FYI -- Conditions of UA Presidential Scholarship

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
1

<p>Hello all; </p>

<p>I tried finding the conditions to maintain the Bama Presidential scholarship on UA’s website and couldn’t find it, so I emailed Carolyn Rogers in UA’s scholarship dept. Here is my Email to her and her reply:</p>

<p>Hi Carolyn;</p>

<p>My daughter is a OOS Presidential Scholar and will be attending Bama this fall (she will receive 4 years “free” tuition). </p>

<p>What are the conditions of her scholarship, just to maintain a GPA of ____? And is that for every semester, at the end of each school year, or cumulative GPA? </p>

<p>If she does not reach that GPA , does she get a semester or year of being on “probation” to reach it? ( I tried looking for the information on your website but could not find it)</p>

<p>Is there any other scholarship conditions? Thanks for the info.</p>

<p>ANSWER: The freshman student will not have a grade review until the spring of 2011. If they have a 3.0 cumulative GPA, then they will have their scholarship renewed for the next two semesters. This will be the same process each year unless the 3.0 is not met during the 8 semesters she is on scholarship). </p>

<p>The GPA to retain the scholarship is a 3.0. If she does not have a 3.0 cumulative, then she would have to take at least 12 hours in the fall of 2011 and make a 3.0 to retain the scholarship for spring 2012. Fall 2011 would be paid, and would be the probationary term of her scholarship. She would have to make the 3.0 for the fall term only, and would be reviewed semester-by-semester of her remaining scholarship terms. </p>

<p>Please let me know if you have any further questions.</p>

2

<p>Glad to hear the specifics. You might want to save the email for your records. </p>

<p>:)</p>

3

<p>ditto. Thank you.</p>

4

<p>Although it shouldn’t be hard for these kids to maintain a 3.0, this just serves as a reminder to “level load” one’s schedule to avoid being overwhelmed.</p>

5

<p>That is great info, nice to have it spelled out clearly.</p>

<p>This is another thing I really like about this school. They are straight forward, and they answer your emails. </p>

<p>Many schools, are not this way.</p>

6

<p>I thought it was higher like 3.3? Must have been mistaken.</p>

7

<p>Thank you for this post.</p>

<p>Don’t want to complicate things, but IIRC, a student must maintain a higher average to remain in UHP. Maybe a 3.3? Yes, just checked the site.</p>

<p>I wonder if there’s a similar probationary period if a student got less than the UHP requirement, but higher than the scholarship.</p>

<p>Would a student maintain their scholarship, but lose honors college privileges?</p>

<p>And what privileges would those be?</p>

<p>I would assume they’d no longer be able to live in the honors dorm, and would perhaps get later room pick and scheduling days, and perhaps not get that nice designation on their diploma of being in honors, but financially, they would not be harmed, would they, if they did not meet the required UHP GPA? </p>

<p>I tried to find the specific GPA requirements for the other honors programs, like IHP, Fellows, and CBH, but did not see those specifically listed.</p>

<p>Since this 3.3 versus 3.0 question has come up, wonder what the little intricacies are to remaining in the individual honors programs and maintaining one’s scholarship.</p>

<p>I do want to point out that there are a lot of assumptions that are made that if one is able to gain admittance into these programs, one should not have to worry about their scholarship or losing their membership privileges.
This is not so. Different majors require a different amount of work, and just because a student tests well or did well in high school, college is a whole other matter.<br>
You not only have to worry about school and studying, and if you’re so inclined, a social life, but you also will no longer have your parents cooking your meals and doing your laundry. </p>

<p>On one visit to the university, I talked to many engineering majors as I toured their facilities. Although the tour guide said that many engineering majors have a high SAT/ACT score, and one would assume that they would be members of the honors college, many that I talked to were not involved in the honors program. Perhaps they chose not to seek or maintain membership because they had a rigorous enough schedule as an engineering major.</p>

<p>This is no reflection on their intelligence. They simply made choices that were best for them. Since there is automatic honors admittance with many scholarships/GPA, it is not surprising that many students would start out in the honors program, but find that they cannot balance honors and their major and drop that part of their curriculum.</p>

<p>I would be curious to learn how many students start out in honors, and even specific honors programs, maintain the required GPA, yet do not pursue it as the demands of their major, job, college life in general cause them to let that facet of their college experience fall by the wayside.</p>

8

<p>what is IIRC?</p>

9

<p>If I recall correctly. Sorry, trying to get the shorthand down.</p>

10

<p>Montegut: My son says that IHP is the program that probably take the biggest loss of students, and there are several reasons. </p>

<p>One, you need two years of a language (or credit coming in). Sometimes, that can be a problem for some majors who must take lots of ancillary classes. If you do not come in with a lot of AP/dual enrollment credit and still need to take two years of a foreign language, you will working to get everything done. </p>

<p>Second, study abroad is not inexpensive. If you do it during the school year (as in, it counts as your spring or fall), you only need one study abroad experience. But some students are unable to do that during the school year and must go abroad for two consecutive summers. The costs will add up.</p>

<p>Third, often students want to work in research, do other internships or they just may need to work to help offset their expenses, so they may not be able to complete all the IHP requirements.</p>

11

<p>hmmm, Kari is in IHP. </p>

<p>One good thing, since she gets tuition covered, she also gets tuition covered if she studies abroad for the fall or spring --we would only have to pay for housing and transportation. </p>

<p>D1 got full tuition at Baylor (Kari is D3) and was able to to study 2 semesters (eg. Madrid and Maastricht) in Europe on Baylor’s dime…which is what we are hoping Kari will be able to do for at least one semester. In fact, we spoke with UA’s study abroad coordinator when we did Kari’s spring tour and being confirmed that was one of the deciding factors why Kari said “yes” to UA.</p>

<p>For those of you OOS that may not be getting a tuition scholarship, we have been told that paying tuition abroad can be less expensive than paying OOS tuition.</p>

<p>Is it easy to switch from IHP to another Honors program?</p>

12

<p>M of 4: you can do more than one honors program…I know Momreads or M2ck will help out here or you can check out the honors program web pages…</p>

<p>My son decided to do UH and IH…but he wants to do the overseas study and plans to take a third language.</p>

13

<p>Your D can do UHP, too. She probably just has to contact the Honors College and ask since she’s already submitted the honors app. </p>

<p>Did she only apply for IHP? </p>

<p>I think for you to take dept honors classes, you have to be in UHP also.</p>

14

<p>As a reminder, one does not have to be in IHP to study abroad. If you can meet the requirements to graduate from IHP (10 weeks in a foreign country and earning 6 credits during that time, among other things), you might as well be in IHP.</p>

15

<p>I actually think I’m in UHP… Not IHP.</p>

16

<p>Honors works the same way as the scholarships for probationary periods if your gpa falls below the required. Except I think you could essentially be “reinstated” into the honors college if you don’t keep the 3.3 whereas once you lose a scholarship it is gone.</p>

<p>Keep in mind too that UA has this +/- system meaning + are .33 above and - are .33 below the normal. A = 4.0 A+ = 4.33 A- = 3.67</p>

<p>So to keep the scholarship you need at least B’s and not B- average. So normally the 80-82 range are B-'s…of course all of this is up to the discretion of the professor. go figure :-/</p>

17

<p>FYI…</p>

<p>Bama has posted its Presidential and UA Scholarship scholarships for the coming year…no changes.</p>

<p>No changes for the engineering scholarships, either.</p>

18

<p>Great news. Now if I could just confirm S’s weighted gpa that would be even better!</p>

19

<p>Hoping no changes in Bama Presidential Scholar for the 2012-2013 year as well since I have an incoming junior in high school – youngest and last – this fall.</p>

20

<p>Just a general comment about IHP. While it is an AMAZING program, and the people and coordinators are very helpful, thoughtful, and really work hard to make things happen, IHP is really hard for some science and engineering majors to complete. The problem is that there is far too much pressure for us to obtain internships, and since our curriculum is so rigorous and strictly scheduled, we have to do summer abroad. Summer study abroad, of course A) is expensive B) interferes with internships C) may not be profitable in the sense that credits earned abroad may not apply for engineering courses. Personally, I am starting to doubt that I will be able to complete the study abroad requirement. I just don’t have the time or money. But I still hope I get to go somewhere like Europe, perhaps during a break, to at least get some culture. That’s just my two cents.</p>