So this scholarship might interest 0.1% of high school graduates? Maybe 0.3% at the high end?? <<
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who knows? who cares? why do we have to calculate how few people might find the information useful before deciding whether or not it’s worth letting people know about it? it was useful to me and there seem to be lots of people on CC who are very glad they heard about the UA Presidential Scholarship.
do you honestly think this information would only be useful to 80 high school graduates in the entire country?
I have been actively promoting UA in our area. There were many poor, but bright students in his HS class. The guidance counselors only ever seem to direct them to the local commuter or PASSHE schools. With and EFC of $1500, we were hard pressed to get our son in an engineering program, which isn’t even offered in the PASSHE system.
When they announced the future plans of the graduating class, my son’s AP teacher asked him to come to his office. Asked him why, and DS told him about the great scholarships, the engineering facilities, etc. He congratulated him on taking advantage of such a great opportunity.
May be some future recommendations coming from one of the best teachers in our district.
Our son was top 2%, converted GPA to 3.95 and had a 33, rounded down, on the ACT. No slouch and our state related schools of Pitt and Penn State offered him $5K.
Re tuition and Bama, two friend’s daughters, living in different states, not only believe they are going to med school, but that they’ll also get into Duke for undergrad. (I don’t see that happening but they can believe whatever they’d like.) One can afford the tuition, the other cannot. I thought UA was an option for both considering the grad school costs they believe they’ll incur, and neither was interested. I think for students who know/believe they are headed to med/vet/dental school, the math/science curriculum at the undergrad level is going to be incredibly rigorous anywhere, and I can’t see paying for Duke, especially if one is taking out loans for that, plus med school. Bama seems like a great option for this type of student.
A girl in my daughter’s class was scary smart, bright enough for a school like Duke but could not afford that high a tuition bill. She took an athletic scholarship at an LAC but if that had not come through she was headed to our state school because she wants an MD/PhD, regardless of whether or not she can have that funded, and was anticipating potentially having to pay for that herself, so the state school option made sense. I think UA would’ve also been a good choice for her.
@Wien2NC I would love to know where you came up with a target list of 80? Personally I don’t believe CC should be home to shameless promoting as that feels like paid advertising. Even if it possibly is not.
@frontpage I truly don’t get your true goal, but if you graciously are trying to evangelize top students to Tuscaloosa all the power to you. I think you need to recognize it often is difficult to convince a family to pass up a “name” school for their own flagship. Let alone have them traverse the country. Into the “Deep South”. And not for what they would consider a top school. I get you like the price. There is far more to picking a school than cost.
MBAs are expensive. A MBA will typically take 2 years (1 year at Alabama). Most take their MBA after 5 years of working (making decent salary, let’s say 100k). Alabama MBA costs 25k per year vs a top 10 for 60k.
Let’s do the math:
Actual cost of MBA at Alabma: 60k(1 year salary lost from not working) + 50k from two summer programs and a year of MBA classes = 110k net loss.
MBA at top 10 school: 130k (slightly inflated 2 year cost for MBA) + 200k lost from 2 years not working + 330k net loss.
Is the prestige and work experience worth 220k to me? No, it’s not.
Is Alabama a top 10 business school? no.
Is a MBA better than no MBA? Yes.
For me, the cost of an Alabama MBA would be 60k (just one year of working) because my parents would pay for it.
Once I’m finished with the one session of my college, I’m on my own. How will I be able to justify 330 k of net loss? How will I manage to stop my career for two years or all the added stress of taking night courses while maybe having a wife/family.
^^ Totally makes sense if you are not going to pursue investment banking or consulting. However, if you think either of those paths might interest you, spending the money on a top ranked MBA program might be worth it. First year investment banking associates can make 100k salary with an additional 250k+ bonus… which more than pays for the grad school bill. Just something to think about…
@cheetahgirl121 I don’t want to call you out, but please show me a job that gives a 250k bonus to a first year undergrad. If you can, I will drop my dreams of pursuing engineering and go straight into finance.
My daughter is at UA on the Presidential Scholarship.( Chemical engineer/STEM to MBA) The score she made on the GMAT will allow her to extend her scholarship and complete her MBA at no cost. Because UA stacks scholarships, she will graduate with all of those degrees, with no debt and money in savings. That’s called a “no brainer” in my world:)
I have been told that an MBA with no work experience is not all that valuable to employers. In fact, for engineers (who the STEM MBA is for), it can be a detriment. Employers may think you want to skip the engineering part and go straight to management with no experience. Would love to hear actual experience of the first cohort.
Meanwhile, many large firms (including my son’s) will pay for an engineering masters or MBA after a couple years of employment.
After doing an engineering internship with HCA this summer, my daughter has decided to pursue a career in hospital administration. I believe the MBA will be of value. The HCA admin., from this summer, has offered a fast track in to their leadership development program. The combination of engineering and MBA lets folks know she has a brain and is highly motivated. I also think it is harder for a female to fit in a degree later in life, if they have begun having children. Time will tell…
My dad’s background has been in technical management in the cyber security sector having as many as 600 employees that he hired at a time and now as a technical “head hunter”. I got his thoughts on a MBA in a technical field.
Through the thousands of people he has hired, he says that having an MBA in the first place doesn’t matter much to him or his colleagues in a technical field. He was much more interested in work experience and coming from a well known college (he said him and other managers didn’t think highly of schools with little name recognition).
In his eyes, a degree from a well known state school compared to an ivy league did not matter to him (hiring people who had starting with 3-5 years of work experience). Just a side note: the people he hired were pretty successful making anywhere between 100-300k a year plus stock options.
Now in a strictly business field or an investment banking field, all that may be different. This is just the view from one man with 25 years of hiring experience in a technical field.
my bad. i thought you meant 0.1% of the 80,000 who qualify, not 0.1% of the total 3.5 million HS grads.
still though. that’s 3500 families that can benefit from knowing about the UA Presidential. or closer to 10,000 families if we take your upper limit of 0.3%. i don’t see the harm in giving thousands of families a heads-up about the scholarship so they can weigh the pros and cons and make their own decision.
however UA is not the only game in town. generous merit aid for high-stats kids can also be found at Ole Miss, Utah, Alabama Huntsville, New Mexico, Mississippi State, Nebraska, and probably a few more i can’t think of at the moment. Alabama just seems to be the one that lots of CC posters are currently evaluating and utilizing.
My brother is a business partner/civil engineer; the civil eng that is the partner President has a MBA.
DD is pursuing civil eng and STEM MBA. H is ECE who works in contracts electronics mfring. I have a MBA, so between his work and my business skills/discussions, H has his business skills.
Cost control is an important facet in engineering - and DD likes to be ‘in charge’ - the more skills she brings to the table, the better chance she has of using her alpha personality. DD has had two civil engineering internships. She won’t come out of MBA w/o ‘real world work experience’, but our hope is she can use her talents and education on a good career track.
An engineering student can have some business skills because of parents owning a business, or some other ways that they have the natural talent/gifts/aptitude.
Not everyone can do everything well. H loves doing technical stuff and avoids being a ‘program manager’ - yes he will do PM work but he really loves it when he can use his technical expertise to solve problems. Like when he was the only one to lead a 20000 line item set of work instructions for manufacturing on time and how to correctly track it the way the customer wanted; customer lead guy came around the table of 20 people to shake H’s hand for solving what the rest of them could not.
@Wien2NC That’s what I was thinking too. I’ll admit that I think UA is a good school and offers a great scholarships but I’ve alway been a bit puzzled why other schools that give even better merit based scholarships don’t get as much mention on CC. If I had a high stats kid that wanted to go into engineering I’d likely point them to UA-Huntsville. Personally I’m pointing my wannabe Comp Sci guy toward UT Dallas. With their AES Honors Scholarship with an average SAT of 1540 they give full tuition and fees plus $3000 a semester to apply to books and R&B, that leaves less $24K out of pocket for 8 semesters, if he makes NM it’ll be just about a full ride.
UA-H is a good choice for some students, but doesn’t have some of the large college stuff some students look for with UA (Tuscaloosa). UAB has a smaller engineering program, but we know students that have done well with that program too. I have a degree from UAH; DD1 graduated from UAB; DD2 is at UA. Have understood the system for a long, long time. The advancements at all 3 have been terrific as far as what they have to offer for students.
One has to visit the schools and decide what they are looking for. You want the student happy enough to do well as a student while keeping the pocketbook from being really empty.
Wow to the high stat students who do well enough with GMAT to get the STEM to MBA scholarship at UA.
For a student under really tight finances that can score a 34-36 ACT, has a 4.0+ HS GPA, UAH has full tuition plus on-campus housing. UAH has a sizable engineering program (ABET accredited, and offers through PhD in some areas).
Agree with post 77 - very tight money, a couple of thousand dollars means a lot.