My name is Ashton and I am currently a Junior in High School. I am an Out-of-State student, and I am looking at colleges primarily in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. I have a ton of potential colleges on my list, but I am really going to need a lot of money from merit-based scholarships so I just wanted to reach out on CC across several different forums to try and get a better grasp about each college’s Out-of-State merit scholarships. So does anyone have any advice, comments or experiences with this at the University of Alabama? Thanks so much!
My daughter received full tuition scholarship at University of Alabama and she loves it. I know the requirements have changed but she earned it with a 3.5 GPA and 32 on ACT, which I think is now a 33. Look at Bama. It is the most beautiful campus we saw and because their football program is so successful, they have the money for scholarships. It is an amazing school.
In truth, the success of the football team is just one fairly modest source of funding for scholarships. Most of the schollies are funded by the tuition paid by other students AND generous donations from UA alumni. UA has the highest percentage of alumni who give, according to USNWR. The success of the football team has indirectly helped fund schollies by garnering more interest for UA and getting more students to come to UA.
From my memory, the Athletic Dept gave $10 million to UA academics the year that article was written. That is a lot, but is miniscule relative to the amount of schollies funded by the University.
Most OOS scholarships are for a fixed amount now. It’s now $25k a year for four years for the Presidential, which used to be full tuition. There are still some full-tuition scholarships, but they are restricted to Presidential Elite and NMF: https://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php
My son started Alabama this year and loves it. Based on the scholarship changes, if he were making the choice this year I probably would have steered him to Georgia, where he had an OOS waiver and small scholarship offer. The Alabama offer is still a very good one, and a big factor for us is that it covers four years, both undergraduate and graduate. DS started with 67 hours, so he’ll get his undergraduate degree in four semesters and can attend grad school tuition free. FWIW, Alabama is more generous with AP credit than most schools.
I would suggest adding Ole Miss to your list. They still offer full tuition plus extra cash if you have a 3.5 high school g.p.a. for students with a 32 on the ACT. Ole Miss also “stacks,” so there is a reasonable chance that you will be offered an additional three to eight thousand per year, which gets you into full ride territory.
Visit both campuses. The overall “feel” or fit is more important than a thousand dollars or so.