<p>With all the ambitious growth and promoting of academics, do you think Dr. Witt is trying to make the school a top public school?</p>
<p>I think he’s trying to make it the best that it can be. However there are limitations. Especially given the fact that the state of Alabama ranks amongst the worst in public education (grade school, high school, not college). There is also the relatively small population base, stigma, and stereotypes to overcome. </p>
<p>I can see Alabama being on par with Georgia and Florida in the next 10 years or so. But I can’t ever see it getting to the UVA, UNC, Cal level. And quite honestly I’m not sure I’d want it too.</p>
<p>NJBAMA: Take UNC out of the mix. You don’t want Bama going that route. Daughter and Son both are experiencing the best that their college years could possibly offer at 'Bama (As did I)! The opportunities that they are taking advantage of while at 'Bama, pale in comparison to what their friends are experiencing at UNC-CH, and all the other state schools that are in the UNC system. The cutbacks have hit these colleges hard. And they have hit them in areas that include both educational and extracurricular opportunities.</p>
<p>Daughter and Son both are exxxxxxxxxtrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemmeeeeeeelllllllllyyyyyyy happy with their college choice! </p>
<p>(I joke about this, but I told them when college choices was being kicked around in our family, that I was writing their college tuition checks made out to the University of Alabama. If you can get some other college to cash it, then you are good to go).</p>
<p>In our state, the biggest and best public schools are Auburn, Alabama, and Montevallo (the only public LAC here). We don’t have the system in Georgia where the universities are tiered; they have a sort of points system for kids who apply to separate who can get into State, UGA, and Tech, which allows the latter two to excel. Likewise, we don’t have the set-up of NC’s public system. So UA and AU are both extremely… forgiving with the in-state kids. You’ll find ACT scores ranging from 17s to 36s, and GPAs from below 3.0s to well above 4.0s. It’s not the recipe for a public Ivy or a conventional elite, but that’s fine by me. If I was looking for something that pretentious, I would’ve gone to Vanderbilt. :)</p>
<p>Bama offers the kind of quality and diversity you just don’t find very often. I can study pretty much anything I want to… not an option at a lot of “better” schools.</p>
<p>Public Ivy is pretty nebulous, I think UA is well on it’s way to becoming a university to be proud of, but I’m concerned about the graduation rate, I just don’t know how they can raise that up a lot. It’s not just about being more selective.</p>
<p>Public Ivy’s 2009 5-Year Grad Rate
University of Virginia 91.9%
College of William and Mary 90.4%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 87.2%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 83.4%
Miami University-Oxford 81.6%
The University of Texas at Austin 76.3%
University of Vermont 70.7%</p>
<p>The University of Alabama 60.4%</p>
<p>University of Alabama
Admissions Data (2010)
Percent of Applicants Admitted: 54%
ACT Composite: 22 / 29
ACT English: 22 / 30
ACT Math: 20 / 27</p>
<p>Miami University (Oxford)
Percent of Applicants Admitted: 78%
ACT Composite: 24 / 29
ACT English: 23 / 30
ACT Math: 24 / 29</p>
<p>I for one want UA to become as prestigious as UNC-Chapel Hill. By the way, unless a student is a football player or some other student athlete, they will not be admitted with a 17 ACT.</p>
<p>BBfromNC – I know only one mom with a DD currently at UNC-CH…she loves it…but they are a very prestige-focused family; what can I tell ya?</p>
<p>We never visited UNC (DS was accepted there but without merit $$)…but I definitely do get the impression that it is suffering big-time from the cutbacks. I’m told the atmosphere there is kind of depressing right now. have you heard similar things?</p>
<p>As you say, all the UNC-system schools are suffering right now.</p>
<p>Univ of Vermont is a Public Ivy?? Who knew? (We used to live right outside Middlebury, but that was BC – Before Children.)</p>
<p>Yes…I do think Dr. Witt’s goal is to rival UNC-CH or similar.</p>
<p>We don’t have the system in Georgia where the universities are tiered;</p>
<p>Actually, the state of Alabama does have a tiered system.</p>
<p>UA, UAB, UAH, Auburn are on the top</p>
<p>UNA, USA (which should move up since it has a med school, Jacksonville State, ASU, etc…are in the mid tier</p>
<p>Athen’s State and similar are lower tier.</p>
<p>*By the way, unless a student is a football player or some other student athlete, they will not be admitted with a 17 ACT. *</p>
<p>True…unless they have some kind of documented disability that doesn’t allow them to do standardized testing very well, but they have a strong GPA that indicates that they can succeed. And, even then, they’d be admitted on academic probation. I know of such a student. She had a low ACT (like a 18 or 19), but a 3.5+ GPA from a good private high school. She was admitted on academic probation, and has done very well. She’s a rising junior.</p>
<p>However, Atlanta is right. Typically the lower quartile students are special admits…athletes, etc. that’s true for all schools. Bama’s middle quartiles are not unusual.</p>
<p>BTW, NJ–did you see that UNC-CH is dealing with a sports scandal at the moment? Shades of Auburn?</p>
<p>Mom, ASU is as low tier as it gets, going by the test scores of the incoming freshman. However, they have recently announced that they would raise admissions standards. Troy State also recently upped their standards.</p>
<p>Ahhh…thanks for the correction about ASU. </p>
<p>Don’t know where to put Troy. It is either mid-tier or heading there.</p>
<p>I do think the state needs to work on USA…the school has a good med school for Pete’s sake!</p>
<p>I would never have put Vermont or Miami of Ohio on a list of public ivies. They’re both very popular at my D’s high school, but if you have a 22 ACT and a C+ GPA from D’s school, you’re in. Quite different from Michigan, Texas, UNC, UVa and William and Mary, all of which are very competitive for admissions. I personally would rank UA above both of those schools right now.</p>
<p>[Public</a> Ivy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Public Ivy - Wikipedia”>Public Ivy - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Origins of the term
…He traveled the nation examining higher education and in particular, identified eight public institutions (the same as the number of Ivy League members) which he thought had the look and feel of an Ivy League university. In addition to academic excellence, other factors considered by Moll include visual appearance, age, and school traditions as well as certain other Ivy League characteristics.</p>
<p>I’m sure that Dr. Witt would like to see UA be seen as equivalent as UNC-CH.</p>
<p>Right now, many of us, myself included, are benefiting from the false perceptions of UA’s academic stature. I highly doubt that many of the public ivies are giving out $80k+ merit packages (over 4 years) to OOS students that don’t have $80k+ of demonstrated financial need. UA also has that allow top students to do a lot more in 4 years than would be possible at other schools. Once UA would reach Public Ivy status, most of these benefits would end. </p>
<p>Right now, the biggest problem facing UA is that the public K-12 system in Alabama is not good. While this is largely an issue of Alabama’s history and demographics and would take a long time and lots of money to fix, it has to be done in order to improve the quality of UA’s student body without the need for adding even more OOS students. That said, I want to see UA with a majority-OOS student population. It might entice the public to better fund public education. The time has past for UA to be comparing itself to Ole Miss and LSU; UA needs to start seeing itself along the lines of a UNC-CH, U Wisconsin-Madison, or U Mass-Amherst.</p>
<p>Reading gojack’s post, it seems that UA could definitely qualify as a Public Ivy in terms of visual appearance, age, and school traditions.</p>
<p>you beat me to it mom2ck…i was about to say “hey uab is a tier 1” beats montevallo lol</p>
<p>and agree univ of south alabama is a pretty good school</p>
<p>i’m not sure where birmingham southern fits in, but its a very good school…</p>
<p>No, my cousin got in!=P</p>
<p>'m not sure where birmingham southern fits in, but its a very good school…</p>
<p>Oh…I wasn’t including privates…</p>
<p>I was just saying that the State of Alabama does have a tiered state system…like some other states do. </p>
<p>and agree univ of south alabama is a pretty good school</p>
<p>Yes…and because of the med school, it should be better ranked and better known. Most people have never heard of it. I imagine that its science program must be very good. I guess it may suffer from not being strong in a broader sense. I think that’s what hurts UAH at times…it is strong in STEM, business, and nursing, but probably not in the various humanities.</p>
<p>*Once UA would reach Public Ivy status, most of these benefits would end. *</p>
<p>Yes, that’s what I fear. Isn’t that precisely what happened at UT Austin, which was doling out NMF scholarships back in the day ('80s) but does so no longer?</p>
<p>I agree with crazyinalabama. We like UA just the way it is…especially with all the merit aid.</p>
<p>Not saying we would mind one bit if its standards kept on rising. But please, don’t turn it into UNC-CH! :D</p>
<p>UT Austin wasn’t doling out NMF scholarships in the 80’s. The only thing dh remembers getting was the standard NMF scholarship which back then was $500 a year! Which is a big reason he was shocked at how generous UA is to the NMF!</p>