There aren’t a lot of Asians in Alabama, relative to other states, so it is not surprising that only 2 per cent of the student body is Asian.
@CyclonesGrad <<< support the athletic department gives to fund academics is what I meant on a previous thread a couple of months ago when I said UA athletics is helping to grow the academic stature of the university. You told me then that UA athletics does not intermingle with academics. Please note the below in the article (by the way, I think this is great - if you have the ability, do it):<<<
Please show me where I made such a claim because I doubt that I did…unless it was some odd typo. I have known and said FOR YEARS on CC that the Academics side does NOT support the Athletics side…meaning that the school, UA, is not diverting monies that should go to Academics in order to support Athletics… In fact, it’s the other way around since Crimson Tide Athletics is so profitable. I have long said that the merit scholarships come from sports income, alumni, and capital fund drives.
I have long said that Bama Football supports ALL sports (all teams, all coaches, all athletic scholarships, all sports facilities, all uniforms, all travel) and has money left over to support academic scholarships.
The school and sports are separate when it comes to money. It’s not one big pot of money. People often post on CC that sports takes away from academic money, and in the case of UA, that is not true.
@SouthFloridaMom9 When you hearing about the male preppy side, you’re mostly hearing about students who are not engineering/physics/chem/math type students. If you wandered around the Science and Engineering Complex, you would not be seeing much of that preppy look. The NE section of campus, where the STEM buildings are, is like its own world. Both of my sons were STEM majors, neither of them were preppy, none of their “tribe” were preppy. Just look at the pics on the webpages of the STEM majors. You’re not going to see much of that look. If you were to hang-out on the SW side of campus, for instance the Business School area, you would definitely see a preppy look, although some kids there aren’t preppy either.
NoVADad99 – Ref #32 – Our two TJHSST grads (Classes of 2013 and 2015) are now very happily attending UA. NMF scholarship for one and Presidential + Engineering scholarships for the other. Four kids from 2013 and four kids from 2015 TJHSST classes attend UA. UA is great in our book (and checkbook!!). In fact, although they enjoyed TJHSST, our kids wanted a different college environment from HS (i.e., big state school, warmer climate, etc.). Different strokes. Many thanks to UA, Bama football, and the generous scholarship $$. Roll Tide Roll!
@CyclonesGrad I went back and looked at the convo…
I think the confusion was regarding the size of a school’s endowment. I was making the point that UMinn has a much bigger endowment than UA has. You made a comment that UA doesn’t need a big endowment because it has sports money. I responded by saying the Crimson Tide Sports is a separate entity and that it would take a dive if suddenly the football team was given sanctions/probation by the NCAA or if Saban were to leave.
I was trying to make the point that sports is separate; it’s not a big pot of money that the univ can just draw from at will. However, the sports program does give money to the school (I’m guessing that it must “get rid of money” sometimes to avoid a tax situation. I don’t know if Tide sports is considered a non-profit. If it is, then it would have to get rid of money at times.)
I think it’s better to have the much bigger school endowment.
I can see how my post may have been confusing. I may not have clarified because in a post earlier in that thread, I wrote the following, indicating that Bama does get scholarship money from the sports program.
[QUOTE=""]
Bama may have more scholarship dollars from its Crimson Tide program, but UMinn has a $3+ Billion dollar endowment! Bama doesn't even have a $1B endowment....it has less than $700M....that is a significant difference. UMinn has the financial resources. <<<<
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@mom2collegekids I probably misunderstood your comment. Sorry for that. We are going to visit UA at the end of January during open week in wrestling season. I have contacted the local recruiter and he is setting up the tour for my twins.
I took all of your advice on previous posts. It will be interesting regarding their take on UA. They are definitely drawn by the merit money.
I would love to see a study on how much winning football/basketball success impacts alumni giving. I think UA was at the top or near the top of alumni giving rate even before Saban arrived. I know that for years, US News and World Report was ranking UA tops in terms of alumni giving rate. But Auburn was also ranked close behind most years. I haven’t seen this specific ranking for several years, but I do remember seeing it in the print edition of the college rankings, breaking down each factor going into the overall rankings.
@CyclonesGrad No problem. I freaked out a bit when I first read your post, but once I saw the context I could understad the confusion. 
So many people think that Tide sports is costing the school money, so I try to explain that the monies are separate.
I’m glad to hear that you and your twins will be visiting Bama in January. It can be cold, but hopefully not as cold as what you’re used to.
Please let your recruiter know that you’d like to visit the Honors College, the Science and Eng’g Complex, and perhaps the 3D printing lab…and anything else that interests you.
@ConcertoinD , If UA continues in this path, we may see it become like what Vanderbilt has become, a top destination for top students who want to to go school in the South. Or even Duke. Asians now know their brands and apply in great numbers. The critical mass need to be there to make that process happen.
I’d be careful about that logic. 2013 numbers put the Asian population of the state of NC at 250,000/9,400,000 = 2.7%, but over 10% of the most recent freshman class at UNC-CH is Asian. And while not a southern state, Michigan has an Asian population of 2.9% while the state flagship is about 12.6% Asian for all undergraduates, and nearly 15% for the most recent freshman class…
UA wants to reach that same level of recognition of the UM and UNC-CH.
Fallenchemist, I agree, but it is good to know that the percentage of Asians at UA at least matches the percentage in the overall state. If it didn’t, since they don’t have trouble scoring well on the ACT, on average, then it would be a possible indication that they didn’t find UA to be a friendly place…
About a week ago, NPR in Tuscaloosa was talking about the rise in Jewish population at UA (doubled over 15 years). It is small, but growing - in part because some of the Jewish students from NE have come (with merit money) and like it at UA. There has been a Jewish male fraternity since 1915 but no Jewish sorority. However there is enough of a Jewish presence for the students that choose to come to UA.
Once one or two students come from an OOS school, other parents and students notice.
I read through the comments on the NYT article - there are so many from so many parts of the country, or even other countries like Canada - that do not have a ‘true’ perspective because they have not visited or talked to a student who attends. Having lived in AL since 1983, I can compare things here to the other two states I have lived in an been educated in (WI and TX). I worked for UAH in the late 1980’s and received a graduate degree from UAH, and even then I could see many good things happening at UA, ‘sister school envy’.
I can see a lot of people cannot distinguish that UA was improving itself with STEM growth since the plan was in place, and associate it with Nick Saban coming as football coach. Certainly some full pay OOS students are influenced by sorority/fraternity/lg football success combination. There also is the impression by some that higher stat OOS students coming to UA somehow pushes/pushed out qualified in-state students, which is far from the truth.
One thing I never knew I would gain as a UA parent was a circle of other UA parents and parent info via closed parent facebook groups - Million Dollar Band parent group started this year, class of XXXX parent group, engineering parent group, dorm or housing apt complex group, etc. OOS families can really stay quite connected. Find out many informative things which I pass on to DD. After a while, DD realized that info tidbits helped to not miss information with the big campus and it still was ‘her experience’.
Even picking up a few close correspondence connections with CC.
^ I hope UA does not eventually feel the need for a satellite recruiter in China (such as the brilliant UIUC does in my state).
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-university-of-illinois-chinese-students-d1-20140801-story.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/07/u-illinois-growth-number-chinese-students-has-been-dramatic
@NoVADad99 - I laughed at your comments. We are the flip-side. Asians make up just 3.1% of Arizona’s population, but 47% of the student body at BASIS Scottsdale is Asian, mostly Indian-Americans (not Native Americans) and Korean-Americans. Whites like my three sons are now just 43%, with the rest Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, African American, etc. My three sons used to complain about the workload and the competition. My answer was always “Welcome to the real world!” Now my youngest son is graduating after passing 15 AP exams and “only” a 33 on his one sitting for the ACT exam. I hope he realizes that his hard work has paid off.
^^ My son attended TJHSST where Asians are 60%. Many of the graduates go on to UVA or VT, and I didn’t want him to go there where it would just be a continuation of high school with the same cliques and the heavy dominance of Northern Virginia kids.
My other contention is that UA will need to start attracting high caliber OOS students who are “full pay”. Most of the top publics (UCB, UCLA, UMich, etc.) are able to do so now. My D2 attends GTech and they have more than 25% (of the current class) from OOS who are paying full fare. This implies that the university has superior offerings that many are ready to pay a full price for.
Oklahoma has been attracting NMSs for a while but that has not done much to its rankings.
http://factbook.gatech.edu/admissions-and-enrollment/national-merit-achievement-scholars/
Actually, there is a Jewish sorority, and it has been on campus at least since the late 80s and much earlier I think. http://newsone.com/2780689/sigma-delta-tau-hannah-patterson-alabama/ It is SDT.
@atlanta68 I didn’t know. Wonder why there was that claim - unless the ‘sorority’ wasn’t exclusively Jewish (or is there such a thing?) Maybe someone with some more information can shed some light. I cannot imagine the Tuscaloosa NPR radio information last week being so wrong w/o some kind of explanation.
@NoVADad99. My middle son is a freshman at Miami (Ohio). His roommate is an Indian kid from NoVA. Most of his buddies from high school are Indian, so its just like home for him. They’ve already decided they are going to room together next year.
The person who spoke was dead wrong. UA has had a Jewish sorority for quite a while, but no, it is not exclusively Jewish. Not sure how many non Jews are in it, but has historically been a Jewish house.