My Son has presidential scholarship and we are from NY. He wants to talk to recently passed out Alumnis(3-4) of them to get an idea about facilities, env, job opportunities etc. I have seen the placement report and shown it to him already. Is there a way to get hold of Engineering Alumnis? Appreciate your help.
Usually the ones recently passed out are the current frat kids.
Sorry, having a little fun with language today. BTW, alumni is already the plural. Alumnis is not a word. Sorry again.
As for your question, my son is also a presidential scholar from NY, current junior in engineering. Interned last summer for a big Long Island defense contractor. Interning this coming summer for a major defense/aerospace company. Turned down offers from another Fortune 500 defense company and a major satellite company. I have no doubt he will get plenty of elite offers at graduation. Do well at Bama and all the top opportunities are there for you. They key is you need to take advantage of the opportunities. They won’t just happen. Keep a high GPA, get involved in clubs, do research or internships, build a great resume. If you’re just ordinary, it won’t be as easy come job time. This is my advice regardless of the school.
You asked about facilities and environment. Have you visited? I have toured dozens of top schools, and I’m not exaggerating, the facilities are the nicest you will find anywhere. The Science and Engineering Complex is all brand new, huge, state of the art.
English is not my forte nor my first language. Good to hear your son is going great guns. I am planning a visit some time in March and asked alabama about dates by email.
But before that, my son wants to talk to some Engineering Alumni to get a comfort feeling. I am asking him to consider this while he has admissions like ohio, University of texas Austn etc. So talking to some Alumni from engineering might change his perspective other than visiting campus. If you know about a way, that would be helpful.
Thanks for info.
@Chardo
Are you by any chance from Long Island? We are from Long Island, just living close to Grumman.
I’m a few miles north of Grumman. You could contact someone at the local alumni chapter (uanyc.com) who might be able to help. If he wants to talk to a current engineering student, my son is always willing.
Thanks for info. I live in Bethpage. Current Engineering student also can tell him about how things are. It will be helpful, if you can facilitate that.
In addition to reaching out to the NY Alumni Chapter, try contacting the Dean of Engineering at the university, he is an alumnus of UA, and may have other individuals that your son can contact.
His info is:
http://eng.ua.edu/about/dean/
His contact is:
http://eng.ua.edu/people/ckarr/
@robotbidmom,
Thanks. will ask him to do that.
passed out grads? This must be a regional thing. lol I’m from Calif and the only passed out students I know just came from a keg party.
My son was a Presidential scholar and a ChemE major. He graduated in 2013. However, he went to med school, so that’s no help for you.
BUT…his 4 housemates in a 5 bedroom cottage were also Eng’g majors (ChemE, EE and MechE). They all had jobs at graduation…very good paying jobs…The ChemE majors got the highest starting salaries $85k.
I thought if he talks with Alumni or seniors, he might get better idea, more than me showing stats and info. Also, I plan to visit the campus along with him in March. Thanks for the info.
Was he accepted into the University of Texas Engineering school?
If not, I would not advise attending UT. Why? With the Texas “top 10% rule”, one can be accepted to the University of Texas but they do not get to “pick” their major until their sophmore year for classes their junior year. Only those that were accepted from the beginning into the UT Business or Engineering school will be admitted into those schools. Trying to get in later is hard. Forget the internships in the engineering field and the labs/research projects that you see at a school like Alabama. University of Texas does not even come close. I know a LOT of UT kids, some are the validitorians of their high schools, top A kids one was attended TAMS in high school and was admitted to MIT (he should have gone to MIT), they are not even getting the same things I see UA kids get.
IMHO, the top 10 rule in Texas is killing our public universities. They are not moving up in the academic arena at all.
He got accepted for Chemical Engineering in Cockrell school of engineering.
Also, we are out of state. So no 10% rule for us.
While the 10% rule does not apply for your son for acceptance, he will be impacted by this rule.
The problem that many of us in Texas have with this rule is that it has “watered down” what were the higher academic public schools in the state. Your son could end up in classes with a lot of students that came in with very weak scores, lower academic experiences in high school (no AP courses, etc). If your student was in a Texas high school that was super competitive, it would be very difficult for him to be accepted into UT, especially into the engineering school. Students from less competitive high schools could and are accepted as they were the “top 10%” in their high school graduating class. UT actually has such a high applicantion rate that some years it is the top 4% that are accepted. Last I heard for this year it was around 6%.
Some of the other issues are the kids being accepted from less competitive schools with poor GPA’s, low test scores, etc is that they are not “college ready”, tend to take longer to graduate if they even stay to graduate and do not drop out as they were not prepared. UT has complained about this as no school wants their undergrads taking on average 6 years to graduate. This is also another reason that limits how many students they can accept as they have to allow for all of these students that are taking so long to complete 4 years of college.
Just sayng you need to take into consideration the caliber of students that your son will be around.
Also, UT is just now breaking ground on their engineering building that will have all of the new state of the art research labs, etc. Anticipated completion date in 2017. At UA, all of that is already there ready and waiting. As well has UA having one of the highest percentages of NMF students in the country and a high marticulation rate.
If you’re on LinkedIn, you should be able to see if any 2nd degree connections attended UA. Note however that UA pre-2003 is significantly different from the UA of today in terms of facilities and the overall student body.
Having watched many of the newer engineering buildings get built while I was a student, I will say that students of today will benefit greatly from the new facilities.
The Texas Top 10% rule gave UA its first real wave of OOS students. While Texas is a long drive from UA, it didn’t stop UA from becoming UT-Tuscaloosa in many respects. UA admits a lot of students who, while very intelligent, wouldn’t qualify for admission into UT-Austin. This is especially true in the UA business school as UA admits interested students directly into the lower division of the business school and admits students to the upper division based on grades. There is/was a running joke on campus that if a vehicle has a front license plate, it’s probably registered in Texas.
@SEA_tide and @TxNewCollegeMom,
Thanks for your insights. My wife is trying to schedule campus visit and left voice message and sent email yesterday. Can somebody enlighten me what this tour covers? Will we be able to talk to current students, visit dorms etc on this two hours scheduled visit? We would also want to know more of Engineering department of my son’s interest. We are coming from NY and wanted to make it as fruitful as we can. Thanks for your all your inputs.
You need to contact Honors College and have them schedule your visit details. @mom2collegekids can chime in with info on who to contact.
My DD is in civil engineering, freshman.
Taking honors at UA is a big plus for class scheduling priority. Very well thought out programs. My DD is in STEM MBA honors program.
I got my master’s degree at Texas A & M, so I may be a little biased, but after seeing UA I don’t think ut can stand up. TAMU is pretty friendly campus, I don’t know how much ut Texan students would be friendly to a student from NY. UA has more OOS students in freshman class than in-state, so your son would fit right in.
Thanks for your reply. I will check with my wife to see whether she contacted Honor’s college for scheduling visits.
There is info on HC web site at www.ua.edu - can search honors college and pull up. I think they have been talking about Susan being helpful in HC. If Dr Shane Sharpe from HC is in the day you are on campus, maybe a brief meeting can get scheduled.
Any time I called HC, I was able to talk to someone helpful. Sometimes HC students help man the phones, so it is always nice to glean info from current students.
We are in AL and have heard talks by Dr. Sharpe and Dr. Karr (eng Dean) - always enjoy hearing them speak. DD did the summer SITE program (if you have younger students considering engineering, it is a one week program for rising HS juniors and HS seniors - they have offered three summer sessions in the past - and they fill up fast).
@So SConcern,
My wife is already talking to them. Thanks for the pointers and info.