<p>Commenting on UA’s drop in the rankings, Robert Witt said, </p>
<p>“It’s absolutely because of the increased tuition,” he said. “There’s no denying it’s more expensive to go to Alabama now than in previous years.”</p>
<p>Witt said he wasn’t particularly worried about the school’s ranking.</p>
<p>“Our number one goal is and always has been to provide the highest quality education to our students, not to be the biggest bargain.”</p>
<p>The other stats used for the ranking are out of date. The admission rate for UA was actually only 54% for this fall.</p>
<p>Exactly. Kiplinger claims that it determines “academic quality” on variables such as the university’s admission rate and the test scores of ALL incoming freshmen. Now, call me crazy, but I don’t see how UA’s admission rate or incoming test scores for all freshmen correlate one iota to the academic quality of the honors education my son received last semester. I don’t see Kiplinger accounting for the incredibly small student to professor ratio he experienced, the quality of his honors peers, the intellectual quality and personal touch of his professors, and the richness and challenge of his curriculum when making pronouncements about the academic quality he experienced (and continues to experience) at UA, or, for that matter, the value of that experience.</p>
<p>Once again, I feel compelled to invoke Mark Twain: “There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”</p>
<p>I find the Kiplinger rating fairly worthless, especially for a school like Alabama with a huge range of statistics for incoming students but a high quality honors program for those who qualify. It’s worthless for most schools in my family’s situation, as well. If you’re a full pay family, the amount of need-based aid a school gives isn’t relevant. In fact, I think there’s a good chance the full-pay families are paying MORE so that the school can be generous with the need-based aid. If they were rating based on tuition vs. quality, that would be one thing, but it’s tuition as impacted by financial aid, and if you don’t qualify for need-based aid, the stats are flawed.</p>
<p>As a follow-up to my comments above, I speak with students from top-flight college prep academies nearly every day and I’m fond of asking them the following question: You’re at a party. Everyone in attendance is a billionaire, except you. Your net worth is 990 million dollars. Are you rich or are you poor?</p>
<p>Over 50% of the respondents, all of whom are very bright kids on paper, say “poor.” They apply this mentality of false comparisons to their college choices, oftentimes selecting schools that don’t fit them well, but which have bumper-sticker cach</p>
<p>Malanai: As always you are very eloquent in expressing “My” sentiments.
Both the UA honors and CBH program have proven to be an excellent choice for my son.</p>
<p>All I can say about all this is that I live 15 miles from the #1 rated college on Kiplingers report. Both my children applied and were accepted to that college. And in both cases (daughter is a junior, son is a freshman) we have never looked back! In fact, when we compare the stories that our children tell of their experiences to the experiences of their peers at this #1 college and some of the other colleges in our state, they are by far flat out experiencing college life to the fullest at Bama. Without going into detail, it should be buyer beware when choosing colleges based on ratings. I graduated from Bama, my wife graduated from a small college in upstate NY, and we get so jealous when we are sitting around our dinner table during the holidays and hear what our children are getting involved in at Bama. I want to go back to college!</p>
<p>Malanai once wrote in an earlier thread about the response that he gives people when they shake their heads wondering why his son chose Bama. I tried to quickly find it (so I could quote it verbatim) but could not find the thread. It bears repeating as I and my wife have used it quite often. </p>
<p>So since I have 2 children at Alabama, as Momof3boyz said in response to Malanai, double amen. </p>
<p>PS: I have a bad habit of calling my children “children”. I can satisfyingly say that they have transformed into mature young adults since attending Alabama, and are giving back to the University and Tuscaloosa through the various clubs, campus and civic organizations, etc. that they have become involved with.</p>
<p>BBfromNC: I will give you a “ROLL TIDE” chorus. My son was also accepted into that #1 ranked school and we did visit and liked the school. However, being from OOS there was not much money offered. I personally think that UA beats the heck out its competition with their guaranteed scholarships. They are upfront about what you can expect. Most colleges are very vague about their scholarships.</p>
<p>Here’s to our “young adults” who were wise in their college choice!</p>
<p>Thanks for all those “amens,” y’all. If I see one more I may end up referring to myself as The Reverend Malanai. :)</p>
<p>Below is the post that I think BB is referring to. Looks like I was pretty wound up when I wrote it, lol.</p>
<hr>
<p>Questions I’m fond of asking in situations involving academic snobbery and ignorance. It goes something like this. “Dear Mr./Ms. Snob. Please help me out:”</p>
<ol>
<li><p>For the life of me, I can’t understand how someone who graduated from Oregon State won two Nobel Prizes. How a graduate of Muskingum College became a U.S. Senator. How a graduate of Oklahoma State founded an energy empire. How college dropouts (take your pick): won a Pulitzer Prize, won an Oscar for best director, founded a company worth billions. Can you please tell me how they did that if attending a “prestigious university” is a requirement for one to be successful?</p></li>
<li><p>So, being the highly educated person you are, when you researched the actual curriculum, discourse, and academic rigor going on in the honors classes at Alabama, what precisely did you find lacking?</p></li>
<li><p>Ten years after graduation, what is the average return on investment of an Ivy League graduate who paid over $200,000 for an undergraduate education vs. an Alabama grad who matriculated tuition-free?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the average size of an honors class at Alabama vs class sizes at “prestigious” universities?</p></li>
<li><p>How does the quality of life in the super-suite honors dorms at UA compare with dorm life at “prestigious” universities?</p></li>
<li><p>In discussing not only why they chose Alabama, but how they’ve found it to actually be, what did the 400 or so National Merit Scholars in attendance there tell you? What, you never spoke with them, or did you just assume that they were slow-talking, low-aiming, backwoods, backwards, jock-oriented non-achievers with nothing better to do than waste four years of their lives at a loser school just because it honored them with great scholarships?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I attended a prestigious university and I couldn’t be more pleased with the education my son is getting at UA. He’s a NMF and darned if he isn’t also having a lot of fun to go along with all that academic rigor. Snobbery and pseudo-intellectualism are the hallmarks of those too lazy to get the facts. Hope I haven’t been too vague or indirect here. :)</p>
<p>Reverend Mal: Thanks for repeating this one, but I was refering to an earlier one from back in ?? maybe this past summer. Don’t sweat it. I’ll continue going through your scripture (I mean your earlier posts)!</p>
<p>VERRRRY interesting! We also live in NC (in da backwoods, north of Winston-Salem). DS has been accepted at several UNC-system schools and is awaiting word from several others, including the #1 school to which y’all refer. I would be very interested to learn more regarding the differences between said #1-ranked school and BAMA. I have certainly heard parents complain about the rigid, doctrinaire liberalism prevalent at #1-Ranked School. Is this part of the problem – or does it go beyond that? (One parent told me that a visiting professor at #1-School threatened her son with a failing grade for refusing to toe the line politically. I know this goes on at a lot of places, but it still makes my blood boil. Grades should be assigned on the basis of the academic merit of the student’s work–period! :P)</p>
<p>Thanks, y’all, for all the help and guidance y’all are providing during this difficult process!</p>
<p>The ‘Bama Bashing’ from the prestigious college bumper sticker crowd is really annoying. Lake Jr. is strongly interested in engineering at Alabama. Fellow students at the high school, many of whose parents are Ivy League alumni, as well as graduates of “selective” LACs, snicker whenever he mentions Alabama as a college option. I’ll pat myself on the back by saying that I’ve instilled in Lake Jr. the idea that an excellent education can be gotten at many places; the majority of which are not located in New England or the MidAtlantic states. Are you listening, UVA?</p>
<p>Egocentrism and good listening skills do not, generally, go hand in hand. But that’s ok. As Gandhi once said, “If I’m a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”</p>
<p>I was kind of surprised we aren’t hearing more of that from parents of kids in our S’s prep school. But, we only really talk to his best friends parents and they would never say anything like that (at least to us-lol) plus they are having their own college issues. I think times have changed a little bit and even some of these parents are looking at their financial options more carefully. The one thing I am hearing is the distance thing more than anything. It’s almost 20 hours for us, and I haven’t talked with anyone who is sending their kids that far. I am sure there are several, just haven’t spoken with them. I have a D on the opposite coast, so I am kind of used to it, plus I see her every couple of months one way or another.</p>
<p>S has heard it, a lot at first. But it has stopped for the most part or they realize that he really doesn’t care what they have to say. Roll Tide</p>
<p>*3. Ten years after graduation, what is the average return on investment of an Ivy League graduate who paid over $200,000 for an undergraduate education vs. an Alabama grad who matriculated tuition-free?</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>My H’s siblings have that elite college snobbery (WashU, UChi, Columbia, Northwestern, elite LACs, etc)…yet the siblings’ incomes and successes do not reflect any measureable differences.</p>
<p>My H’s niece went to an elite LAC for pre-med, but her GPA (3.5) has kept her out of med school. If she had gone to Purdue or Indiana (instate schools), she’d likely have had a 3.7+ (and a whole lot less debt!!). </p>
<p>It’s interesting because my H’s brother’s wife went to Indiana and a rather unknown law school. She’s a partner at a Chicago law firm. She makes well into the 7 figures - far more than anyone else. I’m sure the snobs in the family are still scratching their heads.</p>
I would be very interested to learn more regarding the differences between said