Not attending Bama afterall ?!?! WHAT?!?!?!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>What a rollercoaster ride this whole college thing has been for my daughter the last few weeks. This entire past school year she was deadset on going to Bama. She wouldn’t even consider any other school. She took the ACT several times, with a 29 being her highest score, so in June she started softening on Penn State. </p>

<p>While secretly dreaming of earning a 30 on the Sept. ACT so she could attend UA, she started finding reasons she “should” attend PSU: amazing handling of gluten-free dining; can room with best friend from HS (whom she gets along with wonderfully), a little less than 2 hours from home, pretty good chance of making the Blue Band’s silks(colorguard), and most importantly… a highly ranked engineering program.</p>

<p>Flash forward to last week…Thursday night, the night before we are to go to PSU for “Spend a Summer Day”, we find out about the new scholarship at Bama for those earning a 29 on the ACT! Yippee! Suddenly she was no longer even considering PSU and was Bama Bound. We canceled plans for her to stay with family while we take our son next week to Bama for his second year, so she could go with us. We scheduled a campus tour, engineering dept tour, and a meeting with the director of residential dining at Bama. </p>

<p>We still had her go to PSU the following day and had to listen to her compare PSU to Bama the entire day. One highlight of the PSU trip was an engineering dept. informational session. For some time now, she has known she wanted to be an engineer, but didn’t know in which area…Now she knew - Industrial Engineer! Everything seemed perfect until…we realized that UA DOESN’T HAVE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING… UGH!</p>

<p>Anyhow, she applied to UA a week or so ago and is still going with us next week for son’s move in, take the tours and talk to the director of residential dining…My head hurts just thinking about all the ups and downs we have expereinced the last few weeks and those to come… :frowning: I might have to change my screenname to “Housedivided”…</p>

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<p>Great story! I hope your D gets the 30 ACT anyway.</p>

<p>My D also wanted to be an Industrial Engineer. As you know Bama doesn’t have it. (The other Alabama school does.) My D spoke to Dr. Batson and he suggested electrical engineering. That’s her major now. Dr. Batson used to teach Industrial Engineering at Bama years ago until they did away with the program. He is also Mrs. Batson’s husband. She is program director of CBH.</p>

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<p>Cuttlefish, so your daughter is okay with not being an industrial engineer? I wonder why UA did away with that program…Do you have any idea? My daughter was leaning towards EE before learning about IE. Maybe after she visits UA again next week (It will be her 5th trip there!), she will switch back to EE. LOL! :)</p>

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<p>Yes, my D1 is loving the EE program. After this summer’s REU, she likes computer architecture. Pretty sure it’s a part of EE. </p>

<p>Not really sure why they did away with IE at Bama. It is still taught at Auburn.</p>

<p>Have fun at Bama. My D1 and I toured 4 times in total. </p>

<p>This summer my youngest went to the SITE program. She enjoyed her taste of engineering. D2 is a HS junior.</p>

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<p>Many of my friends started in mechanical engineering in undergrad and continued with a masters in Industrial Engineering.</p>

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<p>Isn’t it amazing how things can swing so fast? You know that DS lives EE. DD wants mechanical engineering. Haven’t applied anywhere. Gotta get on that. Good luck with everything. Talk to you on FB!</p>

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<p>ProudBamaMama: No worries. She has time. This time last year we thought for sure our D would end up at UT-Austin. Bama was not off the list, but at the bottom. Fast forward 6 months and another visit for Capstone Scholars Day and she walked off campus saying I think this is the one! She still waited on her acceptance from Texas, but by the time that arrived in March her heart was already stolen. </p>

<p>She even commented after the fact that she could have been done in August instead of spending all semester worrying, writing essays and applying to other schools! In the end it all works out, they need the time to feel that they made the right decision!</p>

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<p>After all the stress to get the magic 32 (which she did on the 4th try) it looks like DD will end up at Michigan State. They have a program there that suits her perfectly. I suppose things could change after the family weekend visit - but I would be surprised. It will be nice to have her closer to home, though.</p>

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<p>Thanks everyone! UA is my daughter’s first choice of school, BUT she is leaning towards majoring in industrial engeering and UA doesn’t have this degree. We are touring the campus again this Friday and have a meeting scheduled to talk with Dr. Back about the engineering program at UA… Wish us luck!</p>

<p>RTRMom2, Congrats on the 32! We are hoping for a 30 on the Sept. test. Of course, we’d take a 32 though! :slight_smile: Michigan State is a great school…What program is your daugther interested in there?</p>

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<p>^ she might want to look at the Operations Management major.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>Agree.</p>

<p>Although not an engineering degree, operations/supply chain management through the business school are VERY similar to industrial engineering.</p>

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<p>Yes, they are similar, older S has a degree in Operations Research & Industrial engineering from Cornell. He does a lot of modeling & analysis as a revenue analyst for a large, international hotel chain.</p>