Reading this thread, the thought that comes to mind the most is the vagueness of “top university.” Who is providing the definition and what is their rationale? It could go any number of ways.
Where The University of Alabama excels over other schools which attract a lot of top students is the overall financial package. Scholarships are not based on income or the subjective opinion of admissions and financial aid officers. UA is not using a very holistic admissions for top students; one simply needs to have the required grades and test scores and not have too many red flags popping up and one is guaranteed admission and a large scholarship. This benefits students who might not have the perfect well-rounded application or whose families don’t have income which is structured in a way that the generous financial aid packages of many “top schools” award generous amounts of financial aid. If a family can come up with around $15,000 per year (often less), the student can have a very comfortable lifestyle when combining that money with a Presidential scholarship. Compare that to a $20,000 per year scholarship to an Ivy League school. A family might need to spend over twice the money just so the student could attend and afford the essentials. Even attending the flagship university in ones home state can easily cost more than $15,000 per year, especially if that university does not award many merit scholarships.
I do believe that students who choose UA are benefiting from information asymmetry. UA is not as well known as many of the schools listed as top universities on CC. If one looks at the threads on UA’s CC forum, it’s not easy to get students from other parts of the country to consider a school located in the Heart of Dixie, especially when they hear it’s a 65 minute drive down a mostly rural freeway from the regional airport to campus. For those students who do look into and decide to attend UA, they’re getting a very good deal, even at full price, for a university which offers most anything a student could want. This is why many, if not most OOS students at UA do not have the large scholarships. One can get an excellent college experience at UA for a more reasonable cost than many other colleges or universities.