<p>I have been studying the full ride thread on CC and looked at the Bama website and this page, but I can’t tell if “full ride” scholarships mean tuition AND room and board? Can a high achiever get a completely full ride? The BAMA website makes the full rides sound extremely competitive, but here and there on CC it sounds like BAMA has an extraordinarily generous FA package and is the opportunity of a lifetime. Any insight and explanation highly appreciated.</p>
<p>Also, I m asking for my 10 th grader who wants to major in French. How is the French department. Incidentally, this daughter just placed 11 th in the nation on the National French Exam and is first in her class. Thank you!</p>
<p>I’m not a Bama parent, yet at least, trying hard to get my rising HS senior interested. SInce I’m interested, at least, I’ve read about the scholarships there a bit. </p>
<p>The full ride that is described in the thread you looked at is this
<a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/elite.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/elite.html</a>
It’s called ‘academic elite.’ About 10 awarded per year, so very competitive.Full tuition plus $8500/yr. Room rates vary, but that could be enough to cover rm/bd.</p>
<p>Alabama is very generous with merit money. There are many types of scholarships and it can be confusing.</p>
<p>If you have 32 ACT/3.5 GPA (They accept weighted if on transcript), a full tuition Presidential scholarship is automatic. Or NMSF/3.5 GPA.
<a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/elite.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/elite.html</a></p>
<p>If you are NMF, in addition to the full tuition you get room the first year and $3500 stipend all 4 yrs. This is automatic. Oh, and an ipad.
<a href=“National Merit Scholars – Scholarships | The University of Alabama”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/nationalscholars/</a></p>
<p>If in engineering I’ve heard there is another $2,500/yr on top of that.</p>
<p>The NMF scholarship has varied over the years and I believe at one time it was a full ride for all 4 years, so you may come across references to that.</p>
<p>Doubtless someone more knowledgeable than me will add details to this.</p>
<p>Thank you for your generous reply!</p>
<p>My son was lucky enough to get the full ride at Bama. HS graduate, class of 2010. Full tuition, full housing, and he got 2500/year from engineering, so that mostly covered his meal plan. We still were left with travel, clothing, books, so it wasn’t totally free. But, we’re not complaining. As an NMF, he got a yearly stipend from a company for 3K. This probably would have covered everything, but we opted to pay the bill every year and have that deposited into his savings account, as he planned to attend grad school. As he approaches his first year of grad school, no funding, I cannot tell you how grateful we are for what Bama gave us. Just housing alone for his grad school is going to be significant, not to mention tuition. His 12K saved up from his NMF stipend will pay perhaps a third of that. We still did have to pass up an excellent school that he was admitted to because there was no way we could afford it, even taking on loans, as we’d never be able to borrow enough or pay back what we could borrow. When Bama dropped its free housing, that was a significant cut in scholarship. But I don’t know of many colleges that still give free housing. I now know why my parents insisted on all us girls going to the local private colleges and live at home, as it was much cheaper for them to pay our tuition with generous scholarships than pay housing at the local flagship with free tuition. In fact, I just attended my 35 year high school reunion and many of my classmates who did attend our flagship are just finishing paying off their college loans.</p>
<p>So Bama did give free housing, but not anymore, except for a handful of exceptional scholarships…?</p>
<p><<<<
I have been studying the full ride thread on CC
<<<<</p>
<p>you have probably been looking at the full tuition/free ride thread that features both types of scholarships.</p>
<p>Bama is generous with merit. It has assured scholarships for stats. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why you are questioning bama’s generosity just because it has competitive full rides, but also has assured full tuition awards for stats. what else can any school do? </p>
<p>scholarships are based on test scores and stats. your d may not yet have test scores.</p>
<p>Your d needs to take the psat in October. If she scores high enough to become a NMSF, then she will likely become a NMF and get much of her costs covered.</p>
<p>the french dept is very good.</p>
<p>Yes, the old NMF scholarship used to give 4 years of free housing, but then too many NMF/NAF students started enrolling and it became unaffordable. so, now the NMFs get free tuition, 3500 per year stipend and some other goodies.</p>
<p>with all the scholarships, bama is the highest ranking school to be this generous with merit.</p>
<p>^And still get housing the first year. It’s pretty amazing. I see the tuition part of scholarship can be extended to 5 years for the NMF scholarship also. </p>
<p>ooops…yes…the NMFs still get housing the first year. </p>
<p>and yes, 5th year tuition</p>
<p>CBHP offers 4 yr scholarships to some of the finalists (I have no idea how many students receive them.) There are departmental scholarships as well. It is possible to receive multiple scholarships from the university and have them stack (which is most definitely not the case with many universities.) So, departmental scholarships do not reduce the university presidential, etc. UA really is the most generous school we have come across in terms of scholarships.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids, your new avatar is throwing me off!! Ds’s younger sister wants to pursue linguistics. French, Russian, and Latin are the three languages she has been focusing on up through 9th grade. (she wants to add a 4th next yr, either Arabic or Mandarin, but I haven’t made up my mind yet b/c her days are already definitely skewed by her languages.) Ds has her wanting to look at UA, but I am not convinced. Can you share any more info?</p>
<p>I just got out my daughters PSAT score response from the college board. Her “selection index” says 210 and has an asterisk next to it which is explained on the reverse that (even though she is in the 98th percentile). She does NOT qualify for NMSC status. Dumb question, this is the same as NMF, right? So competitive, my goodness! question-- can she take the PSAT again, as a junior, in Oct? I will also ask her GC…</p>
<p>The only PSAT score that matters is the one from their jr yr. It is the only yr they can qualify as NMF.</p>
<p>Thank you. I really must slow down here. I just studied the Score report from the college board more closely and just read "students leaving HS and entering college in 2016 or later must take the PSAT/NMET again in their third yr…to enter NMSC programs. " I still don’t like that asterisk, though. her 710 in CR says “you scored higher than 99 percent of all sophomores, etc”… Why did they put the asterisk next to her 210 if she doesn’t qualify for NMS as a sophomore ( I presume because that score would not qualify in herJR yr)? To earn a NMS, does a student have to be 99 th or 100 percentile?</p>
<p>It’s my understanding that the only reason there is an asterisk is because the student is not eligible to compete for National Merit Semi/Finalist (or other NMC honors) with this test because she is a sophomore. The only test that counts for this the test taken when the student is a junior. She will have to take it again her junior year.</p>
<p>I would also love to hear about the French program at Bama. D is planning to double-major with French, or at the very least have it as a minor.</p>
<p>Look at this:
<a href=“***Class Of 2015 NMSF Qualifying Scores*** - National Merit Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1580340-class-of-2015-nmsf-qualifying-scores-p1.html</a></p>
<p>All the recent NMSF cut scores are listed iin a table by state and year. The most recent year is a bit further down the page.</p>
<p>The score you need for NMSF varies by state. It isn’t as simple as 99th %ile. It depends a bit on how many kids take the test in your state, as the number in your state will be about 0.5% of graduating seniors in your state [16,000 NMSFs/(number of graduating seniors in country)] is where the number comes from. The more kids that take the test in your state, the higher the cut score tends to be. You can see what the scores have been in your state over the years to see what kind of score you need to aim for.</p>
<p>But the asterisk on the report is not about the score being high enough. It is just about eligibility status due to year of graduation, citizenship, etc.</p>
<p>VERY edifying, thank you. I feel better about that asterisk…</p>
<p>''But the asterisk on the report is not about the score being high enough. It is just about eligibility status due to year of graduation, citizenship, etc.“”</p>
<p>it is also about a score not being high enough to continue if you are a junior. it is put on junior scores that arent in the upper 5% or so. </p>
<p>typically, NMSFs are in the top 99th percentile, unless you live in a low cut-off state.</p>
<p>what state are you in?</p>
<p>info
<a href=“FAQ for the PSAT/SAT NMSF/NMF process.... :) - National Merit Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>FAQ for the PSAT/SAT NMSF/NMF process.... :) - National Merit Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Oh, I didn’t know that about lower than top 5%. Sorry.</p>
<p>^^^
no biggie…the whole process is crazy. Somewhere around 5% is the initial cut-off, and then around spring of junior year, the top 50,000 are identified by a score of around 200-203 minimum (they eventually become commended if not NMSF). </p>
<p>there are roughly 5M junior test-takers. …maybe somewhat more because ACT states are starting to use it more.</p>
<p>then state cut-offs are set, then 16,000 NMSF students are officially notified by the embargo date which is mid-Sept senior year…although some school tell early…my son learned in august. </p>
<p>then forms are completed, etc,</p>
<p>then the 1,000 rejected learn that they didnt progress to NMF in mid January senior year.</p>
<p>then the 15,000 NMFs are notified in feb senior year.</p>
<p>@Mom2aphysicsgeek </p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Ds’s younger sister wants to pursue linguistics. French, Russian, and Latin are the three languages she has been focusing on up through 9th grade. (she wants to add a 4th next yr, either Arabic or Mandarin, but I haven’t made up my mind yet b/c her days are already definitely skewed by her languages.) Ds has her wanting to look at UA, but I am not convinced. Can you share any more info?</p>
<p><<<<<</p>
<p>that’s my Momma! I did that in honor of a thread I started in Parents Cafe about things we learned from our parents. </p>
<p>Hopefully @SEA_tide will chime in. He knows a lot about the language dept and how linguistics is done. He took French. Both of my kids took Spanish and Italian…they had excellent profs.</p>
<p>Does your d have any interest in The Classics as a major?</p>