Hi All:
First post. My son applied and was accepted and received the Charger Distinction scholarship. We’ll be visiting at the end of October. Anybody else receive any news?
I’m taking the ACT on the 28th, so I’m unable to apply until my scores get released.
My son has also been accepted with the Charger Distinction scholarship! We visited in April - were super impressed with the school, so much that S19 decided to only apply to 2 total. Dream/reach/lottery MIT and UAH :). We’re in VA, so either way it’s about 12 hours by car or a couple hours by plane.
@parent2one we are in Central Texas - 950 mile drive and no direct flights. Its really not all that bad
Thanks, @SnowflakeDogMom! We’ve been thinking of different options for getting him there/back again, and with his car. Mixture of just flying him home out of either HSV or Birmingham(he’d have to drive, but only a couple hours away) for breaks and if it’s a long break/summer, one of us flying there and riding with him home. I don’t want him driving by himself for 12 hours - that’s tough on anyone, especially someone with only 2 years driving exp under their belt!
How have things been going with your UAH freshman (if I remember correctly, sorry if not). Are they enjoying it, any issues, etc?
@parent2one My DD does not drive, she has no desire so the transportation comes down to Uber or airplanes.
Birmingham is not a bad drive, it is all interstate, DD and I flew into Birmingham for our fist visit last fall. Nashville is about the same distance to the north and also another airport option.
Huntsville is not served by Southwest which is our airline of choice, they are served by Delta and United from Austin, TX where we live.
We drove DD to school, we took a 7 day road trip with her older brother, it was great fun! She flew for orientation (United) and will be flying home for Christmas (Delta). The summer it looks like she will put stuff into storage with the help of friends with cars, and then fly home, this remains to be seen.
I do see lots of parents in different geographical areas working on ride sharing so their kids are not driving alone. We have such an option with a parent I met here, the parents live about 3.5 hours from us, we may hook the kids up, contribute to the gas fund and have them drive together for spring break, we will then drive the 3.5 hrs to retrieve DD.
My DD is in the Honors College, she is having a great time, loves the suite style living, gets along well with her roomies and is making friends. This is our learning semester. We are learning how to navigate spending $$, dining plan swipes vs. dining dollars, what sort of foul weather gear she needs, what does she really want/need for her dorm etc. She recently learned that TP is actually kinda spendy and she should have taken me up on my offer to load her up at Costco - she didn’t want to be “overly supplied”. Parent weekend is in 2 weeks, Dad and I are going and the first stop will be Costco for TP!
We will be flying via Delta for Parent Weekend, we are looking forward to a bit of sight seeing as the area is quite pretty.
UAH was the perfect fit for our STEM but wants to be a liberal arts kid. Its the ideal size that she wanted, no football as she really does not enjoy the “southern football sports culture” as she refers to it and the overall high test scores creates a campus of smart kids. She is really into hockey so was thrilled to go to a school with Div I men’s hockey.
@SnowflakeDogMom - I had to LOL @ the toilet paper price realization. I remember being shocked by the cost of towels and sheets when I first was on my own, and “good” toilet paper ;). We’ll keep that in mind and make sure to stock him up at the beginning of freshman semester! Thanks for the other information - glad to hear she’s enjoying it! The dorms were amazing during our tour.
I checked out flights for us, and from our local airport (Norfolk) there aren’t any directs to BHM, Nashville, or Huntsville. We do fly out of Richmond, Newport News, and sometimes from Raleigh (3 hours away, but sometimes it’s a third the price!). There were some directs from our secondary airports. Will have to figure it out next year.
Ride sharing is another good idea. Thanks!
S19 was also anti-big football schools, and enjoys hockey. UAH was perfect in that regard :). He plays tuba and they talked to him about playing in the pep band, so he’s excited about that, too. It’s nice for STEM kids to have an artistic outlet of some sort.
@SnowflakeDogMom What sort of foul weather gear do they need? How has she found the food on an on-going basis? Do tell on the dining swipes/dollars? Any comments on not having enough to do on the weekends? How’s the homework load so far/level of academics compared to high school?
we needed to invest in a solid and large umbrella to cover the backpack, the small flimsy one she insisted on taking didn’t hold up. I am looking into rain boots as well. She took her hiking boots, not sure if she is using them.
Not sure what kind of coat she might need, she has hoodies and a jean jacket but it is colder there in the winter than in Central Texas - Getting her winterized is on our list for parent weekend.
She says the food is fine and she averages 2 meals during the week and one on the weekends at the cafeteria. She also enjoys some of the other on campus dining options and uses her other various dollars for those meals. Meal swipes are for the cafeteria, the wrap place and I believe at Bevel center Gardenview Cafe. Charger Bucks are additional funds that come with the dining plan that can be used at the other dining venues.
Due to a lot of campus construction, some of her classes are not where she anticipated and they are a hike from the cafeteria. She does go to Wal-mart about once a week and loads up on breakfast items along with sandwich supplies.
Dining dollars can be bought separately and used for all dining establishments, my DD said she thought that using Dining Dollars vs Flex dollars lets the food be purchased without added tax.
Flex Dollars can be bought separately and used anywhere on campus; printing, laundry, bookstore and dining where dining dollars can only be used for dining but I believe if using Flex then the student pays tax (this is per DD, not confirmed)
So, all that said:
DD has Charger Bucks that came with her meal plan - we went with the 14 swipes a week plan and I don’t remember how many Charger Bucks she received, my memory is $300.
She has dining dollars that I bought and added when they went on sale in September - Buy $100 in Dining $$'s get an additional $20. I bought $200 and she received $240 - the dining dollars are good until the end of the spring semester.
Flex dollars - I bought her some of those as well, these never expire.
Dining Dollars and Flex Dollars can be bought online - there is a fee $1.95 per $100 I believe or very close to that.
Homework: My DD was an IB student in high school, this prepared her well for college and she has no issues with her workload, she does feel challenged and is working hard. She has several study groups in place and is pulling high marks. Some of these classes are her Honors classes but I don’t remember which, she is currently taking 15 units, she is scheduled for 16 next semester:
Calculus
Biology
English
Japanese
Something else I don’t remember that was a 1/2 semester
@Parent2one I am convinced there is no such thing as a direct flight to Huntsville LOL
UAH IMO is really a hidden gem for those kids who don’t want the big sports or even the big Greek culture, who want the smaller campus but also want to be with their intellectual peers. When we visited last fall, my very skeptical DD who felt she was being banished to Alabama LOL came away with a far different perspective. She said it reminded her of her IB group in high school but instead of it being a group of 50 kids in the school, the whole campus was on the nerdy side. She is settling in, getting involved and overall appears to be happy and well adjusted. Not much more I could hope for.
Hi all
My DD just received her acceptance via e-mail last night; still waiting on notification of scholarships, but I basically know what to expect. She is very happy with this first acceptance and I believe we will be heading down soon to visit campus! (We are very OOS, from New England).
My son has also been accepted for Fall 2019 for electrical engineering. We are from PA and flying down to check it out in two weeks. He is pretty excited to check ot out… I hope he likes it, as the scholarship offer is pretty hard to beat… even when you factor in the flying back and forth for 4 years.
My son has also been accepted for Fall 2019 for electrical engineering. We are from PA and flying down to check it out in two weeks. He is pretty excited to check ot out… I hope he likes it, as the scholarship offer is pretty hard to beat… even when you factor in the flying back and forth for 4 years.
My son has also been accepted for Fall 2019 for electrical engineering. We are from PA and flying down to check it out in two weeks. He is pretty excited to check ot out… I hope he likes it, as the scholarship offer is pretty hard to beat… even when you factor in the flying back and forth for 4 years.
Another probable 2019 kid here. We live in southern NJ, near Philadelphia. DS plans to major in computer science - he is also also planning on applying EA to Drexel, but if he gets into the honors program at UAH (he really likes the idea of the smaller classes), he says it’s pretty much a non-decision for him - he’s very anti-student debt and - like someone else’s kid above, he also likes that there’s no football team 
Congrats to all of you on the acceptances, I remember the excitement and sense of relief during this process.
My DD is in the Honors College, she really enjoys the extra perks that included moving in a day early as well as having first place in line for class registration. The down the road perks are the extensive study abroad options.
My Hubby and I are heading out the end of this week for parent weekend, we are of course excited to see our kid and explore a bit of Huntsville.
@SnowflakeDogMom Your answers earlier in this thread were very helpful. I have another kid who dislikes a huge focus on football (although she doesn’t mind hockey which is good because her aunt is a rabid hockey fan). We haven’t visited yet but hope to in the Feb/March timeframe.
D19 hasn’t started on the Honors program app yet because she’s burned out on essays and thinks she’s buried in regular schoolwork. The thought of another piece of writing is not thrilling her.
She got a hand-addressed envelope from her possible major department with some school bling and a letter a few weeks ago. The thought was good even though they spelled her name wrong on the envelope. (The typed letter inside had it correct. I told her they probably had a student hand-addressing them and mistakes were likely.)
Her top picks are both described as a “campus full of nerds” (although she prefers to be called a geek because she feels that is quirkier and emphasizes the more practical usefulness of one’s intelligence).
@Reebtoor I dubbed my DD’s social group the “Nerd Herd” thus the label of Nerd but you are correct, geek is a much better overall description.
I completely understand the whole not another essay issue. My DD pretty much refused to apply to colleges that required additional essays, she felt that at this point in the game, her record should speak for itself. Now, the HC at UAH interested her due to their generous help with study abroad so she gladly wrote that essay!
I will say, we received a lot of hand written notes, comments etc. from UAH. As a parent this impressed me, my student not quite as much BUT the Dean of the HC made a hand written note on her HC acceptance letter where he referred to something she had written in her essay. That acceptance was placed front and center on the fridge, those handwritten comments were not only appreciated but greatly valued.
My people love hockey LOL my hubby and DS love all things sports. DD was an athletic trainer all through high school and while she loves the medical side of it, she grew to dislike the “football sports culture” that is prevalent here in Central Texas (and I am sure many other places). We are looking forward to our first UAH hockey game this week!
DS acceptances include UAH and our local big university which both have excellent engineering programs. The Charger Distinction scholarship makes cost of attending UAH comparable to staying instate. Minimizing college debt is a big factor so DS is waiting to hear about other scholarship and aid possibilities. UAH is a two day car ride or plane trip for us. Orientation day at our local school was impressive - new hi tech engineering dorm, impressive teachers and students spoke, honor college options. UAH would provide out of state experience, smaller classes,etc. Would love to visit UAH but making the time to travel in the next couple of months is probably not doable. Tough decisions ahead!
@cmvaz1 My son went 8 miles to a dorm. He wanted a “going away” experience but the cost of out of state was prohibitive, so we compromised. While most of his friends commuted or went to the state school in the southern part of the state (we lived in Nevada at the time), my son went 8 miles to a dorm. It was an ideal situation for him.
When it came time for DD to go off to school, we had become very aware of how crippling student debt could be and were determined to minimize as much as possible. DD refused to attend school in Texas so when push came to shove, UAH had the best package. Even with the occasional travel costs, we are still able to pull off zero debt without compromising on her education. We were very fortunate that she received the Charger Excellence Scholarship which included tuition and housing for 4 years.
Your kid sounds like my kid… very anti-debt. Have you visited UAH yet? We went down a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. We are from PA (Lehigh Valley), so while Drexel is certainly more convenient, he really did like the campus at UAH. We shall see!