<p>“I will be rooting for you folks this weekend, however, as I’m not a big fan of Johnny Football.”</p>
<p>Me either, sschickens. I think that 'ole boy may have missed a few much needed trips to the good old fashioned wood shed so to speak. He neede some discipline if he cannot help himself.</p>
<p>Oops, cannot edit “needs”:)</p>
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<p>Awesome, but please keep rooting all the way through next weekend, when we play them. :)</p>
<p>We’ll need all the mojo we can muster.</p>
<p>Will do, Malanai. Thought it was this weekend. I’ll have to make due rooting for the Terps this weekend. They need all the help they can get:-)</p>
<p>My D passed up on Rice, William & Mary, Vandy, Tulane, WashU-STL, Wake Forest, and Clemson. We couldn’t be happier, and in fact, my S will very likely follow her next year. Roll Tide!</p>
<p>In addition to Alabama my DD was accepted to the interview round at Yale, Univ of Michigan, Purdue, Univ of Illinois, and a few other schools. Alabama was NOT on our radar during high school. We only started looking at UA because a close friend with an exceptional DS sent her DS to UA. I will admit that my husband and I were drawn in by the scholarship potential. The alternative of a $52,000 a year tuition bill was terrifying to consider. I had to literally dragged our DD and my husband to the campus for a tour because up to this point she only considered the Maize and Blue (it is our family school). Once on campus it took our DD less than 30 minutes to develop a changed attitude. She was 100% Univ of Mich before the tour and after the tour the decision was split 50/50 between UM and UA. </p>
<p>In the end, when the final decision was made the factors that made the decision final were: 5 year masters program, direct admit into the business school, the beautiful honors dorm rooms, the exceptional dining options, and the overall attention to grounds maintenance and the beautiful weather made our DD commit to UA and never look back.</p>
<p>There is alot to be said for the brand recognition of a University of Michigan level school but our family weighed that against the suffocating debt she would carry if she paid around $250,000 for a 4 year education and then the debt of a Master Program against the true belief that UA has the program quality we are looking for. After much research I strongly believe that Alabama will prepare her for a doctoral program at the school of her choice.</p>
<p>This is a really impressive. Bama is staying on our list. Is there anybody that chose Bama and wishes they wouldn’t have?</p>
<p>…I think I may have unintentionally sold short this CC UA community. </p>
<p>While many people on this forum are scattered all over and information may not be as readily available in their respective communities via word of mouth, that really is only part of why this forum is so active. As people find their way to this forum in search of information, they lurk for a while and begin to receive valuable information not easily obtained elsewhere. They see that questions are answered thoroughly, thoughtfully, and just as importantly - promptly. </p>
<p>Since the forum is very active, people return on a regular basis and see new information (that is relevant and valuable) is posted. These lurkers benefit from the information and then in turn, as they build their own experiences, are willing to return the favor by responding to posts/questions, etc. </p>
<p>The regulars (notably mom2collegekids) all have had excellent experiences with the University of Alabama and want to share this with the community. As has our experience so far AND I want EVERYONE to know it! :-)</p>
<p>But back to the OPs question… many on this forum chose UA over top tier/Ivy League schools (our DS chose UA over our state flagships, with the Hope Scholarship would be about the same cost for us) perhaps because like the Avis Car Rental ad campaign, UA embodies the Try Harder approach to attracting students.</p>
<p>These are the schools on DD1’s list during her high school career who was an IB and AP student:
Penn State
Pepperdine
Stanford
UCLA
Baylor
Duke
Alabama</p>
<p>We toured every one of the schools and a few more. Penn State dropped completely. Pepperdine and Stanford were tied but she dropped Stanford after visiting, ftr, I fell in love with Stanford. Pepperdine and UCLA were the only 2 she really even wanted to entertain. She ended up submitting apps to Pepperdine, Baylor and Alabama. UCLA dropped off her list due to the additional $20k per year for out of state students. It is still her #1 pick for med school. Baylor was her safety and they even gave her a nice scholarship but not enough to make up the difference of out of pocket expenses with UA. One tour of UA and she was sold and never wanted to look back. </p>
<p>ROI was our biggest sticking point, the parents footing the bill. When she can graduate in 3 years with her Bachelors or 4 years with a Bacholers and Masters being debt free… does not take a lot of business sense to realize which path will be better in the long run. If she had gotten into Stanford if that had been her dream, we could afford it. It is a matter of is it really worth it in the long run. To us, no. Our next door neighbor is a Stanford grad and DD talked to him about the school. But seriously, if you really want to put it flat out there to compare for the long term… a Stanford degree is not needed to make a very nice living. We are proof of that. Having a smart business head on your shoulders will go a lot further in the real world than any piece of paper hanging on the wall from a prestigious school. </p>
<p>I personally am enjoying the fact that we nor DD will be swimming in debt to pay for college. We can enjoy our retirement and DD can start a career with some cash to get her going. Especially if she wants to go onto med school and start a practice.</p>
<p>My child applied to random schools and besides her fathers school, Iowa, had no reason for applying to any of them. She did not have her heart set on any school so that was a good thing. She was accepted to Iowa, Auburn, Samford, Kentucky and Central Florida. She applied to UK and UA because they (and Miami) bombarded our mailboxes! She was torn between Samford and UA. We are very happy with her final decision. God knew where the best place for her was and when we went to Bama Bound we learned that she did make the best choice because she got a full 4 year scholarship because of her dads VA benefits that we did not know about. ROLL TIDE</p>
<p>Wow, thanks everybody. I knew I would get a good response but this really goes beyond what I was expecting. I ran the battery out on my phone keeping up with the posts today. Can’t wait to have DH and S14 read them.</p>
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<p>Welcome to 'Bama. That’s how we, ahem, roll. ;)</p>
<p>Come and visit! That’s a must!</p>
<p>My D’s first visit put Alabama at the bottom of her short list. Her second visit sealed the deal.</p>
<p>She took a pass on University of Texas and Wake Forest, both great schools, but Alabama just had that something extra… so welcoming, so student focused, great scholarship, great premed advising program. Not to mention a beautiful campus, great dorms, and a little thing called SEC football :)</p>
<p>Roll ride roll!</p>
<p>My DD started on the HYPS track & I believe she could contend for a spot at one of those schools. However, we had always told her the exact amount of money we would give her each year of college, and that she would be responsible for earning / borrowing the remainder. Suddenly, with “skin in the game”, the schools where she would have money left over started looking very attractive.</p>
<p>Reading this forum got us out to visit 'Bama from San Diego this past summer - since then, DD has already applied, been accepted and awarded the Presidential Scholarship for Fall of 2014. Boy, does that take the pressure off!</p>
<p>However, she will most likely end up at Temple U in Philadelphia. They are also offering quite amazing scholarships (full tuition + $4000 stipend each summer) to high stats kids and their music department is a better fit for D’s interest in Vocal Performance/Music Ed. She also has a preference for a big city environment.</p>
<p>I’m so thrilled to have these two amazing options - we could not find anything like this in California.</p>
<p>GertrudeMcFuzz - my nephew graduated from Temple and loved it. He went on to get his Masters in Urban Spatial Analytics from Penn. He just gave us his tour of Temple and we really liked it. My S15 is looking at Temple, one of the few schools left with a men’s gymnastics team.</p>
<p>I had PM’ed the OP with our D’s. story… But thought this post that she put up on her FB last weekend sums things up nicely about her satisfaction with the choice of UA. </p>
<p>Everyday I know that choosing the adventure of attending this school, over one thousand miles away from home, was the best decision I have ever made. The opportunities in academics and athletics are great, not to mention the numerous fun times here… I am fortunate to be a part of it all and proud of all the work I put in to be here. I am so happy here and find it really funny that as I watch the Ohio State football game… they are crushing SUNY Buffalo, the only other school I was actually considering going to when it came down to my final college decision, and instead I am at ALABAMA, the only school rated higher than Ohio State right now and where our football team is creating a dynasty. One of my favorite things is the pride and sense of community athletics at this school creates, it is absolutely amazing! I could not imagine life any other way than being at Alabama for my college years… I chose the right school - no doubt in my mind. ROLL TIDE ROLL - GAMEDAY BAMA!</p>
<p>For background - D is an upstate Ny’er was offered one of 25 Presidential Scholarships (complete full ride) to the University at Buffalo so she was fortunate to have two full ride choices given her Presidential and D1 athletic scholarships at UA. She had acceptance into Honors Colleges at the Carroll School of Management-Boston College, BU, Northeastern, Drexel, and UVM -all with nice scholarships. She is a Jr. and 95% done major due to the generous UA acceptance of AP and college credits taken during high school. Will graduate from UA with a major in mathematics-statistics track, two minors: Chinese, Civic Engagement and Leadership, and looking into a certificate in business analytics. The opportunities to build leadership skills, research experience, community involvement, international experiences, and a host of work related skills at UA has been outstanding. She is a University Fellow, recently voted Captain of her team, Outdoor Action Student Director, and has done market research with the Environmental Sciences Dept. for the Black Belt Bamboost project in Northport, and currently doing data analysis in the Operations Management Dept. on an NFL scheduling study. Travelled with UA’s Honors at Oxford last summer and SAIIE’s study-row abroad summer session this past summer.</p>
<p>She is our only so although we could have afforded one of the other colleges, she felt the best choice was to come out of undergrad debt free. I do think it is important to say that the Univ at Buffalo gave her just as personal a tour day as UA -in fact we went there to rule UB out and she walked away moving it into the top two. With an equal full ride at UA the deciding factors were the distinction of the Univ. Fellows program, the more beautiful campus, honors dorms, the athletic atmosphere, weather/ability to be on the water almost year round rowing vs. Buffalo, and the diversity at UA-recall her coming to us after comparing rosters saying only 4 girls were not from NY at UB, where only 4-5 were from AL at UA/many states represented on the team, and with the general student population being 50% out of state…networking for future.</p>
<p>Her transition to UA was seamless which we attribute to her having travelled on scholarship to China in high school with 50 students from all over the US, and having been exposed to suburban, rural, and inner city peers through her involvements in high school, rowing, travel, and summer work out of her hometown. </p>
<p>She often expresses how her friends even from well to do families at other schools worry so much about the debt they are taking on and how glad she is not or putting that stress on us. She also says had she selected one of the Boston schools she would not be able to afford as often as she does going out to dinner with friends, shopping, entertainment etc.</p>
<p>Our S was quite overwhelmed with the whole college decision process. He wanted to go far away, mostly wanted to be somewhere in the northeast. We are from the south but Alabama is still over 7hrs away.<br>
He never really gave much thought to actually attending Alabama. Ultimately he fell in love with U Miami and was wait listed, decided against UF, UD and UMD.
He had decided to attend UMD and in late April asked if we could visit Alabama. After just a few hours on campus he knew he liked it. Even before our college of Arts and Sciences info session. The info session and talking with the adviser afterwards probably sealed the deal. He really liked what the Honors college and premed advisers have to offer. You really do have to visit! Our S struggled with his own doubts about the prestige thing because so many people had told him he would have a better shot at getting into med school coming from the other schools. Unfortunately even some of his teachers looked down on Alabama. It was heartbreaking to see that he had to defend his decision to attend Alabama. He should have been able to revel in and be proud of the fact that he had such a nice scholarship but instead he had to explain his decision. All of that is behind us now and he says he really likes Alabama! As for everyone on CC…I totally stalked through various threads as we considered all of the options and especially when we felt like we had to “explain ourselves”. Thank you all for posting! It was a great help to me and I promise to become more active. Roll Tide!</p>
<p>So many reports on Alabama mention football. We are an active, outdoorsy family with zero interest in professional sports. </p>
<p>Would a kid who doesn’t care about football fit there?</p>
<p>My son from Long Island NY had it down to Lafayette, Drexel, and U of Delaware in that order. Was aware of scholarship opportunities at Alabama and we decided to visit in Fall of senior year. While Drexel and Delaware offered somewhat generous scholarships, he kept referring back to his visit to Alabama. Although he pays all in all about the same at Alabama as he would if he attended an in-state SUNY of New York, the experience is far superior starting with the atmosphere, weather, variety of students from all over the country, rising reputation and Honors dorms. Most of his friends are envious.</p>
<p>momfromme, even a student who doesn’t like football will appreciate the school spirit and game day activities. </p>
<p>At UA, there are many other opportunities, though - something for everyone. For example, here’s a link to recreation trips this fall that your outdoorsy, active student might be interested in. </p>
<p>[University</a> Recreation Center](<a href=“http://urec.sa.ua.edu/ortrips.cfm]University”>http://urec.sa.ua.edu/ortrips.cfm)</p>