Student Turns Down ALL the Ivies and other Elites for.....The University of Alabama! Bama Wins!

Parents Forum
121

I do have to say that I agree it’s a little odd for anyone to apply to all 8 Ivies as they definitely have different ‘feels’ and a student that would be a good fit at one probably wouldn’t find all 8 a good fit. So, it does seem like this student wanted to ‘hedge his bet’ and just wanted to get into an Ivy…any Ivy and with the low acceptance rates and the assumption that he’d be rejected, decided to apply to all of them to increase his odds of getting accepted to 1. I’m sure he was surprised that he wound up being accepted to all of them.

I also know that my son applied to an elite school, MIT, not being fully aware of the financial situation, in our case because I am a single parent and as a profile school, their need-based aid was dependent on his father’s income too, data that I didn’t have to quickly put into a NPC. So, we did a lot of ‘best guesses’, In my son’s case, although he was deferred EA, he was later rejected, so I never got to see the final numbers. I told him if he got in and that’s where he wanted to attend, we’d make it happen, but that’s easier said than done when you see the actual numbers.

I agree that based on the article we don’t necessarily know all the schools this student applied to and what strategy they used, so many of the criticisms that they didn’t use the best approach are not valid.

But for my own son when he applied 4 years ago now, I did my best to encourage the approaches I found here

He applied to (among a couple others):

Reach - MIT

Matches - Rose-Hulman (accepted), Georgia Tech (accepted), Purdue (accepted) (in state, public, financially feasible with no merit)

Safety - Alabama

And today: After leaving the decision up to him, he has finished his first 3 years at Bama, has completed an internship in his field, is currently completing a co-op position in his field, has travelled to Ecuador twice, and has been the student director of a honor’s program

Alabama does a REALLY good job of recruiting high stats kids. The visits are personalized. As a prospective student, my son had one on one meetings with head of his prospective department and a dean in the honor’s college and was personally introduced to the dean of the school of engineering. We had a regional recruiter that recognized us and was able to refer to our entire family by name. Ultimately, my son chose Bama because they made him feel valued…they made him feel like they WANTED him to enroll there.

There’s no way to ever know if he made the ‘best’ choice, but I have no doubts at all that he made a good choice.

122

I think we all know - if we’re honest with ourselves - that the Great Bama Merit Aid Bubble will come to an end sooner or later. It’s an unsustainable play to juke the USNWR ratings, which is going to hit the wall at some point due to diminishing returns and/or the Alabama citizenry waking up to the bad value they’re getting out of it.

But there’s no use in spotting a bubble if you don’t know when it will pop. Timing is everything.

I wonder, though, if this story is a sign that the Great Bama Merit Aid Bubble has reached a peak, or at least a new plateau.

Might this be Peak Bama?

123

The Alabama citizenry is getting bad value having their flagship university rise in stature?

124

Well, there are schools that have very active posters who think highly of their schools. That is not restricted to Bama solely and the school hardly has the most vocal “boosters” as Chicago, Berkeley, and Michigan has a large share of very vocal supporters. I’d call Bama a milder one … and they have had the football to legitimately crow about.

I also think that the Bama supporters have not engaged in the “better than thou” obnoxiousness as much as others. But as you said to each their own.

125

A student made a choice which takes account of his sibling and parents financial situation and gives him an affordable choice for his UG. This is what is preached on CC and numerous people are seriously disappointed in his choice. He will be more financially ready for medical school but some still believe this was a huge mistake.

We will never know all the financial details of this family but it is obvious the student did as he was able to make an informed decision which didn’t put his family at financial jeopardy. He can get to his ultimate goal which isn’t only a UG degree but an MD which takes more financial resources over a longer period of time.

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They aren’t. The aspersions are directed at the “BAMA Wins” meme - that somehow because a student took the money, that makes 'Bama “better” than the institutions this student’s parents decided they did not want to pay for him to attend. It doesn’t.

127

How is it that 4 out of 5 kids choosing Harvard over other Ivies/MIT/Stanford is an acceptable thread on CC but 1 kid choosing Bama over the same schools is not.

Bama is not worthy to crow about being picked over all those holier than thou schools?

128

@Snowdog It is a “win” for "Bama. They get a top notch kid and a lot of chatter/publicity.

@NavalTradition It probably will come to an end, and hopefully it will have the intended effect. U. of Florida did the exact same thing not that many years ago, and they have cut back significantly now on their merit compared to the past. Meanwhile, the schools reputation has increased significantly as well.

Considering that 'Bama has seen a big increase in their overall academic profile, how can you say that it isn’t a win-win for admitted students and for the State?

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^ People complained about the Harvard kids too. This is CC - complaints central.

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@CaliCash ??? Weren’t you debating between a bunch of state schools for a humanities major? Your comment really rubs me the wrong way, unless you can explain what is specifically horrible about Alabama. “Puke-worthy”? Why, exactly?

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@rebeccar The CC parent hype for Bama is puke worthy. Not the school. As I said at post #113

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I have yet to see any quantitative proof that someone majoring in the Humanities at an “elite” school gets a much better education than someone in the Humanities in an Honors College with students who are, on average, nearly identical in terms of stats.

ETA- Connections, etc? maybe. Education? doubtful

133

I must’ve missed it… who said this wasn’t an “acceptable” thread?

134

@TV4Caster You can’t quantify the difference between Daemen College’s honors program and Harvard either. That doesn’t mean a difference isn’t there.

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@CaliCash I assume you meant “can’t quantify”, and not “can quantify”. My point is that if the students at Daemen College in the Honors College have the kind of stats that many of the kids at Harvard have, then there is a good chance that they are getting the same education.

Of course it also depends on the quality of the professors but I have not seen any stats that show the profs at Harvard are that much better than those at other Honors Colleges.

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@TV4caster I made the edit and I strongly disagree with you.

137

There is a school of thought that says low income Alabama residents are passed over to admit high stats out of state kids who pay only room and board.

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I found this analysis about Title IX and how the school actually makes money from the sports interesting. http://regressing.deadspin.com/how-title-ix-actually-makes-money-for-some-schools-1704245381 It’s possible Alabama (and other schools) have done the same type of analysis. They believe they make more (whether through greater contributions or some other avenue) than they give up with the tuition.

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Could be. Making Bama more desirable may entice full pay out of state students, and some OOS Bama grads may stay in-state and become taxpayers with high incomes.

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@OHMomof2 Unless you are correlating low scholastic achievement with low income I think you actually mean low stat AL students are being passed over, since AL does not base its admissions at all on income level.

The problem with the argument that lower stat kids are being disadvantaged is that UA is not their only option. There are still dozens of other quality options for them to attend.