Math subscore to 1380 (just 20 points shy of Presidential). The UA Scholar gets him (two-thirds of out-of-state tuition). He’ll take the ACT exam in April and we are hoping that on either that test or on a second testing in September he can achieve the necessary cutoff score for the Presidential (32 ACT).
We are making our first trip to Bama during the second full week of March to see what all the excitement is about that we’ve heard from you guys on this forum. Thanks for all the info and guidance.
Welcome! Lots of Texas students attend Alabama. Our first visit was two years ago at about the same time - the Thursday before Alabama’s spring break. We had a great visit. DS is a freshman this year. What is your son hoping to study? Good luck to him on his next round of tests!
^^^fatherof2boys Glad to hear that you thought the reception was a success.
Do have your son retake both tests, it is well worth the price of admission for the additional tests to get to the higher scholarship level. Best of Luck and Roll Tide!
Wish they had something like that up here in Minnesota! I don’t think Alabama is even going to be at the state college fairs this Spring. DS did get invited to a U-Kansas reception, but he’s totally not interested in KU, so politely declined.
@beadymom he is likely going to study something in the Liberal Arts, math is not his expertise. His SAT Math subscore was only 59/8000, in comparison he received a 790/800 on the SAT Reading subscore. Because Math is only 1/4 of the composite score on the ACT, he suspects that he has a better chance of getting to the Presidential Scholarship level on that exam. Of course he will have to deal with a dedicated Science section but he’s more comfortable with that subject than the pure Math section on the SAT which is 1/2 of the relevant scoring UA uses for scholarship consideration.
Raleigh, North Carolina’s reception is in a couple of weeks. We are so looking forward to it. Roll Tide!!!
BandMom, are you in Raleigh? If so, I’ll try to find you.
Yes, the Houston mom that spoke at that reception is great!
The Bama family is near and far and very supportive of each other. Your kids will have an instant family all over the country that will be more than willing to help at any time. Yes, the UA receptions are the only ones that have a very nice spread at these events.
My D is in her second year at Bama and loving it. We are in the Dallas area.
If you have any questions, fire away
Roll Tide