Lucie, actually, last Fall’s FRESHMAN class was bigger. The overall enrollment for this Fall set a record, but not that for the freshman class. This indicates that UA has started to tighten admission standards even more.
I do think Alabama high school counselors tend to be biased in favor of Auburn. The Auburn folks truly believe that Auburn is the Harvard of the South. They tend not to know how far UA has come, like how its Engineering program is now the biggest in the state, with the highest avg ACT for incoming freshman Engineering classes in the entire state.