@labegg makes a clear point in stating that unless you have extremely high stats, The University of Alabama is not a good deal for any OOS student. The only reason is so popular on this site is because of the amount of money they are able to offer these students. It helps that they have an amazing beautiful campus, beautiful weather, and a successful National football program to boost. Having said that, it is a normal if not average University. They have zero selectivity and that is the reason they are ranked where they are. According to our school Naviance report, EVERYONE who has applied to Alabama has gotten in. EVERYONE!!! Kids with an 35 ACT and Kids with a 21 ACT. That is not to say, students who attend and graduate from Alabama will not go on to be successful or get a great education. They do. But unless you are an OOS high stat student, it makes no sense to go there where there are better choices out there. As an example, Arizona State University, Missouri, and Kansas, would be the better choices for those looking for Merit with a slightly lower requirements @mom2collegekids will defend anything to do with Alabama no matter what it is. More power to her. However until the University of Alabama becomes a little more selective, it is hard to argue here…
There are many state schools that aren’t great deals for OOS students, they aren’t meant to be. For those who are overly concerned w/ ranking or perceived prestige, they are certainly welcome to go else where as there are thousands of schools out there.
And for the lower tier student, no it wouldn’t pay. As @labegg posted above, her daughter didn’t have the stats for the excellent award so had to go elsewhere. Hardly a surprise, that is what is happening everywhere.
I, personally, know of full pay OOS students at Bama, and their parents are happy to pay it.
@labegg I agree with you that CC does seem hyperfocused, on prestige more than anything, certainly not on UA. ??
I think @labegg raised a very valid point. There are many other options, just that the other colleges may not be as transparent. I considered my kid as average even she has been awarded the Presidential Scholar,( and would have been full tuition last year) As reality sinks in, I found myself asking the same question “why roll tide”. I thought it is a reasonable question. One thing I read is the friendliness of the people, but looking at some of the posts, I am not too sure whether it is true.
I am not sure whether Bama is good for high stat kids in general. However, Bama may be good for pre-med or pre-law as I have learned here that medical schools consider GPA and MCAT. My DD16’s classmate gave up JHU’s scholarship to go to Rutgers, but may be he would have an easier time at Bama as he wanted to go to medical school.
Well. @annamom, the question was asked by labegg and a number of people responded with their “why”, yet it didn’t seem to satisfy some posters. What else is there to say?
As far as Bama not being good for high stat kids in general, there are thousands of kids & their parents who would disagree. We were very limited by affordable choices, but there are kids there who easily could have gone elsewhere and chose Bama anyway.
At the end of the day, only you know your priorities and comfort level.
May be the answers to the why are not what some of the posters (myself included) looking for such as beautiful campus and great football team, hence we are still searching and hopefully not offending anyone in the process.
I have to agree on this
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I would think that if Alabama did not offer these scholarships to lure these high stat students, it would probably be ranked 50 places lower… Having a powerful football program has helped to make a name for the University. When you have a good football, you are going to get exposure. That is their marketing machine. I just don’t get all the love from the CC community.
When comparing merit scholarships, it’s important to compare published assured awards. Not awards that may or may not happen for various stats.
Also, when comparing net costs, it’s important to compare apples with apples. So if one school’s COA is using Standard Double dorms then Bama’s COA needs to be adjusted downward by a few thousand by selecting the similar Standard Doubles. Also, some schools include a very small meal plan in their COA.
That said, Bama isn’t a great deal IMHO for the OOS who are paying full price, yet so many do pay full price. Some are paying for more than one child at Bama. They have their reasons for paying full price.
Bama’s acceptance rate is about 50%. Like many/most publics, it weights GPA higher than test scores, so that can explain how some with modest scores get accepted. Bama believes that a student with an ACT21 and 3.0 GPA can be successful. Why would anyone here think they could not. Bama’s not saying that such a student can get thru Electrical Engineering, but a large flagship is going to have 80-100+ majors, and likely at least half of them would not be too hard for a more modest-stats student.
We’ve seen many success stories featuring high stats students who were not premed or prelaw. To suggest that only those two paths are the only good ones for high stats students at Bama is naive.
As for Bama football…all of the top 4 teams in the playoff have 1 loss. All of them lost to teams that are not in the playoff. That doesn’t mean that the schools that they lost to have better football…
The problem with most other schools that offer a lot of merit like Marquette and Loyola is that they seem to have a cap for initial merit scholarhsips. Loyola has a relatively high tuition compared to UA but they don’t seem to offer more than 22k initial scholarhsip money; Loyola only has other opportunities through some more competitive supplemental scholarhsips. On the other hand, UA offers much better scholarships for students with higher grades/scores while their academics looks to be very solid.
@mom2collegekids Bama played such a weak football schedule that I am not so sure they are so deserving to be in the final four. Not winning your division and not winning your conference should disqualify ANY team from getting in…By all accounts, I would think UCF might be in the conversation and OSU should have been the one…You made some good points and so do everyone else… Lots of kids from Georgia attend Alabama. Many of them are not able to get into UGA due to the higher standards and apply to Alabama knowing that they will easily get in. By the end of the day, Alabama is another average state flagship. A good all around school with an elite Football team. If their acceptance rate is 50%, they must be rejecting a lot of kids with ACT in their teens and GPAs below 2.5… The original poster was just questioning all the love they get on CC when on paper is no different that many other schools some which have been already mentioned
My daughter (32 ACT) would get 25,000/year at University of Arizona vs. $19,000 at University of Alabama, making COA pretty much a wash (probably cheaper, since travel from CA to Tucson is much less). Yet even here in CA guidance counselors are touting Alabama’s ‘free tuition’ in general college meetings without mentioning the high score you need to get that. A friend with a 29 ACT daughter came home from a college meeting all excited about the ‘free tuition’ and was pretty disappointed when I told her she’d still be paying $15K a year in tuition.
Note that (for out-of-state students) the former free tuition at 3.5 / 32 is now a little less than free tuition at 3.5 / 33. To get free tuition, one needs 4.0 / 36 (not as hard as it looks on the GPA side, since Alabama takes weighted GPAs off high school transcripts at face value).
@ucbalumnus Agreed. College counselors aren’t making that distinction though. The $19K I cited was the current amount on offer for a 32.
Problem is, Moore represents some of the ugly stereotypes that (the state of) Alabama presumably wants to leave behind. Moore winning the special election (or even getting lots of votes) may bring those stereotypes back in the minds of those who read about the election in the news, which may be a negative impact on the University of Alabama’s marketability to out-of-state students.
This has been a great thread to a parent with a kid a few years away from college applications. From reading most of the posts, it seems most agree Alabama offers very good money to high stats kids yet many seem to think that Alabama is only an average university and in general it is pretty easy to gain admission to Alabama.
So if Alabama is able to bring in a great cohort of high stats kids due to their generous scholarships, how do they challenge them once they are there? Do they have certain majors/classes that really only the high-stats kids go into? If so, is the overall ranking of Alabama 100+ yet the engineering school is ranked much higher? Other than the money, what is the big draw of Alabama - job placement?
Most of these kids probably get into Honors along with their peers… I think Alabama figured out that the freebies had to end at one point or another. hard to believe that a 4.0 and a 36 ACT will not get you into a MUCH MORE prestigious top 30 University with a worth while package and doubt from a 30 to 60 ranked University. Hard to believe some would pay full tuition as out of state student to attend Alabama. Perhaps some hard core legacy…
University of Alabama has several programs of interest to high stats students. The honors college offers priority registration and access to smaller classes which feature in depth discussion and more personal interaction with professors. https://honors.ua.edu/academics/courses/
Randall Research Scholars allows those accepted into the program to carry out research with professors starting sophmore year. https://honors.ua.edu/programs/computer-based-honors-program/
University Fellows is offered to a small group of elite students who are mentored by faculty. There is an emphasis on service to the community. https://honors.ua.edu/programs/university-fellows-experience/
The STEM MBA program allows students majoring in STEM to complete coursework in the business school which will allow them to graduate with an MBA along with the degree in their major. https://culverhouse.ua.edu/graduate-programs/stemmba/
The CREATE path to the MBA does the same as above for students in creative disciplines and the STEM and CREATE MBA students have to opportunity to work in teams on some projects. https://culverhouse.ua.edu/graduate-programs/createmba/
There is also an Accelerated Masters Program where students accepted can complete credit for their undergraduate and graduate degrees simultaneously. It is possible to graduate with a bachelors and masters degree in four years if you matriculate with enough AP and/or dual enrollment credit. https://graduate.ua.edu/accelerated-masters-program/
I think that it’s actually the other way round. The high-stats kids will be the ones to make it through the tougher majors. Bama gives lower stats students a chance to take the more demanding majors such as engineering. Some of them will make it through, but some inevitably will not and will choose to change their major. This is not uncommon with large state universities.
Nvm
I was replying to the question posed by @yearstogo
sorry, I seem to have derailed the thread