<p>From Dr. Morgan at UA Culverson College of Commerce (business school):</p>
<p>Hi Mrs. ***, thanks very much for your note. We began the STEM Path to the MBA program with the incoming class of UA freshmen in Fall 2011. At that time, the Dean of the business school committed to providing scholarships that would cover MBA tuition at UA for students from the STEM Path to the MBA who earned a 700 or better score on the GMAT. That same commitment was made to the classes entering in Fall 2012 and Fall 2013. No scholarship commitment has ever been made to STEM Path to the MBA students earning a 600 GMAT score.</p>
<p>Persons taking the GMAT who score a 700 land in the 89th or 90th percentile, according to GMAC, the organization that provides the GMAT. </p>
<p>Due to the entrance requirements, many of the students in the program are on University scholarships. After receiving their undergraduate degrees, students accepted for the fifth and final year of the program will be offered the same scholarship they had upon entering UA, Morgan said.</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>Is he saying that those who have scholarships AND get that GMAT score will get the 5th year scholarship?</p>
<p>The CW should have been more clear about that.</p>
<p>There seems to be two separate points being made in the CW article.</p>
<p>*After graduation, students who maintained a 3.3 overall GPA and achieved a score of 600 or better on the GMAT, or 1200 or better on the GRE, complete a calendar year of study in the MBA program of the Manderson Graduate School of Business, according to a press release.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>the above seems to state that those with those credentials would be admitted into the program (no mention of scholarships).</p>
<p>Then…the next paragraph deals with students who hold undergrad scholarships…and that para indicates that scholarship students would be given the same scholarship for the 5th year.</p>
<p>so, does THAT mean that a Presidential Scholar for undergrad will get that 5th year if admitted?</p>
<p>Due to the entrance requirements, many of the students in the program are on University scholarships. After receiving their undergraduate degrees, students accepted for the fifth and final year of the program will be offered the same scholarship they had upon entering UA, Morgan said.</p>
<p>I totally understand that someone who didn’t have any scholarship as an undergrad wouldn’t be promised a scholarship. So, not all would have scholarships…so his point that there never were scholarship promises for a 3.3 600 admitted student would be right.</p>
<p>Did you ask about those who hold undergrad scholarships who are admitted…per the CW article?</p>
<p>Yes, I did mention the article and posted a link to it in my email, and that it was causing confusion online and on this site. I did ask about the presidential scholarship student specifically. </p>
<p>I also “interpreted” the Crimson White MBA article as a STEM student on the presidential scholarship who maintained a 3.3 GPA throughout their college career and received a minimum of 600 of the GMAT would receive the fifth year scholarship. </p>
<p>The first class (begun 2011) would be juniors now, right? So they haven’t had a class through yet. </p>
<p>A 700 GMAT is on par with the top ten business school GMAT averages (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, 716-722 averages, something like that. )</p>
<p>“After receiving their undergraduate degrees, students accepted for the fifth and final year of the program will be offered the same scholarship they had upon entering UA, Morgan said.” </p>
<p>…the use of the words “accepted for the fifth and final year” (more specifically “accepted” )gives them latitude for requiring other stipulations for STEM/Presidential Scholarship students to be able to receive the scholarship, such as the higher GMAT score. </p>
<p>The article is most definitely not as clear as it should be. I think because the program is still in it’s beginning stages, there is a learning curve as to what might need to be communicated more clearly to students and parents.</p>
<p>Just got my response from Dr. Morgan. I think he’s pretty upset that the CW misquoted him.</p>
<p>*until last evening, I had never seen that article from the Crimson White. Having read it now, I was misquoted. I have three kids of my own, the youngest of which will enter college in the fall, so I am very sensitive to the costs of attending college and scholarships provided by schools. Therefore, I have been very clear and consistent in the hundreds of conversations I have had with students and parents about scholarships for the MBA year. Since the inception of the program, the Dean of the business school at Alabama has committed to the incoming classes in fall of 2011, 2012, and 2013, that students in the STEM Path to the MBA who score a 700 or better on the GMAT will received scholarships from the business school for tuition for the MBA studies.</p>
<p>Obviously, that is not what is communicated in the Crimson White article, and what was published is not what I would have said.
*</p>
<p>A GMAT score of 600 is roughly in the 70th percentile, which, IMHO, really isn’t deserving of a scholarship for a full year’s tuition. Alabama is extremely generous with merit awards, and I don’t find it unreasonable for them to require a 90th percentile GMAT performance for the fifth year to be covered. It is a bummer Dr. Morgan was misquoted, but the policy he outlined in his reply to M2CK actually makes more sense to me.</p>
<p>There is supposed to be a pretty strong correlation between SAT and GMAT performance, so all the kids who are Presidential Scholars have a solid shot at scoring 700+ on the GMAT anyway :).</p>
<p>It seems as if the article was unclear, not Dr. Morgan. That is why it is always important to go to the source for information. I wouldn’t rely on any article unless there was direct documentation to back up the quote.</p>
<p>Dr. Morgan clearly stated his requirements for the program in his response and those seem to have been the exact requirements quoted by the class participants. Seems as if the CW botched it. Not Dr. Morgan’s fault…he and the program are not responsible for the CW’s misquote.</p>
<p>Both the STEM MBA and University Scholars programs are operated with the side benefit of increasing the average test scores of students in the program.</p>
<p>How does this work for students already receiving full tuition scholarships for the fifth year (NMF)? Does a 700 add the NMF stipend to the award, or are there no additional scholarships?</p>
<p>The 5th year NMF tuition award is a brand new thing, so “how it works” hasn’t yet had to happen yet. No student going to grad school has yet experienced.</p>
<p>Are you asking if a NMF student with the 5th year also gets a 700 and gets a scholarship from the Bschool, what will happen. I would imagine that the student would get both awards. But, you’d need to ask.</p>
<p>Thanks for the further comments. Bringing this over from another STEM MBA thread:
From a Poets and Quants article:</p>
<p>"In the fictional town of Lake Wobegone, the creation of National Public Radio personality Garrison Keillor, all the children are “above-average” because no one can ever admit to being merely average.</p>
<p>In the real world, especially the harshly real and competitive world of getting into a top business school, average doesn’t get you very far. The average score of the Graduate Admission Management Test (GMAT) is about 540 on a scale of 200 to 800.</p>
<p>If you hit that 540 average, you’re not exactly Harvard Business School material. Last year’s entering class at Harvard had a mean GMAT score of 724, which put the typical HBS first year in the 95th percentile of test takers. At 728, Stanford’s average score was even higher. At 722, Yale’s School of Management wasn’t far behind. (See the “Super GMAT Schools” where average scores are in the 85th percentile or above).</p>
<p>Indeed, the average GMAT score for Poets&Quants’ top ten U.S. business schools is a remarkably high 716. And there are now 13 U.S. schools where the average GMAT score is above 700. Of course, the very definition of average means that there are many who score below that number and many who score above it. "</p>