<p>TxNewCollegeMom - I just had to chime in about the houses. We stumbled across them on our first visit to UA and have been intrigued ever since. I think the one you saw that faces the side street might be the Drish House. It is all boarded up and frankly is very creepy-looking now. The Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion faces Greensboro and looks amazing. We have wanted to visit as I think it is sometimes open to the public but we’ve never had time. When we were in Tuscaloosa for BB in May, we drove by in the evening and it looked like there was a wedding party going on. </p>
<p>@ AlbionGirl - we actually drove up from New Orleans so didn’t do the drive from Birmingham. We are also looking at Tulane on this trip. I can tell you that the drive from New Orleans is 4.5 hours of virually unchanging scenery (tall columns of trees on either side of the highway). Pretty but dull!!</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply. I would love to see NOLA but I think I’d go by train if DS decides on UA.
BTW Gertrude McFuzz was one of my favorite Seuss characters!</p>
<p>DD figured out that she could get access to myBama by using her SSN. She also sent an email last night asking about her CWID and they responded within 3 hours. Actually at 2am! Crazy!</p>
<p>When I was at Bama in the late 80s, some friends of mine and I snuck into the Drish House late at night. Talk about creepy! At the time, an abandoned church building sat along one side of the house. You could pull up a curtain and see the church auditorium. We made our way with flashlights and moonlight up the grand staircase to the second floor. Someone opened a closet and then suddenly someone thought they saw something. We practically fell over each other getting out of there. Fun times!</p>
<p>I myself a Graduate of UA, Tuscaloosa class of 1988, Major, Electrical Engineering.
Used to live in Rose tower 10th Floor Graduate wing and International Rotary House on University blvd. </p>
<p>Now my Son who is in IL looking for a good School, he like to go pre-med and then to Med school. BAMA is definitely one of the choice for safety schools. Finance will play a big role in choosing the School. </p>
<p>His stats are ACT Composite 33, ACT Super Score 34. ( english let him down )
SAT will be given in October.
HS GPA 4.0 unweighted and 5.8 weighted.
He will finish 12 AP courses by next yr. mostly 5s few 4s.
School Ranking 1/668.</p>
<p>Like to see his chances of getting Full Ride as he will be OOS student. Plus the honors program how it looks like ??
He is choosing Chemical Engineering with track on pre-med. ( Math and Science are his strongest point )
He is applying for Ivy league schools too but getting into those schools is like hitting a lottery. Plus the finance pkg from those schools. To me they are Far Reach schools and chances of getting accepted will be 2-3 out of 10.</p>
<p>Welcome dadfor2014! Has your DS applied yet? Sounds like he has great stats for a Full Ride. It would be hard to pass up even if he got into an Ivy!</p>
<p>Dad your son should get full tuition with his stats but I don’t think UA gives many full rides. If he is a NMF student he would get board the first year though.</p>
<p>Through the University Fellows Experience he has a shot at a full ride. He sounds like a good candidate for that program so I would definitely say he has a chance at a full ride. I think the full ride scholarship though UFE is called Academic Elite. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>kda, you are right that a full ride is available through Academic Elite. On the website they say they give out 8 to 10 out of 800-1000 applicants. Dad’s son should definitely give it a shot.</p>
<p>Speaking of full ride (and additional scholarships) … we all know about the Presidential - full OOS tuition for 32+ ACT plus $2,500 engineering scholarships.</p>
<p>What other scholarships are available (kda1119 & kjcphmom are discussing UFE/Academic Elite)? Are scholarships involved with the CBHP? What else should we look into? After logging into mybama, DS printed out the scholarship form. Most seemed to be Alabama residents. Seems like there was only one or two of the scholarships listed on that form that he could check.</p>
<p>The full tuition is super, but the room & board is still quite a bit - plus travel & books.</p>
<p>I’ll chime in about scholarships if I may. It is somewhat difficult to find scholarships that will legally pay for expenses other than tuition and fees and books. Most scholarships are very clear about this in their rules, and state that funds must be so related. Still, it is not impossible to find outside scholarships that will pay for “any” education-related expense, such as on-campus living and even travel and general living expenses while enrolled at school.</p>
<p>I suggest people ‘mine’ their heritage (are you Swiss, Italian, Irish…?) and then their “disabilities” and unique-ness-es (anything?..even Tall Clubs has a scholarship!), and then most importantly their industry or field of study. Almost every major will have a society or a professional group (or several!) associated with it, which gives out scholarships to members. Many societies offer free memberships to students. </p>
<p>A good place to start for outside scholarships in general is Cappex. Establish a profile first and see what turns up. Cappex is pretty good at filtering. Some of the other ones like Fastweb not so good at that. My S gets notifications from Fastweb that have absolutely nothing to do with his major, whereas if an email from Cappex comes through, he always knows to read it as it will mostly be relevant.</p>
<p>All of this takes a great deal of time, of course, to wade through. There are literally 1000s and 10s of 1000s of scholarships out there. Most kids do not have the time to search for the right ones, let alone the time to apply. My advice is to go for the ones where you have a high qualifying factor…where there are fewest applicants…and where the scholarship is large enough to justify the effort put into applying. While $500 scholarships do add up, often the effort to get one of those is the same as one which is $5000. Many organisations will tell you that they just don’t get enough qualified applicants each year. The best time to apply is while you are still a Senior in high school through your Freshman year at college, because you have the most ‘things’ on your resume, so to speak. Some scholarships will not take HS activities into account, once you are enrolled in college…and that’s why a lot of students give up on applying for scholarships once they graduate HS. But that’s also why there are fewer in-college students applying for some of these scholarships, so don’t give up after you’ve graduated HS! Good luck! :)</p>
<p>It seems like this might be the right place to ask since some of you have already helped your kids apply, so I’m just wondering if any of you could confirm that I applied to UA correctly. This is the first college application I’ve filled out so I apologize if some of these questions seem silly. I made a login and a PIN and created an Undergrad Application for fall of 2014, and I filled out the info it asked for, entered my credit card information, and submitted it. But I’m just kind of confused because are there really no required essays or LORs? And they don’t want to know my senior year schedule? Or any of the activities I’ve done throughout high school? I understand they can get my class rank and GPA from my transcript, but I’m also confused about how to send that to them. I looked all over the application and didn’t see anything about sending transcripts and ACT/SAT scores. Can I send my transcript myself? My school gives out sealed and stamped copies of transcripts to students so that we can mail them ourselves.</p>
<p>As for where you send your test scores, you go to the ACT or SAT site and send them that way using Bama’s code.</p>
<p>Have your ACT or SAT score(s) sent to us. Our ACT code is 0052 and our SAT code is 1830. Information on these tests is available from your high-school counselor or from the test services: ACT, Box 451, Iowa City, IA 52243; SAT, College Board ATP, Box 592, Princeton, NJ 08541.</p>
<p>Have your most recent official high-school transcript sent to The University of Alabama, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Box 870132, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0132.</p>
<p>So, while the general UA application appears very simple and straightforward, there will be other opportunities to let UA know your particular strengths. In particular, the Honors College and/or UA Scholarship applications (coming after you are accepted), will have space for you to list your HS extra-curriculars, and so forth. There will be a couple of prompts on the HC application that you can spend some time on writing short essays about a couple of things. While admittance to the HC is kind of automatic (depending on your stats), and you don’t “have to” go over the top with any further essays…keep in mind that that is how University Fellows, CBHP, and other opportunities can arise, so you want to put your best foot forward on those applications and be thoughtful about what you write.</p>
<p>Some students are relieved that the UA application is so simple…others are just plain flummoxed that there is no place to put down all of the wonderful things you have worked so hard at in HS! Rest assured that UA’s not asking about these things upfront is not a reflection of their disinterest in them - far from it. There are so many ways to continue to stand out and shine at UA. You’ll see! ;)</p>