<p>Which do you think would be better:
- in general
- for each of the letters in the acronym
- for undergraduate research
- or in some other way?</p>
<p>bump</p>
<p>More and more, the edge here is shifting to 'Bama, from what I can tell. Currently, engineering seems roughly equivalent, although Auburn might still be slightly better – but Alabama seems very committed to taking the lead away from Auburn. Probably the other “letters” also remain equivalent between these two schools. I suggest choosing the university you like best.</p>
<p>are you instate? did you get merit from either one? how much?</p>
<p>what is your major and career goal.</p>
<p>yes, bama is determined to take the engg lead away from Auburn and will likely do so. Both senators are Bama grads which is why so many fed dollars have gone to Bama this last decade to build that new mega-sized STEM complex…which added 900,000 sq ft of STEM space to the existing STEM buildings…bringing the total to over 1.5 million square feet of stem academic space. Bama has quadrupled the size of its Col of Engg within the last decade.</p>
<p>the other letters are likely equivalent.</p>
<p>bama simply has more money.</p>
<p>The rivalry with Auburn over in the 'Bama thread was a hoot the first time I read it a couple of years ago. Take a look to get additional perspectives on what the two schools have in common and what sets them apart. I tried to get Lake Jr. to apply to Ch-E at 'Bama because I like their determination to upgrade in STEM. As for Auburn, I would not send Lake Jr. there until they straighten out some “social problems” at that campus, although I have met some friendly alumni from Auburn along my professional travels.</p>
<p>What social problems? My son goes there - please explain?</p>
<p>Bama is buying the best students from out of state. That is certainly a strategy to raise the bar on the entrance stats…but I can’t imagine it won’t be an issue with local students who can’t meet the same bar based on an Alabama public education. And I don’t mean that derogatory but why else are they buying out of state students if they have in-state students to select from? The school does not seem to have a cap on the number of students as they promote how big they are getting…really, that’s a good thing? if you give away free tuition - yep, you’re gonna grow pretty quick. Auburn doesn’t come close to providing the scholarship money that Alabama does but they still get the good students and they have kept a close cap on undergrad enrollment at 20,000 (+/- 2000) so they are able to meet the demands of the academics in each college. Just giving you another perspective.</p>
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<p>Alabama has similar scholarships for in-state students (though the amount is smaller because in-state tuition is smaller). However, it offers no need-based aid other than packaging federal aid, so non-scholarship-qualifying students from poor families are unable to afford to attend. Alabama does not appear to be especially difficult to get admitted to.</p>
<p>UCB…bama has just announced a program to provide aid to its lower income instate students.</p>
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<p>You have jumped to the wrong conclusion. The state has a good number of strong stats instate students in the suburban areas. Any so-called issues with k-12 education are largely found in the same places as other states…in their rural and high-URM areas. If state-wide the education was faulty then the state would have a low cut-off for NMSF…but it doesnt…the state’s cutoff is in the middle cluster of the 50 states.</p>
<p>however, the state itself is a rather low population state considering how many public univs it has…especially how many have colleges of engg. Contrast to Arizona which has only 3 public univs (Alabama has 14 public), but Arizona’s population is larger than AL’s.</p>
<p>The state just doesnt yet have the population to fill all the engg seats in the state at all of its colleges of engg… 6 public univs with engineering, plus one private with engg. </p>
<p>that said, bama isnt abandoning its instate rural or URM students who may not have had the best K-12 education. Instead of raising the bar so much that these kids would be kept out, Bama has chosen to grow the school so that there is room for both the recruited high stats kids, and the instate kids with lesser stats. If Bama were truly making it difficult for instate, modest stats kids to get in, then its AA numbers would be dropping…instead they are growing.</p>
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if you give away free tuition - yep, you’re gonna grow pretty quick.
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<p>LOL…but not true…most of the OOS students at Bama do not have those big scholarships. 60% of Bama’s frosh were from OOS…so over 3600 were from OOS…but only a smallish number got those big scholarships. do you really think that most/all of those kids got big scholarships??? lol…no.</p>
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<p>Details? (Nothing but federal aid shows up on its net price calculator for an EFC = $0 student not qualified for its merit scholarships.)</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus </p>
<p>Alabama Promise?</p>
<p><a href=“http://financialaid.ua.edu/grants/”>http://financialaid.ua.edu/grants/</a></p>
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<p>In-state Tuition is around $9.5K, while the maximum Pell Grant is $5,730.</p>
<p>That seems like it is both need (FAFSA EFC = $0 and family income <= $35,000) and merit based (3.0 GPA), as well as being applicable only to transfer students from Alabama CCs with no credits from a four year school, making it fairly limited in scope.</p>
<p>m2ck I am curious as to how many of the OOS are paying full freight…are those numbers published somewhere or can you provide them? </p>
<p>I’ve toured both since making this post, and I’m thinking Alabama will be best for me. The new engineering facilities are great, and the campus is more traditional, which I really like. Also, merit aid only makes it a few thousand a year for me (which is a thousand or two less than Auburn).</p>
<p>@LakeWashington
I join “threeofthree” in asking you to explain the nature of “social problems” at Auburn. If such problems exist, it would be helpful to know what they are. In not, then that too is useful. Until such an explanation is given, I recommend that people assume that such problems do not actually exist.</p>
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m2ck I am curious as to how many of the OOS are paying full freight…are those numbers published somewhere or can you provide them?
<<<<<</p>
<p>No, the numbers aren’t provided, but they can be somewhat extrapolated (plus, there are a number of Bama CC OOS folks who have stated that they are paying full or near-full freight.</p>
<p>Bama gives about 500 full tuition (including the NMF) scholarships. This is a mix of OOS and instate, but the ratio isnt published. Even if 3/4 (about 375) of those were OOS, and there are over 3500 OOS frosh, then clearly only a small % are getting the full tuition. maybe another 200 are getting the 2/3 tuition. The rest are getting no scholarships or much smaller ones. So, out of 3500+ OOS frosh, maybe 600 are getting the big scholarships.</p>
<p>I don’t know why people would think that Bama could have 3500+ OOS frosh with most of them getting free tuition. Logic should have dispelled that from the get-go.</p>
<p>"“That seems like it is both need (FAFSA EFC = $0 and family income <= $35,000) and merit based (3.0 GPA), as well as being applicable only to transfer students from Alabama CCs with no credits from a four year school, making it fairly limited in scope.”"</p>
<p>Like many new programs, it has to start on a smaller level and then grow once more funds are there. and again, the state of Alabama has a very large number of public univs (for the state’s size) sprinkled throughout the state so that instate students can commute to their local school. Each state chooses to handle things differently. The state of alabama chose to put univs all over the state with the idea that students could go to their local univ. Calif used to have somewhat that idea until it went nutty and began throwing out money so kids could skip over their local csu or uc and get taxpayer money to go elsewhere (often a total waste of money). This has severely hurt families whose incomes are outside Cal Grants and now must pay a much higher tuition to subsidize all of these freebies for others. </p>
<p>UCB, you have to stop comparing Bama to the UCs. The UCs are NOT providing all that aid, Cal grants from all the Calif taxpayers are providing the huge chunk (Cal Grants provide about $12k per year). If each UC had to use only its resources to provide aid, you would see a whole different aid system. </p>
<p>Cynthia Tucker, former editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and an Auburn alumnae, disagrees with you, NROTC.</p>
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<p>CSU financial aid does not change whether one is a commuter or resident. So the net price on the CSU NPC for a maximum financial aid student is typically $4,000-5,000 for a commuter, but $11,000-13,000 for a resident (of course, it doesn’t help if you live too far from the nearest CSU to commute there). UC financial aid does, but there are far fewer UCs than CSUs.</p>
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<p>If the Cal Grant money were distributed to each individual UC and CSU campus for distribution to students there, then the net amount of financial aid for California residents (and costs to California taxpayers) would be the same. After all, UCs and CSUs are part of the State of California, so their financial aid policies follow from State of California higher education financial aid policies.</p>
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<p>Got a link to an article about the Auburn social problems being referred to?</p>