I am from NYC and have to say my parents are college snobs and hate the idea of U Alabama. Obviously I disagree as O would get a hefty Scholarship automatically if I applied today (26k). Obviously this is a lot of money and would bring tuition down to 24K a year. My parents aren’t concerned about the money and we can afford it but with law school after college I want to save as much as possible without throwing my future away. Now because neither of my parents are enthralled with Alabama (yet) they don’t want to spend a thousand dollars on flights for a school like Alabama (no offense). Does anyone know a way to get down to U Alabama for a visit for under 500 dollars for 2 ppl not including hotels.
Drive? It’d be about a 15 hour trip, but if you don’t mind driving with 2 people it’s possible to drive each way in a day without stopping overnight.
Drive, many parents from your area do it all the time. Another option is to try to find an inexpensive flight to Atlanta and rent a car and drive the 3 hrs to campus. It might be a bit above $500. If your parents have airlines points that would bring the cost down. Check prices for Frontier airlines, they are super cheap.
Talk to the admissions office and see if they can arrange for your parents to talk to both alumni in NYC and parents of current students who live in NYC. This may help open their minds to a visit.
I think you mean that the scholarship would bring total cost (not just tuition) down to $24k per year.
Strange that your parents aren’t interested in saving $100k on undergrad costs, but are concerned about costs for a visit to save $100k
Ok…well, driving is probably the cheapest way AND the big benefit is that BOTH parents can come, not just one. With 2-3 alternating drivers in a comfortable car, you could make it down in a long day.
I can help steer you to low cost lodging. I’ll PM you about those options.
No one is offended by your post. 
It’s actually a fun challenge since so many NE folks are skeptical about Bama, until THEY VISIT. In the end, they become Bama’s biggest fans. I still remember a dear Long Island parent who was frightfully concerned about Bama. He had terribly misguided ideas about the school and its students. I remember him voicing concerns that it might be hard for his son to be around a lot of very poor students. “Very poor students”?? Lol. I think the average family income of a Bama student is $160k…hardly very poor. (Not saying that there aren’t low income students; 18% are Pell recipients. It’s just that this LI dad had images of thread-bare students walking around campus. )
Anyway, LI dad sent his son to Bama and still is a huge fan. His son graduated a couple of years ago and landed a fabulous job. Win win.
We have visited schools all over, from UC Berkely to Harvard. I was impressed by Alabama, beyond what I’ve seen before. With a good scholarship for OOS, you will not be disappointed. The idea here is; you have to see it yourself, then you will understand. Contact your recruiter and set up a custom visit and talk to some students and faculty. Try Air BnB for lodging for cheap. We are particulair about Colleges too. The rankings are a deception of sorts. Choosing a college is something more than what some guy in Georgetown says about schools he never visited. I’m not sure that Princeton is teaching a new type of Physics that Mississippi State isn’t teaching; at $70,000 a year you might want to believe it. This is undergraduate education, right?
And for a cheaper visit, don’t come on a football weekend.
^^^
That is for sure. Don’t come during a home game weekend. It’s fine to come on a weekend of an away football game.
Will your parents pay for an expensive undergrad and law school? Some parents can afford it and want to spend money on their kids. If that is the case, why not just take advantage of that?
@Lycurgus10 “I’m not sure that Princeton is teaching a new type of Physics that Mississippi State isn’t teaching; at $70,000 a year you might want to believe it.”
Not to discredit any low ranked university, but I don’t think you know enough about the quality of undergrad education in tippy top colleges. My daughter in her last two internships was able to finish the work in 3-4 hours which others from not so low ranked universities took 3-4 days and were stressing out that how tough the work is. There is considerable difference in compensation offers after graduation from top ranked universities and low ranked universities.
^^ Nobody is talking about a “low-ranked” university, @fzehigh There are ~2,500 colleges and universities in the United States granting bachelor’s degrees. Even U.S. News, which has no great affection for Alabama, ranks it at 129 . No, it’s not Princeton, but few have access to Princeton, given their admission rates. As shocking as it may be to Ivy fetishists (and I attended one, BTW), lots of Bama grads go on to great success. Even in STEM subjects.
OP, if you’re seriously interested in UA, you can always take the train. Personally, I’d pick the more open-minded parent and try to find a cheap flight to Nashville or Atlanta - you can combine the visit to UA to one at Vanderbilt or Emory or some other preferred school.
And if you’re truly Princeton or MIT (or whatever elite) caliber, you might also want to consider applying to Randall Research Scholars. That is the elite of the elite at Alabama. The most recent graduating class at UA sent a student to Harvard Medical School, I believe for an MD-PhD program, and another to UC Berkeley for a doctorate in some type of physics.
https://honors.ua.edu/programs/randall-research-scholars-program/
@fzehigh. Thank you for helping Bglauner make an informed decision. My neighbor’s son turned down an offer to attend Harvard and went to Yale. 10 years after graduation, he is teaching middle school. After $200,000 tuition etc, he still asks his parents for rent money. One of my high school friends went to Princeton. Last I heard, he’s a part-time ski instructor in Colorado. Another friend, he went to Cornell. He took over his father’s business. He died 2 years ago from a drug overdose. You are right, I don’t know enough about the quality of an undergraduate education; I’m just a simple Physcian who holds Adjunct positions at 2 Medical schools as well a being a preceptor to more interns than I can remember, some who did attend elite undergraduate schools.
What the heck? Alabama isn’t a “low ranked” univ.
That sounds more like a quality of student issue, not school. Top schools tend to be loaded with tippy top students, with a smaller number of somewhat-weaker hooked students, while the mid-tiers tend to have a range of top to modest stats students.
If your daughter had gone to Purdue instead of MIT, she likely still would have completed the work in 3-4 hours. (That said I really doubt that that everyone else took 3-4 days unless the company hired really weak students or students who hadn’t yet completed many college level courses yet.
Not true, not true at all. Companies do not offer students from College A more money than College K (mid-tier) and College W (unranked).
In fact, it’s quite a shock for those who took on big loans to go to College A to find out that their fellow new-hires from College K and College W are being paid the same.
@Bglauner, maybe share this with your folks? Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Woman of 2018 is a Bama grad. Just saying! 
“Not true, not true at all. Companies do not offer students from College A more money than College K (mid-tier) and College W (unranked).”
“In fact, it’s quite a shock for those who took on big loans to go to College A to find out that their fellow new-hires from College K and College W are being paid the same.”
Right. Where it does make a difference is that some companies will recruit at HYPS (or Vanderbilt, Duke, and Rice, if they are southern), but not recruit at a lesser school.
That’s more applicable at some schools than Bama, but possibly true to an extent, depending on the field.
It’s also really not as applicable for grad schools. So if your child is pre-med, pre-law, etc. Bama shouldn’t be a huge negative.
As for the 3-4 hours vs 3-4 days story, I’ve heard the same from the other perspective. A guy I went to law school with (a large state school) said that his co-workers from Duke were not as good at him and the partners noticed it. Again, that’s an individual issue, not a school issue.
@gusmahler I agree that for a few fields (IB, some consulting firms) it may still matter at which schools they do and don’t recruit, but the reality is that on-campus recruiting is just not as important as it was in the past. Students can apply to companies thru their specific websites and use LinkedIn to get interviews, among other strategies. These developments have decreased the importance of on-campus recruiting. Of course it’s easier to interview with companies on campus, but there are few barriers to navigating into nearly any company these days, even for soon-to-be grads.
You’re from NY, and I’m assuming money is a factor with law school aspirations. Have you looked at the SUNYs, many of which are ranked higher than Alabama? Why Alabama?
Also, depending on your parent’s income, you may not have to pay tuition.
Sure, check out SUNYs. Some great schools in there, but I really don’t think their rankings are noteworthy.
You could also fly into Birmingham (63 miles) - I believe that is the closest airport, I know Southwest services Birmingham along with several airports in NY
Atlanta would be a 200 mile drive
Nashville is 250 miles
Huntsville is 150 miles however, it is not serviced by SWA - United, Delta and American
We had the opposite problem in our household, our daughter wanted a small LOC on Long Island which we could not afford, we convinced her to look at all the Alabama schools which did not impress her at first glance, so we visited, this completely changed her perception.
Her grades and ACT score earned her the top merit packages. Ultimately she chose UAH, she is having a great time. After we dropped DD off in August, we diverted our drive home to visit the UA campus, its beautiful!
“Shouldn’t be a huge negative”??? Lol. Bama won’t be a negative AT ALL.
What sort of negative did you think Bama would be???