<p>These are the three schools my son is looking at for CS. He really likes Minnesota, and he can get a full tuition scholarship at Alabama plus a $2500/yr engineering scholarship. Wisconsin has the best computer science program among the three, but the value at Alabama is hard to pass up.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Is he in state Wisconsin or does he have at least reciprocity? Wisconsin is certainly the best CS wise, though I honestly don’t know a whole lot about Alabama’s programs. If you are OOS tuition I would no doubt go with the free ride. Wisconsin (and Minny) are pretty good deals for in state, but again free tuition is tough to pass up as long as their program is somewhat legitimate. COuld do honors too I bet. Be sure to consider the culture/geography/fit of schools if money isn’t the #1 issue in addition to just program ranking.</p>
<p>We are in WI so we would pay in-state rates for Madison and Minnesota. It would be about $22K for Madison/Minnesota vs about $10K for Alabama.</p>
<p>Yes, he would be in the honors program at Alabama. They have some innovative programs.</p>
<p>[Programs</a> | Honors College](<a href=“http://honors.ua.edu/programs/]Programs”>Programs – honors.ua.edu | The University of Alabama)</p>
<p>They are very generous with AP credits and they double count credits for BS/Masters programs under their scholar program. He could likely get his masters in CS in 4 years. He can take up to 20 credits per yr and be covered by the tuition scholarship.</p>
<p>I know nothing about the CS programs at all three of the schools. However, I grew up in SE Wisconsin, went to UW-Madison for undergrad and grad school (in another era), lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years post grad school, and my daughter is a freshman at UA. All three schools are great choices.</p>
<p>My daughter absolutely loves Alabama. Passed up UT-Austin (and others) for UA — and says that UA was the best choice. She is in the Honors College and pursuing University Scholars as well. We visited her during Labor Day weekend and she was simply glowing! She was born and raised in Texas — so she is a southern girl. However, my wife and I are both from the badger state and wish we could go to UA. Don’t have any concerns about fitting in. Roll tide!</p>
<p>I’ve heard a lot of good things about UA and with the scholarships, it’s hard to ignore.</p>
<p>The main concern is the distance as my son will be 16 when he starts (turning 17 at the end of September.</p>
<p>Now that’s a little different question/concern than the original post …</p>
<p>That’s going to come down to how an individual is wired. Just a few of the questions I think that you have to answer comfortably: Can he be that “far” from the nest? With his test scores he is obviously intelligent. How are his social skills? Where is he physically? He will be pretty darn young — but not freakishly so — about 15 months younger than my daughter. Does he tend to get excited about a new experience/environment? </p>
<p>My son is junior (and an athlete with fall and spring season) at a school three hours by car from home, and he has never come home other than Thanksgiving and semester breaks. However, we are very close relationship-wise, and I talk to him via phone for a few minutes virtually every day. Really not any different than my daughter in Tuscaloosa.</p>
<p>Has your son visited UA yet? You both won’t be able to address this concern until you spend some meaningful time there determining if he will be comfortable at UA.</p>
<p>You can get there for an emergency by car in a day.</p>
<p>As a UW-Madison alum, I don’t like pumping up another school on the Badger board — but you asked. My daughter has been to UW with me — and was interested in applying until I told her what it would cost OOS. Both are great choices.</p>
<p>Socially, he does really well. He has a lot of friends and on any given weekend night we usually have 3 or 4 kids sleeping over. He’s not gifted athletically, but he’s on the golf team and enjoys sports. He really gifted at music and is in the orchestra, jazz band, pit band, pep band, marching band, but he doesn’t have any passion for it. He spends a lot of time playing PC games and doesn’t work very hard at school, in my opinion. I think he might struggle at a school where he has to grind.</p>
<p>We haven’t visited UA, yet but we will. He didn’t have a good feeling when he visited Madison. He liked LaCrosse and Minnesota. He didn’t think much of Platteville.</p>
<p>I don’t really know how he would do so far from home. He did a exchange trip to Germany for 4 weeks and didn’t have any problem, and he didn’t have too much trouble fitting in when we moved to WI after he finished 7th grade even though he was a year and a half to two years younger than his classmates.</p>
<p>Son was still 16 when he started at UW-Madison. Honors math then added comp sci. Excellent Honors at UW, able to join nonmajors Orchestra if he wishes. Platteville is definitely not at the same academic level, even compared to LaCrosse. U of M (Minn)versus UW- I have known many good students who choose one or the other. </p>
<p>You may want to have your son revisit UW. I know there is an orchestra- even a 1 credit course- for nonmusic majors- someone from his HS tried to recruit my son when he was moving inro his dorm freshman year. Son wasn’t the youngest in his Honors Physics- there were 2 Madison HS students- one a 14 year old girl. Being 16 at UW didn’t make a difference, son handled the campus well and had done 4 years of HS with the cohort entering college his year. He is a runner, there is a great track club sport with CC meets in the fall. Feel free to PM me if you want.</p>
<p>Why is Alabama so interested in attracting good students? Is it because they don’t have the numbers UW has? Something to consider. Also consider the CS program- in engineering and not L&S like UW. What happens if he changes his major or loses his scholarship?</p>
<p>Compare the CS courses available at Alabama to those at UW. Not all departments are created equally. Aside from any prestige or big names figure out if he will get an equivalent education in his field.</p>
<p>Good questions. If he switches out of the engineering college he will lose his $2500/yr scholarship, but short of flunking out, I don’t see any way of losing the full tuition university scholarship.</p>
<p>UA CS dept can’t compare to Madison, but I have the sense, maybe wrongly, that he may have the opportunity for more faculty interaction through the computer-based honors program.</p>
<p>We plan on visiting Madison again and I would like him to go to classes on Friday and stay the weekend to get a good feel for what it’s like.</p>
<p>Just found out that you need to maintain a 3.0. Hard to imagine that would be a problem, but you never know.</p>
<p>Riprorin, Madison is our state flagship, and I have one son at UMN (junior/engineering) and one son at Alabama (freshman/computer science). Both have August birthdays so they were just 18 when starting so they were on the younger end, but not as young as your son. They both looked at Madison seriously and liked it but “didn’t fall in love”. At UMN and Alabama they had “special tours” and were made to feel wanted, so I think this is why they liked these campuses alot more. They are all state schools and each have their strengths and weaknesses, although I do think that the reputation of the computer science department at Madison is better than the other schools.</p>
<p>UMN and Alabama are more generous financially than Madison. Madison gave each son the WI Academic Scholarship (2250 each year) as they were val., but nothing else. UMN gave S1 enough to cover tuition (you may not have to pay 22,000 p/year) and Alabama gave S2 the Presidential Scholarship, engineering scholarship, and full board for 4 years (although this is not available any more). Remember though that depending on how far away you are from the school, traveling does cost a bit. We are only 7 hours away from UMN, but usually have to get a hotel room when dropping off/visiting/picking up. (The Megabus, however, isn’t too expensive to get your child to/from college for holidays). So far for my Alabama freshman, we had to pay airfare for a visit, orientation, parents weekend, for thanksgiving and Christmas, and will have to get him home for springbreak. The next 3 years though, airfare will probably only be for Christmas and springbreak so not as expensive.</p>
<p>Madison has the top students at their school. Minnesota and Alabama have lower admission standards college-wide, however their student stats for their honor colleges are very impressive and are probably compare favorably with Madison (check them out.) 55% of the freshman at Alabama are oos. When considering colleges for S2 at computer science, I actually thought that CS being in the College of Engineering rather than liberal arts was a plus for him, mainly because if he chooses not to do CS he will be in some other STEM field. Plus at UMN and UA you are admitted directly into the department and begin classes to see if you like them at all. Alabama (more than UMN or Madison) is very generous with AP and Clep.</p>
<p>At UMN and Madison you will be within easy driving distance which might make a difference for your peace of mind as you have a younger student. (S1 was diagnosed with Type 1 during spring break his freshman year so we are glad he is only 6-1/2 hours away.) In my opinion you can’t go wrong with either 3 schools. Basically he has to visit and see where he feel more at home. PM me if you would like.</p>
<p>Riprorin, there was some type of glitch in the CC system and they put my response to you as #1 (hope this doesn’t keep others from responding.) If you want, you can PM me any questions about UMN or UA.</p>
<p>The UW Honors program allows for more faculty interaction and research possibilities are there. He may want to double major and include math or something else, or just take many additional courses. Be sure he checks on the departmental course offerings in each school’s math and computer science departments. Also have him check on the courses required and suggested for the undergrad major at each school. Consider the depth and breadth of Honors courses available to him at both the intro and advanced levels.</p>
<p>There isn’t a problem is being a computer science major at UW- just need to declare the major and meet normal gpa requirements, something easily done if a student has aptitude for the field.</p>
<p>Something to consider is the overall feel of the campus. Will Alabama’s college culture suit him? How strongly does he feel about the schools? The final decision doesn’t need to be made until spring so he should at least apply and be accepted this fall. </p>
<p>Do not sacrifice his education for easy money now. If his future plans include graduate school he will want the best undergrad education he can get. For jobs- where does he plan to work? If close to home, ie MN/WI/IL, he will be competing against grads from known excellent programs.</p>
<p>There’s a UA graduate that just started grad school at Madison. I’m trying to connect with her to get her impression of the CS dept at UA.</p>
<p>My son has a 32/3.76. There’s some mitigating factors on his GPA and he will take the ACT again in October, but I’m not sure that’s good enough to get him into the honors program at Madison.</p>
<p>He might throw Nebraska into the mix too. They have a fairly generous scholarship program.</p>
<p>Honors program at UW is not based on stats alone – all admitted students are invited to apply to Honors program by writing three essays and completing the application. On stats alone, my son was fortunate to be admitted to UW, but he wrote interesting, thoughtful essays and had good ECs, and was admitted to Honors program. Other schools he had looked at had strict cut-offs based entirely on gpa and testing (and since his school doesn’t use weighted gpas, his was about 3.5 – not nearly high enough for Honors elsewhere but if were weighted, it would have been in the 4.2-4.2 range.) </p>
<p>As a parent, I appreciate that Honors at UW is a program, not a separate school. Students can graduate with Honors degree if they maintain certain gpa and take requisite numbers of Honors courses across multiple disciplines (I recall it worked out to about 3-4 credits in Honors courses each semester, so about one Honors course a term.) </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Agree with the above. You can enter the Honors program later but to get Honors advising at SOAR (summer advising and registration), get into Honors courses and get other benefits join when entering UW. Check the UW college of L&S Honors program website for more info. Also, no special housing so you can choose the setting that most suits you (no one dorm is better than any other- despite postings that claim otherwise). Various types of Honors degrees available- such as in the major and comprehensive (for those who take honors courses in many fields, not just the major). No junky Honors survey courses required of all students in Honors- the special Honors courses are more advanced/difficult in a field, plus there are Honors sections of some courses or the possibility of doing extra work for Honors credit. The program was good eons ago in my day and improved- including extras, thanks to the internet, for son’s era. You don’t get “kicked out of” the Honors program for failing to take Honors courses (need a B or better for Honors credit) but won’t be able to get an Honors degree if you don’t take enough courses for Honors.</p>
<p>Compare the honors courses and requirements with other schools. Check the course content as well.</p>
<p>Your son’s stats sound fine for Honors work, assuming he is admitted to UW. More holistic than just by the numbers admissions to both UW and the various honors programs (Comp Sci is in L&S, it has its own building as well as department).</p>
<p>He was accepted but hasn’t done the honors application yet. Do you know what the cutoff date is to submit it?</p>
<p>It is tied to the date of the individual’s acceptance – the student receives and email inviting them to apply and including the link for the on-line app. Check the student’s email records to see when that came through. My memory is the Honors online app was due about a month, maybe 6 weeks, after acceptance.</p>
<p>He doesn’t really want to attend at this point, but I’m going to encourage him to submit it in case he changes his mind.</p>