^I would guess that the 6-yr graduation rate for honors students at UA is in the high 90’s with the only exceptions being students who withdrew for personal reasons or transferred. I agree that this student will have no issues getting out in 4 years, unless HE doesn’t want to. Didn’t it say he had 15 APs? Then he’s coming in as a high sophomore already.
Yes zinhead. This is a common belief. But the ivys do not offer merit aid, so that is a non issue, and the NPCs can give a general idea (general, not specific) of the family’s EFC. A student looking for merit aid should be looking at different schools. He looked at a few, ans the UA was likely his safety. There are other schools (eg ASU) that are transparent with merit aid figures. People doing their HW right do not have to apply to 14 schools.
What if he happened to like Alabama? What if he enjoys the almighty football? What if he found the support he will receive important to boost his chances for medical school?
I am not a great fan of the school, but I find a lot of the criticisms misguided. Would attending a school such as USC with less money or support really be better? What if he had opted for a school such as Rhodes or a different LAC?
After all, he might very well aspire to apply to the Rhodes Scholarship as a famous QB did recently.
He’ll never know what the missed opportunities might have been and he’ll probably do well, very well, at UA. Much easier to get a 4.0 there which is what medical schools seem to want. The family income must be incredibly high for Harvard not to be affordable. If UA was his only affordable choice, then he had very poor guidance when making his list. Personally this outcome would not be a cause for celebration. I wish him well at UA and hope he goes on to become a great physician. I also hope that his parents are able to set aside what they’re saving on undergraduate costs to help him with his medical school bills. That would be a good outcome.
I think it’s entirely possible that if this student had not been admitted to University Fellows (a VERY exclusive group at UA) he and his parents may have gone ahead and stretched to try to fund an Ivy education. He didn’t just get into the Honor’s College, he got into one of two elite “honors programs” within the Honors College.
It makes sense, if you have the stats and the profile, to apply to the Ivies and Ivy-equivalents if you’re hoping for the most generous FA awards. A lot of “doughnut hole” families are prepared to make the sacrifices to pay those schools’ EFCs (even when they feel absurd), but that does’t mean it isn’t going to HURT. And then after running the net price calculators and getting a number you think you can live with, you find out that there’s a good chance that your second, third and fourth years are going to be even MORE expensive:
So when a perfectly respectable state flagship is offering you a free ride AND admission to one of its top programs, whose graduates have historically been competitive with elite school graduates, then you take the offer seriously, and seriously weigh the pros and cons.
And we don’t know that the schools listed in the article were the ONLY schools he applied to. The author is a Cornell grad, and it’s possible it was his decision which schools he chose to highlight in the story. Maybe Ronald did apply to some of those elite programs at other more prestigious schools and didn’t get in. Or he visited them and didn’t like them. Who knows?
I don’t get why people are making so many assumptions about his or his parents’ poor financial planning, naivete, or “bad” college counseling. Just because he didn’t make the choice you would have, doesn’t make it an ill-advised one.
It is a cause for celebration for UA. They seem to land all the big football stars and so why not a highly sought after academic star for a change?
An annual bill of 4-6k after all the scholarships are stacked is a much better choice for the parents than 50-60k + which sounds like the choice for years 2-4. As a parent I do appreciate a kid doing it for his parents!
@Zinhead, the NPC’s should tell him his chance at fin aid at the Ivies+Stanford and they don’t give merit money.
If he’s going to cast a wide net due to financial concerns, why not apply to 9 other schools where he actually has a chance at merit money?
^^^Who says he didn’t? Where does it say IN THAT ARTICLE that he ONLY applied to the schools cited?
Or maybe he did only apply to the schools listed because he thought he could live with the numbers the NPCs spat out, and later discovered that his sister’s current enrollment in college was what was making those numbers doable? Maybe his “safety” really was his only viable option in the end. So what?
The kid got accepted to 12 (or more) “elite” schools and an elite program at a big public flagship. How was his strategy a bad one?
That is the fate of everyone, except for the people who transfer! Students who made the opposite choice might never know the opportunities they missed by enrolling at one of the Ivy League schools.
For every highly successful student at the top schools, there are a number of students who did very well at cheaper or more pleasant and fun schools.
From my small circle of friends and family who made similar choices, it is hard to draw definite conclusions. I know Harvard legacies who pushed their kids to attend UD (as in University of Dallas) for UG. It did not stop the student to make it to Harvard Medical School. A student who went to Cornell never made it to medical school. A different one went from Tulane to Washu Medical. More? Students who were admitted to Stanford + Ivy ended up taking the money (and prestige) of scholarships at UNC and UTD (again, that is UT at Dallas) and it did not stop them to go to Stanford Law and one of the best medical school in the country. Not enough? A friend picked UT (Austin this time) over the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT to study neuroscience – by choice. And, of course, most everyone hear has heard about Curmudgeon daughter Yale<Rhodes and finally Yale Med.
While the obvious choice for someone who was admitted is to enroll at the most prestigious school, some have to weigh different elements and made the final choice.
I think that successful students will emerge from the pack regardless of their destination. For the ones who view UG as a stepping stone, the choices are less obvious. For some, attending a top school is hardly a bonus.
PS Fwiw, a number of the students above has a list comprising only THE safety school and mostly high reach schools. There was NO need for a number of the schools listed herein a la USC et al. No need whatsoever as they were never considered good choices. The students were in Texas.
Good point. I mean, had the kid chosen Stanford or Harvard, would they have even mentioned he applied UA? Just a thought.
A-freakin-men @LucietheLakie. This thread is a prime example of CC Craziness.
Aside from the scholarship, maybe he:
Wants to stay closer to home
Wants more of a chance to be a standout student
Wants to live in one of the nicest dorms in the country
Wants to learn in a brand new, massive, state of the art science complex
Wants to use AP credits to lighten his course load, allowing more time to maximize GPA
Wants the big time sports and school spirit
Wants to be surrounded by beautiful girls and incredibly friendly people
Wants to have all the above and still get into top med schools
Did UA really "win? A Ford costs me less than a Mercedes, so I “choose” the Ford. I guess that means that Ford wins… It would be interesting to take away the full ride and to see what the decision would be. It would also be interesting to know how much influence the parents had in the decision making process. There are tons of kids here on CC that are attending colleges they didn’t “choose.” Or maybe the student absolutely loved UA-wonderful! If that is the case it is unfortunate that he cited that the main reason for the choice was the full scholarship…
Another thing to think about is - for interest’s sake alone - was this student rejected anywhere? Or did he have clear acceptances across the board? That is pretty impressive.
Also, I find it hard to believe that there are no pretty girls at any of his other options.
Maybe HIS idea of pretty is more common in Alabama.
Or maybe he has a girlfriend going to UA. 
:))
I’ll just compare the Bama cheerleaders to the ones at the Ivys 
“Vandy, WashU, Duke etc have merit money but to be frank, they need much higher standardized testing scores and probably academic achievement (not sure where he ranks, how good his AP scores are etc) that those that got him into the schools.”
As a male URM (the bomb of admissions hooks) his stats are high enough to get in any place he applied. But his donut hole parents are not going to get him any $$$ at the Ivies. Stats probably were not high enough to attract merit money at WUSTL, Vandy, Duke.
I’d bet he did apply to a bunch of the other typical merit money schools. But saying he turned down USC or Tulane to go to Bama isn’t as good a story as turning down Harvard.
These state U honors colleges are specifically designed to poach kids just like this away from fancier colleges. Oklahoma, for example, gets lots of press for how many Rhodes Scholars it produces from its honors college. Being a Morehead Scholar at UNC, for example, is super attractive as compared to being a full payor in the crowd at Harvard.
Think of all the essays this kid had to churn out to apply to all those fancy schools… Yuk.
Of course there are pretty girls everywhere. It’s just that U of Alabama is blessed with a very high ratio of them. It’s quite impressive.
Shrinkrap does have a point, though.
Could not agree more. Every time a good student chooses goes to State U (for financial reasons - you can bet if he got full tuition from Harvard, 'Bama would be a speck in the rearview mirror!), it takes exactly nothing away from Yale, Princeton, etc. There are plenty more where he came from.