are there other scholarships available at UA that one could stack on top of the Presidential full-tuition + Engineering $2500 / year ?
Scholarship for NMS students. There are some other scholarships at UA, of course, but those that receive the ones you mention @Wien2NC are pretty much ‘covered’. @mom2collegekids can explain.
There is the CBH fellowship, which stacks, and department scholarships do as well.
@Wien2NC there are pages (I think 15 pages) of various scholarships available. No idea how they are distributed. I’m guessing that some are targetted to those who may have good stats, but not high enough to get much merit.
^ On the incoming student scholarship application, there are some very specific scholarships listed to apply for (if you qualify) - maybe a dozen or so?
The largest group of scholarships (in terms of numbers of scholarships, not necessarily money) is administered by the Alumni Association. Note additional info here: http://alumni.ua.edu/scholarships/
I believe the 15-page document that mom speaks of consists of alumni association scholarships from chapters all over the country, and can be accessed as a PDF (look for link on the bottom of the right-hand sidebar).
It is important that students continue to apply (not just as incoming freshmen), if they want to be considered. The Honors College administers scholarships for continuing students, and that application for continuing students can be found on their mybama page.
Of the 108 students graduating from my DD’s Catholic HS in AL, 14 are going to UA. Two students received additional scholarships beyond Presidential and Engineering Scholarships at UA - one received two Alumni scholarships - Alumni Scholar and Alumni Heritage Scholarship; the other received Pro-Air, Pro-Earth Scholarship. Two students who were not eligible for UA Presidential Scholarship - one received Corporate Office Properties Trust Award, and the other Foundation in Excellence Scholarship.
There are two times in recent years that I have seen AU really ‘stack’ the scholarships for a student they wanted. Both were NMS - the student this year was the top academic student and also won the school’s top award and had 8 scholarships from AU - National Scholars Presidential Scholarship, Technology Stipend, On-Campus Housing Stipend, Enrichment Stipend, National Merit Scholarship Stipend, etc.
Agree with @mom2collegekids about ‘spreading the scholarships’ to students who are good stats but maybe not testing high enough to be automatic merit-worthy.
There’s also the Academic Elite scholarship, but first you have to be accepted into University Fellows Experience:
thanks everybody
So we had a college visit today at UA. A couple things stood out. Maybe I miss heard him but I thought he said that this years incoming class was 58% OOS? Also he asked why the OOS people were interested in UA. Someone said the automatic merit scholarships. He said that’s what he always hears and while he hopes that they will have them this next year he doesn’t know if they will or not. He said in years past you got a letter right away with your scholarship but that might not be the case anymore. I don’t know if he was being cautious or if maybe they are giving too many scholarships out and they are going to change it somehow to rein in how many they give out. He also said that the application would be out soon after the 4th of July.
Interesting @MichiganGeorgia…We were there a month ago and we were told that yes the Application would be out in July, but they told us that as long as you had the right stats, that the merit should stay the same. Will be interesting. I think their OOS stats will change quite a bit if they change the Merit scholarships too much. It wouldn’t surprise me if they increased the requirements, that is just my opinion.
@MichiganGeorgia I am curious, as to who was the speaker, who made these statements about the merit scholarships. Were these statements made in a group setting or in answer to a question on the sidelines?
I really don’t see this as being in sync with the current goals of the university to keep growing and to pull in the best and the brightest, however there have to be some adjustments to the SAT scores due to the new test format and we already know of the reduction on the engineering scholarship.
I guess we will have to wait and see, but I think if there are any changes it will be gradually put into place.
I and some others here, always encourage prospective students to aim for a higher ACT or SAT score than is currently required just in case.
It was in the group setting of the regular info session. I don’t know the persons name. I did not question it. He did say that he hoped they would still have them.
There is more than 1 way to go about changing the scholarships besides raising the test score. One way is to put a limit on how many they give out or they raise the GPA or maybe the value is set at what free tuition is this year… I don’t know . I hope whatever it is minor change.
@MichiganGeorgia Personally, I wouldn’t be too concerned but I suppose it is best to be prepared.
The new president does seem committed to the vision that Dr. Witt put into place when he was president of the university, and which he continued to reinforce, while he was chancellor. Let us hope that all he has accomplished has established a strong enough foundation to endure and that the new administration keeps pace with Dr. Witts’s lofty goals.
Last Fall’s class was over 65% oos. Also, per the New Strategic Plan, the goal is now to boost graduate enrollment. http://oira.ua.edu/factbook/reports/admissions-and-new-students/new-students/new-students-by-geographic-origin/
I also think it’s likely they’ll just adjust the minimum cutoffs before they eliminate the automatic merit scholarships. Much of the appeal of the UA scholarships is that they don’t make you jump through a bunch of hoops to qualify. If you have the stats, and get your documentation in on time, they’re truly automatic.
Also, as many OOS students as there are (and 58% in the last class sounds about right), there are still a WHOLE lot of them who are full pay. It’s really a two-pronged (at least) admissions approach: Offer generous merit awards to high-stats students from all over the US and recruit students from wealthy school districts in states where the IS options are limited or very expensive or difficult to get into.
A quick view of the impact the scholarship allowances have on UA’s budget.
For 2015:
Tuition and Fees = $633,391,083
Less Scholarship Allowances = ($180,673,861)
Tuition and fees, net = $452,717,202
Total Operating Revenues (including Tuition and fees) =$770,632,974
Net nonoperating revenues (state appropriations, gifts, grants, etc.) =$150,538,299
Net Tuition & Fees has grown from $386 million in 2013 to $452 million in 2015 (which reflects the large growth in undergraduate students). But note how much the scholarship allowances have grown, from $127M to $180M.
The challenge for UA is how to make the pivot to growing it’s graduate program/increase research output, while sustaining the improvements made so far in undergraduate recruitment.
EDIT: UA also wants to improve it’s need based aid to low in-state SES students, lots of demands on a limited amount of revenue. 
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Also, as many OOS students as there are (and 58% in the last class sounds about right), there are still a WHOLE lot of them who are full pay. It's really a two-pronged (at least) admissions approach: Offer generous merit awards to high-stats students from all over the US and recruit students from wealthy school districts in states where the IS options are limited or very expensive or difficult to get into. <<<
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But, given the automatic scholarships, it would seem that the full pay OOS students would have an ACT of 26 or below. Are these the students desired by UA to raise its stature? OOS wealthy students who are not the top students?
How many is a WHOLE lot?
Well, most public universities desire full-pay OOS students both (a) to raise awareness of their existence nationally and (b) the plain and simple income. High-stats and low-stats OOS students fill overlapping but quite different needs.
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How many is a WHOLE lot?
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It’s hard to quantify because there isn’t a breakout of awards being OOS or IS.
Plus, some do get small(er) awards. Anything less than a 2/3 tuition scholarship results in paying more than instate tuition.
The last frosh class size: 7211
2508 IS
4609 OOS
94 Int’l
65% OOS
36% (2130 freshmen) had an ACT 30+. (Even with that, not all were given 2/3 tuition scholarships or greater because of GPA or deadline issues)
Obviously, not all of 2130 students with ACT 30+ are OOS. But, even if they were, that would mean that at least 2500 OOS Frosh had ACT scores below 30.
If we were to estimate that 65% of the ACT 30+ students are OOS, then that would be about 1384 OOS students received 2/3 tuition awards or greater. That would mean 3225 OOS students didn’t receive a 2/3 or greater award.
(Again, not all 30+ ACT students get those awards because of GPA/deadline issues).
We don’t know how many of those remaining OOS students either received no scholarship awards, or awards that were small enough that their net tuition cost was still higher than instate rates.
37,100 undergrads
As @mom2collegekids pointed out, @IlliniDad18, you need more than a high single-sitting ACT/SAT score. You ALSO need a GPA of 3.5+ (freshman through junior year).
In another thread, we speculated that approximately 52% of students (3,389 out of 6,428) are receiving some form of non-need-based aid, the bulk of which we were assuming is the automatic “merit” aid:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19684580/#Comment_19684580
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19686282/#Comment_19686282
I’m not sure what percentage of the other “half” is out-of-state, but it’s not insignificant. It’s probably not well-represented here on CC (because most of us discovered UA while looking for affordable alternatives for our kids), but I’ve met lots of families who chose UA full pay because it’s not much more expensive than their in-state options (which their kid may or may not have been able to gain admission to) and/or it’s far less expensive than full pay at a private when the student isn’t competitive for merit aid.