<p>I wonder how much longer Alabama will be able to offer all of these freebie scholarships? Let’s be honest here, without the huge scholarships, there wouldn’t be much pull for Alabama to get these students from around the country.</p>
<p>Alabama, under the visionary guidance of Dr. Robert Witt, has embarked on a course to make it a go-to university irrespective of the headline scholarships. As the number of National Merit and Presidential scholarship recipients has grown, so too has the number of non-scholarship out-of-state students. Why? Because word of mouth is spreading from these top scholars, their families, and their high school college counselors that UA is a fantastic place, the scholarships notwithstanding.</p>
<p>As a result, the number of out-of-state students in the freshman class has risen to about 50% and the vast majority of them are paying full freight OOS tuition. Additionally, the school’s investment in football has paid huge dividends, bringing tens of millions of dollars in profit annually, which subsidizes 100% of UA’s intercollegiate athletic program and brings a seven-figure infusion of cash into the academic scholarship program for the general student body.</p>
<p>For years now UA has been engaged in a building boom, investing mightily in its fabulous infrastructure and opening a new building every 90 days on average. This too attracts good students, which begets quality faculty. My son is the first top scholar from his Ivy-obsessed private high school to attend UA. As a result of his experience his college counselors paid a visit to 'Bama and were blown away. They now actively and routinely recommend UA in their college guidance process.</p>
<p>The University of Alabama is a rocket on an ascendant trajectory that has not yet reached full orbit. While the attractive scholarships have provided much of the fuel in the first stage, this ship will be sailing of its own accord in the years to come.</p>
<p>Grr, one of my biggest pet peeves of living in the northeast is people claiming to be “tolerant” and then speaking poorly of Texans or southerners. When my son told people he was planning on going to UT-Austin, several people asked, “Why would you want to go to school in TEXAS??” When I was in Austin last week, I was sorely tempted to buy a “SECEDE” shirt, just to drive people up here wild.</p>
<p>The SECEDE shirt is an A&M shirt though! You can’t betray UT like that!</p>
<p>Why would a UTexas fan want to wear anything with the letters SEC in it?</p>
<p>Let’s be honest here, without the huge scholarships, there wouldn’t be much pull for Alabama to get these students from around the country.</p>
<p>Since you want “honesty” here, then I’m going to assume that you want the facts. You’ve WRONGLY assumed that the OOS students are all getting these big scholarships. WRONG. Bama’s frosh class is 55% OOS. That’s well over 3000 students. how many do you think got those nice scholarships? Well, about 400 of them…at MOST.</p>
<p>By far, most of the OOS kids are full pay. </p>
<p>So, since you want honesty…you’re wrong to say that without the scholarship offers there wouldn’t be “much pull”.</p>
<p>So, your premise …to be honest…is very wrong.</p>
<p>Depends on how many of those OOS are from states near/around bama</p>
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<p>Is it in reference to Texas A&M seceding from the Big 12 to go to the SEC?</p>
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<p>Full pay at Alabama is also not super expensive – currently about $38,000 per year, though it was less by a non-trivial amount not that long ago.</p>
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<p>Yes, they are usually maroon and say SECEDE in all caps, some of them say something negative about UT or the Big 12. They are really popular from what I’ve seen in Houston.</p>
<p>Well, nearly all state schools will pull from border states. </p>
<p>That said, California (not close by) is ranked #5 in sending kids to Bama. Texas is #2. Illinois and VA are around #7 and 8. I think NY is in the top 10 along with PA.</p>
<p>Full pay at Alabama is also not super expensive – currently about $38,000 per year, though it was less by a non-trivial amount not that long ago.</p>
<p>Right…that’s why I met 10 Calif families from one high school at Family Weekend. they were all sitting together. None received scholarships. the students wanted a big football school and didn’t get into UCLA or Cal, so Bama wasn’t that much more expensive. </p>
<p>And, really the cost doesn’t have to be $38k. That’s for the most expensive dorms. The regular standard double (which they might have at a UC - if not a triple…lol) would be about $4k less per year.</p>
<p>I was not looking to give the term “deep south” this much of an argument. I have never experienced southern life as ill admit I’m pretty sheltered in a New York kind of way. I have obtained my ideas of the south from you guess it…tv. No I’m not saying I believe it but I have nothing else to back up on. I just wanted to know if it is as much as a culture shock as some people make it out to be…hence the quotation marks around Deep South.</p>
<p>No, there won’t be a “culture shock”. lol</p>
<p>I’m sitting in Tuscaloosa right now. I travel a lot between these three areas: Southern California, Huntsville Alabama, and Tuscaloosa. It’s seemless…no shock…at all.</p>
<p>I have lived in Alabama my entire life so far, and honestly the negative stereotypes about Southerners are really… ridiculous. I live near the Gulf Coast and Mobile, and while I have never been to visit UA, the people here are not racist, don’t really have harsh accents, if an accent at all (diverse community since we do live near the coast), and are pretty much people like everybody else. Racial offenses are taken very seriously, and not really a problem where I live; we intermingle quite well without conflict. Sure there are the occasional fights and disagreements, but that’s natural. Schools here are nice here as well (meaning high schools); even if we are not nationally ranked, remember that if a large majority do not try, it brings down the ones who do, it does not mean we are ignorant. We even have IB and AP. I happen to be in the in the International Baccalaureate programme, and as it turns out, most of us do very well with scores on the ACT being in the 30s or perfect and SATs being in the 2000s. We have brains, too.</p>
<p>If we are stereotyped to hold onto the past (being ignorant, idiotic, racists) then aren’t those who actually hold onto that thought kind of hypocritical in a way: they hold onto an old view, while we move forward in our endeavors. “Cultural shock”- hardly. Visit the campus and the state if you actually want to have a valid statement. For those interested in the university, go for it:) Thanks mom2collegekids for standing up against the inaccurate comments.</p>
<p>It’s seemless…no shock…at all.</p>
<p>ugh…seamless. I need to wear my reading glasses.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, all the folks in nyc and boston know there is no electric or flushing toliets in the AL and everyone is dumb…unlike up North.</p>
<p>When it comes to anything concerning the south, I’m always amazed at how provincial so many allegedly educated adults from the north east are. Are there really that many people who are so unsophisticated as to imagine that Bull Connor and George Wallace are still running things?</p>