@mom2collegekids she’s been accepted to Bama already. I will see what she thinks of Ole Miss & Miss St. Thank you for all of your insight! (This is my first born)
@texasmom0321 Well then, even if she doesn’t “like” Ole Miss or MSU, if they give her a large award, then y’all can contact Mary Spiegel and politely ask if she’ll match it.
@texasmom0321 If your daughter has visited Bama, then she may find Mississippi State University to her liking. It is really a very large, lushly green campus with a mix of beautiful old architecture and newer residence halls with many modern amenities. It is quite pretty, in my opinion. There are also many community events focused around a small but varied downtown area, not to mention that football is also big down on their campus.
MSU does have a nice campus. All 3 schools; Ole Miss, MSU, and UA have very nice campuses and all 3 are different. UA definitely has all the bells and whistles but is a bigger school. The other 2 have a lot of positives too but the city of Starkville is a little different and Oxford is the nicest city of the 3. It all depends on where your daughter feel’s the most comfortable and can see herself living for the next 4 years. Someone on here quoted " that’s it’s not all about the $$ ( even though we all know that helps) but more about the fit". I like the idea of asking to “match” or give more $$ if that’s what it come down to for you. A friend of mine’s son had written a letter to a particular university in Tx asking for more $$ to be able to come school there and they offered. We are deciding on those 3 schools for our son too. Or I should say, he’s trying to decide what school fits him the best.
@robotbldmom @raven2016
Thank you for your input. She’s pretty fixated on Tulane. Bama is her second choice but even then she may choose a TX school due to cost. I don’t think she would consider any other OOS
Hello! I have a question about the Presidential Scholarship. I meet the qualifications for the Presidential Scholarship with a 32 ACT and a 3.5+ GPA, however I graduated from high school in February and am in the middle of a gap year and I am wondering if I will be eligible for scholarships at the University of Alabama for Fall of 2016. Could anybody help me out in this dilemma?
@TexasMom0321 You should go ahead and send in the application to UA and apply for scholarships - There may be awards that aren’t publicized for such an excellent student - it never hurts to see. Best of luck!
@momofcs she did apply and she was accepted last month. I will tell her to fill out whatever she can in terms of scholarships. Thank you for the advice.
Fill out the scholarship application prior to the scholarship deadline of December 15.
@Study2015 In answer to your question the University of Alabama’s website states the following:
“As long as you do not receive any academic credit from another institution and meet the December 15 admission deadline for the year you are applying you will be considered. You must notify the Scholarships department in writing of your year off from school immediately following your graduation from high school. As with any entering freshman, your GPA through your junior year in high school and your test scores from your senior year in high school will be considered. Don’t forget that the December ACT and December SAT during your senior year will be the last test scores considered for scholarships.”
The sticking point appears that they state you must notify immediately following your high school graduation. For such a wonderful opportunity it would be worth your while to make a phone call, explain you are in a gap year and only just found out about this scholarship. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
When did you get the ACT 32? @Study2015
The “notifying after high school graduation” doesn’t seem to be a big deal to Bama in the past. I’ve seen them award many times without holding to that req’t.
However, they do hold to the rule about the last ACT/SAT accepted. When did you get the ACT 32?
Hope thread isn’t dead just yet. We are from New Jersey my daughter is a rising senior and has strong standardize test scores and very strong gpa in all AP courses . At the moment only looking at northeast schools does anyone have a strategy for me to get her to consider U.A. Oh and I almost forgot Roll Damn Tide
@lmjdad1 - visit the school definitely - if you can convince her to - if she is accepted to honors, they will schedule a personalized visit. UA is good at making talented students feel wanted.
I asked my daughter to put UA on her list as a “mom’s choice,” basically to humor me. Although I started looking seriously at UA for the scholarships, the more I looked the more I thought it would be a good fit for D. It helped that she wanted a big state flagship, but she had been looking only in the midwest within a few hours of home. It also helped that she had no “dream school” and that none of the other schools she was looking at jumped out at her as being superior to any other. She visited UA and liked it as much as any of her other choices. She loved the suite style dorms - UA housing surpassed the other choices, as did UA friendliness. Her reservations were distance from home and hot weather. I’ll never know what tipped the balance (I’m not sure she knows), but she chose UA and has enjoyed her 4 years there.
If parents are paying for school, I see nothing wrong with the parents insisting that the student include a “parent’s choice” school on the list (including a visit and open minded consideration). That might be all it takes (UA often sells itself during a visit), or it might be that the parent’s choice is not right for the student. My daughter only looked at Bama because I insisted, but the choice to attend was hers.
Thanks for the advice …I also posted on another Bama thread I wasn’t sure if anyone would get back to me …thanks again .RTR
@lmjdad1, that was pretty much my approach too. I insisted my son apply because I knew he was guaranteed admission and full tuition, so he completed the application in October after he finished his application to Penn State (our flagship, which was his intended safety). Once those were out of the way he completely forgot about them while he focused on an ED application to another school. He didn’t even realize he’d been accepted to Bama and PSU until he received his acceptances in the mail because he never even bothered to check their portals. He was invited to attend a local Bama recruiting event later that fall, so I convinced him to attend “just in case.” And, surprisingly, he really enjoyed it, which made the rejection from his ED school a little less painful.
Since none of the other schools he’d applied to was a sure thing, we decided it made sense to visit UA while he waited to get the rest of his results. By the time we did that Spring, he was much more open to going to school in the South, especially after a particularly brutal winter.
So my advice is similar to beth’s mom’s. Tell your DD she needs to apply and then let it go for a while. If there is a local event in your area, tell her you want her to attend that too, as a courtesy to you. I was very honest with my son that the only schools I knew for certain we could afford were Bama and Penn State, and that I wanted him to have more than one choice if the others denied him admission or were too expensive. I also made sure when we visited both schools to splurge and book the on-campus hotels, so we’d see both schools in the very best light, and I scheduled the Bama visit through the Honors College, who tailored his itinerary very closely to his interests. By the time he attended accepted student days at Penn State and one other school that was offering a great FA package, UA became the standard he was comparing the other two to, and they couldn’t beat it, especially at less than half the price.
Beth’s mom and LucieTheLake give excellent advice. UA was my choice for my son to apply. He did it and basically forgot about it. His dream school was MIT - a long shot even for my excellent student. Before pi-day (where they find if they are accepted or not), I had my son and my husband go check UA out. He came back loving it, which helped ALOT when he was not accept to MIT. Definitely not his first choice, but a wonderful option that he wouldn’t have considered back in September when he was applying for college. (He is a graduate now and if asked, would say he would have gone anywhere else.)
@kjcphmom - Please tell me that’s not what you meant to say!
No No No, I meant to say he would NOT have gone anywhere else. I guess I should proofread before I hit post!!! He earned his bachelors and masters in his 3-1/2 years there, and ended up in his dream job after graduation. (He also had fun when he was at school too.) UA was great for him!!!
@lmjdad1 - My family’s experience was similar to that of the other parents who posted, although I actually insisted that my son apply to all three of the Alabama schools: UA, UAB, and UAH. Easy enough to do - all three applications can probably be completed in under an hour. I also insisted that he visit all three campuses - which was easy to do in one short trip to Alabama. And I made sure that he visited in January (of his junior year), when the contrast with New England weather was particularly striking!
The one thing I also did, though, that the other parents in this thread haven’t mentioned, is that I insisted that he apply to at least one of Bama’s two elite honors programs: CBHP (Computer-Based Honors Program) and UFE (University Fellows Experience). He applied to Fellows, and was invited to campus in February of his senior year for the Fellows “interview weekend.” He was impressed with both the students and the faculty he met that weekend, and when he was admitted to Fellows, that took UA from the bottom of his list (not kidding!) to near the top.
In the end, the Fellows and STEM to MBA programs made the difference for him. The Fellows program made Bama quite competitive with the more well known liberal arts colleges he’d been admitted to, and STEM to MBA was an added bonus that he just couldn’t get anywhere else.
FWIW, his one huge regret is that he didn’t also apply to CBHP. He submitted the Fellows application just to humor me, and didn’t anticipate in a million years that he’d ever attend UA . . . so he didn’t even bother to look at CBHP. To this day, he wishes he had. For really high achieving kids, CBHP is as good as it gets . . . and, despite the misleading moniker, it is not just for kids interested in computers. It’s a research mentorship program open to students from all disciplines.
So, insist that your ambivalent daughter visit the campus (preferably not in mid-summer!), and have her put in the extra effort to apply to both CBHP and Fellows. Then wait and see. 