<p>So this blog is about my experience as a parent of a child attending UA, UA and my daughter. The things in this blog may be fact or opinion or a combination of both. You don’t have to like what I say just be respectful and I will respect your opinion - :).</p>
<p>What blog? </p>
<p>So the background - I am in my mid-40’s, an IT Program Manager, working for a very large International manufacturing company and have traveled to Europe, Mexico, Canada, Asia, Middle East. Never made it to Africa or Australia.</p>
<p>Live in semi-rural VA, have a good paying job (now but now always), financially recovering from the costs related to a severely handicapped child and some bad choices and bad luck in life. 6 people in family. I am college educated - small town college in rural West Virginia, liberal arts degree.</p>
<p>My daughter was 3rd in her HS class, 32 on ACT - comparable SAT scores, Tennis, Band and some other things but nothing really that would separate her - no “hook”. She took almost of the AP classes offered at her HS - 7 AP classes last year with 6 A’s and 1 B.</p>
<p>Where she applied UA, U. Maryland, UVA, William and Mary, Vanderbilt, U. of Kanas and some others. She was accepted at UA, UVA, U. Maryland, U. of Kanas and others. She was not accepted at William and Mary and Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>So how did my daughter get interested in UA, decide on UA and some general comments about other schools. My daughter attended a college fair at a local HS in the closest city to where we live. Being in Virginia everyone flocked to Virginia Tech, UVA, Radford and the local colleges booths. My daughter was always interested in going away from home so when we saw the UA booth and how it was not crowded we stopped at the booth first. The recruiting lady was very nice and was very informative. When I brought up costs the recruiter explained how UA gave guaranteed scholarships. I was immediately intrigued and started doing research on “guaranteed” scholarships. There is a closed forum on this site that has lists of colleges that give guaranteed scholarships and you can find some other places that also offer lists. Long story short UA has the best program I could find for a college that offers engineering (which is what my daughter wanted). At application time she qualified for the Presidents scholarship (full out of state tuition ride) plus a $2,500 engineering scholarship. </p>
<p>Unfortunately my daughter like so many other kids immediately turned to the US News and World Report college rankings. They see Harvard, Columbia, Stanford at the top and naturally assume that they have to go there and that they deserve to go there. Point blank my daughter did not have the scores, the grades, the hook or the family pedigree to get into an elite school. After resetting that expectation (I did not stop her from visiting or applying to one) she started looking at more schools. We visited Vanderbilt, UVA, William and Mary, U. Maryland, and last UA (due to distance). </p>
<p>My daughters first choice was William and Mary - I was a little flustered. William and Mary struck me as a very historical campus with a great residential program. They did absolutely nothing to sell themselves academically - its great that have a successful history but I want to know what they were going to do for my daughter. WM is a Liberal Arts School - my daughter was interested in engineering …</p>
<p>William and Mary has a joint program where you can get a degree at WM in 3 years then be guaranteed admissions at Columbia as an Engineer Student (couple of different variations of this program exist Graduate/Undergraduate). So my daughter focused on this. </p>
<p>WM was the first choice, followed by Vanderbilt, UVA next, UM then UA. All of my daughter choices was based of emotion first - how she felt she would fit in at each college, the rankings, college appearance. Never did she investigate the quality of the teachers, the engineering program, or what the college would do for her …</p>
<p>My daughter went down to UA during a “bama day” (I think that’s what it was called) program where they do large scale tours for prospective students.</p>
<p>Point blank it was disappointing for my daughter. Many of the sessions conveyed things that she already new about the University and it did not sell her on attending. If your child is clueless about college (has not done the research) or you as a parent know little about college then this program is for you. </p>
<p>I later found out later that UA has tours for honor students - I thing this would have been the better tour. My daughter needed to feel like she was getting a good education and that UA would challenge her (because UA is not ranked as high as some of the other places she applied).</p>
<p>The positive from the tour - UA has a very well kept campus, the buildings are well maintained, the honors housing is the best we had seen anywhere and the college seems to be well administered. We did learn that engineering school is relatively new (some universities we visited looked like they were out of the 60’s). UA is big on internships and coops.</p>
<p>Fraternities and Sororities are big on campus. For my daughter a plus, for me a limited plus. I was in a fraternity at the small college I attended and it was an excuse for drunken debauchery. But I did learn social skills and how to work with bureaucracies in a fraternity. UA seems to have a professional Greek system that hopefully eliminates or limits the abuses that Greeks have been known to commit in the past.</p>
<p>So now fast forward to reality - my daughter did not get into her first choices, from most of the colleges we had an idea of what she was going to be offered at each. Loans at all. UVA - 0, Univ. of Maryland - Work study only, University of Kanas - $9000 (aprox.) in scholarships and UA full scholarship plus $2,500 engineering scholarship. I was resigned to the fact that my daughter was going to go to UVA or try to get on at William and Mary (she was wait listed). Anything other than UA was going to put a severe strain on my finances. My daughter did not qualify for Plus loans do to my financial issues … </p>
<p>To my surprise she picked UA. What sold her on UA was the honors housing, the fact that they had the strong internship program, and the engineering program. She actually started to look at the course catalog at the classes offered in engineering and found that they had a strong and broad course offering comparing it to other colleges. She determined that she wanted to take Italian or German as a 2nd major or minor which UA offered. She started talking to Alumni, realizing that the people who go to UA love it. She started noticing all of the cars in VA that have UA stickers … She also started to realize that UA really wanted her to come there (the scholarship money) and they had to have strong support to offer that. Combined with the new Engineering facility/program she was sold …</p>
<p>I appreciate your informative post. We are in VA and my oldest is dreaming of many of the schools you mentioned. When you say your daughter got a full scholarship plus $2500 does that mean full tuition plus $2500 to offset room and board costs? I’m just nosy. UA was at our college night last year and I do see the stickers quite often. Your daughter is wise and I bet she’ll have a great college experience. Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>So one of the next steps you have to do after deciding to go to UA is pay a registration fee and housing fee. I do not like the way UA does this - the earlier you pay your fees the earlier you get to sign up for your housing choice and registration day. This is not right for students who are waiting on decisions from other colleges to make there choices. The fees and deposits are steep - $475 in all. For someone from a family with hardships I hope that UA has a program for them. I will post more tomorrow … </p>
<p>Sorry for some of the grammatical errors - new = knew, thing = think, do = due. </p>
<p>eusriso: I can understand completely how your daughter thought. My older son dreamed of Harvard and the other Ivies, Duke or MIT. He was not interested in applying to UVA, although he will attend UVA Law this fall on a full tuition ride. He got into William & Mary, but was never interested in attending the school. My husband and I told him he needed one, in-state school. We also live in rural VA.</p>
<p>He chose Alabama because of the computer-based honors program, the number of AP credits he got (he started with 65 hours), a wonderful National Merit scholarship and the various opportunities he would have. He also loved the honors housing. </p>
<p>Alabama does go out of its way to make someone feel welcome. It was more than a postcard or note, too. He liked the positive treatment he got from everyone whom he encountered. He has traded e-mails with former professors since graduating a year ago. He also made lifelong friends with so many from all over the country and world. BTW, one of his best friends is completing her masters in Ireland and will get her PhD in engineering from Stanford.</p>
<p>May your student have an awesome experience at Alabama. Roll Tide!</p>
<p>@Ospreycv22 - UA scholarship is value of full OOS tuition (increase as tuition increases annually) +$2500 per year which may be applied to fees (which vary depending on classes, we budget $400/semester) or room & board or food. </p>
<p>To get this scholarship student needs ACT 30 or above or SAT M/CR 1330 AND 3.5 GPA 9th-11th grade (this can be weighted if HS weights) <a href=“Scholarships – College of Engineering | The University of Alabama”>http://eng.ua.edu/undergraduate/scholarships/</a></p>
<p>UA stacks scholarships which is rare. If a student wins local scholarships it does not decrease what UA gives. </p>
<p>@eusriso - So glad your daughter took the time to drill down and look at the courses and experiences she could receive at UA! </p>
<p>@eusriso Thank you for sharing. I enjoy reading about the various perspectives of people as they approach the college selection process. </p>
<p>For the question about the Engineering scholarship - yes it can be used to offset the housing costs at UA. The housings cost at UA are higher than most of the other public colleges that you will look at on the surface. But if you look closely you can save a lot ( I think it was $3000) if you child goes to a dorm with shared rooms. </p>
<p>I will now continue my experience with UA - from a parent’s perspective. When I left off my daughter had attended bama days, registered for housing, and paid the fees. So my daughter got her mybama student portal access. This portal is really impressive - the general information available is impressive and the amount of information that my daughter can manager related to her career as college student at UA is outstanding. UA really has there act together. </p>
<p>My daughter got her housing assignment in the honors dorm she requested. UA puts her fellow room mates (its a suite with single bedrooms) in contact with each other. UA also put her in contact with a social group (I think Facebook) of other students attending from Virginia. </p>
<p>From May to Now (end of July) she received offers to participate in a combined engineering/German/Internship program (impressive), an MBA stem program, the rowing team and several other opportunities. This has really stoked her excitement about going to UA. She did not get selected for the German/Engineering program (disappointed but not unexpected - she had no prior German courses). Also as I mentioned previously she will participate in the Sorority rush. She decided to participate in the MBA program. If I understand it correctly she will take one mba course a semester her first 4 years. Then she will go a fifth year and have an MBA in business. Love it! :)</p>
<p>Bookmarked this thread. Really helpful.</p>
<p>We drover my daughter to Tuscaloosa for Honors registration. It was okay - I did not participate in the Parents orientation (it was approximately $120 extra). I think they charged $80 for my daughters registration and she got to stay in the dorm. The registration is 1 1/2 days - they go over a lot. The main reason for going is to register for classes - my daughter got a decent schedule with most of the classes she wanted. I had contacted the registrar’s office in advance because my daughter got a late date to register. When I went to college classes were dispersed on a first come first serve basis. At UA they release classes in blocks aligning them to each registration session. Again a nice touch so that I did not have to worry if my daughter was going to get the classes she wanted. During the visit we found her mail box, got her signed up at the Alabama Credit Union (they have an ATM on campus plus an office), found her Dorm, closest dining hall and a general idea of where her classes are located. We were able to figure out that a Publix (grocer) was relatively close. We originally had a reservation at the Ramada in Tuscaloosa but my wife did not like it so we ended up staying at a Fairfield Inn at Bessemer (40 minutes out). I had Marriott points where I travel for work so it was free. My experience with hotels in Tuscaloosa is that they are expensive and not the best. No regrets staying in Bessemer. I rented a large vehicle to bring some of my daughters stuff down in advance during the registration session. It is almost impossible to find a storage rental during the summer in Tuscaloosa. I finally found a storage unit in Northport but it was in a very bad building and not very secure. Hopefully all of my daughters stuff will be there when she goes back. It is about a 10 hour drive from central Virginia to UA.</p>
<p>During all of the other stuff going on the cost of attendance picture became clear. As I mentioned earlier my daughter got a Presidential Scholarship (Alabama has guaranteed scholarships), a $2,500 engineering scholarship (from UA) and a local $2,500 scholarship and a $5,500 federal loan. The Presidential Scholarship covers the costs of outstate tuition (99% will elaborate). Initially my daughter had $10,500 in scholarship and loan money to cover the costs of the entire year of housing, books and parking decal. Long story short she had a gap of about $7,000 for the entire year. </p>
<p>Most students and parents can make up this “gap” with Plus loans. Essentially Plus loans are open ended loans - you can borrow as much as college costs as long as the student has a cosigner normally the parent. That is you can borrow as much as you want unless your cosigner (parent) has bad credit which applied to me. In cases where the parent cannot sign for the Plus student loans an additional $4,000 in Federal loans are made available. </p>
<p>So the way it ended up between the scholarships, $9,500 in loans my daughters tuition, room and board and books are covered. She may get back a couple of hundred dollars per semester. Her goal next year is to borrow $5,000 per year max - she will have summer jobs going forward. </p>
<p>Borrowing the money is not ideal but as long as she sticks with engineering I believe it is justified. I wish things were different but given that I am caught in the middle class trap - no need based aid, my daughter is smart but not the top .001 percent of the kids that Harvard wants and the fact I have had financial difficulty this was the best deal for my daughter. My only other alternative was to pay for her college out of my 401K or on a payment plan offered by UA - neither ideal given that I am on shaky ground financially.</p>
<p>As far as the Plus loans go if there is any way possible I would avoid these - you are tying your financial health to your child’s financial health. Not a good idea. This one time having bad credit actually helped me.</p>
<p>Some things that UA does that I don’t like. UA does not release the cost of next years tuition and room and board until July - so how do you plan for this?</p>
<p>It seems that every class and every college has a fee at UA outside of the normal tuition cost. UA estimate these course fees at $400. This was way to low for my daughter. The Presidential Scholarship does not cover these fees. Again you don’t know the fees in advance so how do you plan?</p>
<p>The college estimates the books to cost $600 - for engineering this is way too low. </p>
<p>Why is there a huge $7000 gap between the scholarships/loans and expenses? At one point you say she borrowed $5500, and in another place you say she borrowed $9500. Fees were a little higher this year, than previous years, I noticed, but there is no way that you need to spend $600 on books. Look through other threads on ways to save money on books costs. Remember that dining dollars $650\yr, if unused, will be refunded.
Thank you for clarifying.</p>
<p>Also, people on budgets need to look carefully at semester versus annual costs. UA’s website can be confusing in that regard. </p>