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Anonymous wrote:only strange dcum parents care about rankings. kids want to have a good time and great weather.

+1. Sun Belt is also booming economically, while Northeast, New England, and the upper Midwest are all dying.

This.

Plus the astronomical cost of housing, childcare, etc. in DC, NYC, Boston, etc. are prompting college kids to explore other areas for jobs as well as putting down roots.

My kids from Dcumlandia opted for southern schools for college and they aren’t planning to move back home. They aren’t interested in scrambling to save up for a million dollar home with a brutal commute…surrounded by people who will make assumptions about them for living in the south or attending a southern school. They are over it. They remain liberal, but they aren’t interested in the DC rat race and small-mindedness. I don’t blame them.

They are going south because they are priced out of the better cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago. That's it. It's not because they love the south.

See up thread of applications to jobs by college graduates.

Newsflash: NY, Chicago, and Boston aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

We have relatives in all three cities. We like visiting. None of us would ever want to live there. All three are too cold. NYC isn’t a place I’d want to raise kids.

We also know a lot of younger couples who have left to head south. These are people with big salaries (and family money). They want more space, better weather, outdoor activities, etc.

Assuming kids who opted for school in the south are “less than” because they don’t opt for a few cities is interesting…and speaks volumes about you.

um.. ok, but anecdata <> statistical data

I didn't say anything about kids opting for schools in the south. My post was about where grads want to work, and it's mostly not in the south.

Some people need better data analysis and reading skills.

We are evaluating two different things.

Statistically, yes, there are currently more jobs in certain big cities.

But things continue to shift, and smart kids are watching trends to determine the next hot area before it becomes so hot.

Buy early. Get in on the ground floor. Etc.

I’m sure you’ve seen the recent data on southern cities trending up in terms of new jobs and good housing prices.

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Anonymous wrote:Seriously why are people looking or choosing OOS Alabama? It’s one of the lowest ranked schools and keeps declining. What am I missing?

Great way for average kids to get merit scholarship in a rah rah school where critical thinking and intellectual debates are not necessarily part of the daily environment.

Average kids do not qualify for big merit at Alabama. Look at the chart on their website.

The big money at Bama ($24k off a nominal tuition of $34k) starts with an SAT score of 1360. That’s 91st percentile for all SAT takers, but the distribution of SAT scores in the DMV is much higher. For example 26% of white kids and 40% of Asian kids attending school in DC proper scored 1400+. So yeah, Alabama gives big merit to kids who, here in DCUM-land, are very much in the thick part of the bell curve.

Alabama $60k-ish / year COA. So $24k off gets you to mid-$30k which is the similar to state flagships if you're in state.

Mid-30k is a lot cheaper than going in-state to UVA.

UVA in state is $40k/year COA.
in the same ballpark

Know a lot of kids with 1360s getting into UVA from NoVa, do you? The fact is UVA doesn’t want those kids and Bama welcomes them, and at a lower cost to boot.

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Anonymous wrote:I hadn't looked at US News in years. Seems like Bama is ranked around the same as JMU, which makes sense. I would probably have seen similar rankings 30 years ago. I don't think the low ranking is as indicative of anything you might be thinking, OP. The difference in schools in these rankings are so marginal and meaningless and the magazine is infamous for rigging the rankings to make it look like schools are moving up and down in order to sell more editions.

Bama does have a certain culture attractive to certain students. Does it bother me? No.

Me neither, to each his own, but I would hope this would shut up the ridiculous troll who keeps insisting that high stats kids are ditching the Ivy + and applying to 'Bama

I am an actual parent of a Bama NMF and I can tell you that my child and most, if not all of their friends were accepted into T10s-T25s at the lowest (for those who are ranking obsessed). Bama offers an excellent education and tons of opportunity - very small class sizes, research for undergrads, job placement. They routinely beat T25s in robotics competitions, model UN, etc... out of all the schools we visited ... Bama was the ONLY school that seemed to be hyper focused on the student experience/opportunities and job placement (vs. fancy buildings, chairs in this and that, etc. -- ie. they are not chasing prestige, or rankings).

Best example I can share is that one program head told us that they had been given a several hundred thousand dollar grant from the university to do with as they pleased...and do you know what they did with the money? Divided by the number of students in the program and gave everyone a scholarship towards the cost of the program.

Granted, it's not for everyone. For the student who plans to coast on the "name brand" of their college and not take advantage of or seek out opportunities, Alabama might not be the right fit. But for bright go-getters it's a no brainer. Bonus - the campus is beautiful and the people are friendly.

So where do all these kids eventually land? If you go to NYC for any number of finance jobs or SV, you still aren’t running into many Alabama grads…and in NYC they are likely back office type workers. It’s not a target school for many of these employers.

I just can’t see the logic to passing up say Brown if you intend to work for the top coastal employers.

It doesn’t actually seem like a “no brainer” to me…but makes sense for certain paths.

The NMF kids who take the full ride and the other kids there on big scholarships are super smart kids who take advantage of being big fish.

This Bama senior is a Rhodes Scholar
https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholar-community/rhodes-scholar-bios/rhodes-scholars-class-of-2025/kate-herndon/

One of Alabama’s top programs is the Randall Research Scholars Program and they produce competitive graduates who go on to elite schools.

https://rrsp.ua.edu/about-rrs/external-awards

Yes, these kids are the minority at Alabama but they maximize the opportunities and value of a free education at an R1 university

So…grad school is the answer? BTW I think the Ivy+ produced 80% of the Rhodes Scholars just eyeballing the full list.

Most of these kids (NMF & high stats) already have grad school in mind. So they take the free ride for undergrad and move on. Again these are not the majority of the undergrads paying $$$ to go to Bama.

Bama isn’t Harvard or T50 and doesn’t pretend to be. But it does offer an enticing package for a certain type of student with financial needs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hadn't looked at US News in years. Seems like Bama is ranked around the same as JMU, which makes sense. I would probably have seen similar rankings 30 years ago. I don't think the low ranking is as indicative of anything you might be thinking, OP. The difference in schools in these rankings are so marginal and meaningless and the magazine is infamous for rigging the rankings to make it look like schools are moving up and down in order to sell more editions.

Bama does have a certain culture attractive to certain students. Does it bother me? No.

Me neither, to each his own, but I would hope this would shut up the ridiculous troll who keeps insisting that high stats kids are ditching the Ivy + and applying to 'Bama

I am an actual parent of a Bama NMF and I can tell you that my child and most, if not all of their friends were accepted into T10s-T25s at the lowest (for those who are ranking obsessed). Bama offers an excellent education and tons of opportunity - very small class sizes, research for undergrads, job placement. They routinely beat T25s in robotics competitions, model UN, etc... out of all the schools we visited ... Bama was the ONLY school that seemed to be hyper focused on the student experience/opportunities and job placement (vs. fancy buildings, chairs in this and that, etc. -- ie. they are not chasing prestige, or rankings).

Best example I can share is that one program head told us that they had been given a several hundred thousand dollar grant from the university to do with as they pleased...and do you know what they did with the money? Divided by the number of students in the program and gave everyone a scholarship towards the cost of the program.

Granted, it's not for everyone. For the student who plans to coast on the "name brand" of their college and not take advantage of or seek out opportunities, Alabama might not be the right fit. But for bright go-getters it's a no brainer. Bonus - the campus is beautiful and the people are friendly.

So where do all these kids eventually land? If you go to NYC for any number of finance jobs or SV, you still aren’t running into many Alabama grads…and in NYC they are likely back office type workers. It’s not a target school for many of these employers.

I just can’t see the logic to passing up say Brown if you intend to work for the top coastal employers.

It doesn’t actually seem like a “no brainer” to me…but makes sense for certain paths.

The NMF kids who take the full ride and the other kids there on big scholarships are super smart kids who take advantage of being big fish.

This Bama senior is a Rhodes Scholar
https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholar-community/rhodes-scholar-bios/rhodes-scholars-class-of-2025/kate-herndon/

One of Alabama’s top programs is the Randall Research Scholars Program and they produce competitive graduates who go on to elite schools.

https://rrsp.ua.edu/about-rrs/external-awards

Yes, these kids are the minority at Alabama but they maximize the opportunities and value of a free education at an R1 university

So…grad school is the answer? BTW I think the Ivy+ produced 80% of the Rhodes Scholars just eyeballing the full list.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only strange dcum parents care about rankings. kids want to have a good time and great weather.

+1. Sun Belt is also booming economically, while Northeast, New England, and the upper Midwest are all dying.

CA is in fact booming…SF is again the hottest place to be and the most distressed housing markets are in places like Austin as everyone is moving back to CA.

See PP showing that the top destinations for college kids are the “dying” cities of NYC, Boston, Chicago et al.

really? source?

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Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?

These rich out-of-staters aren't going to be 1 of 34,000 random Bama students, they're going to be 1 of 10,000 in Greek life, which at the "top tiers" is highly competitive with ultra low acceptance rates.

I thought those are only reserved for the rich kids from the south?

Also, all the people commenting on this thread are going because they need the $$$s, so they aren’t rich.

Sigh.

Rich people are smart about money. Milk the merit aid and invest in grad school or housing.

If you’ve ever been on campus, you would know how rich these kids are. It’s shocking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only strange dcum parents care about rankings. kids want to have a good time and great weather.

+1. Sun Belt is also booming economically, while Northeast, New England, and the upper Midwest are all dying.

CA is in fact booming…SF is again the hottest place to be and the most distressed housing markets are in places like Austin as everyone is moving back to CA.

See PP showing that the top destinations for college kids are the “dying” cities of NYC, Boston, Chicago et al.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only strange dcum parents care about rankings. kids want to have a good time and great weather.

+1. Sun Belt is also booming economically, while Northeast, New England, and the upper Midwest are all dying.

This.

Plus the astronomical cost of housing, childcare, etc. in DC, NYC, Boston, etc. are prompting college kids to explore other areas for jobs as well as putting down roots.

My kids from Dcumlandia opted for southern schools for college and they aren’t planning to move back home. They aren’t interested in scrambling to save up for a million dollar home with a brutal commute…surrounded by people who will make assumptions about them for living in the south or attending a southern school. They are over it. They remain liberal, but they aren’t interested in the DC rat race and small-mindedness. I don’t blame them.

They are going south because they are priced out of the better cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago. That's it. It's not because they love the south.

See up thread of applications to jobs by college graduates.

Newsflash: NY, Chicago, and Boston aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

We have relatives in all three cities. We like visiting. None of us would ever want to live there. All three are too cold. NYC isn’t a place I’d want to raise kids.

We also know a lot of younger couples who have left to head south. These are people with big salaries (and family money). They want more space, better weather, outdoor activities, etc.

Assuming kids who opted for school in the south are “less than” because they don’t opt for a few cities is interesting…and speaks volumes about you.

um.. ok, but anecdata <> statistical data

I didn't say anything about kids opting for schools in the south. My post was about where grads want to work, and it's mostly not in the south.

Some people need better data analysis and reading skills.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?

These rich out-of-staters aren't going to be 1 of 34,000 random Bama students, they're going to be 1 of 10,000 in Greek life, which at the "top tiers" is highly competitive with ultra low acceptance rates.

I thought those are only reserved for the rich kids from the south?

Also, all the people commenting on this thread are going because they need the $$$s, so they aren’t rich.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?

These rich out-of-staters aren't going to be 1 of 34,000 random Bama students, they're going to be 1 of 10,000 in Greek life, which at the "top tiers" is highly competitive with ultra low acceptance rates.

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Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?

Who cares? Is your life so uninteresting and devoid of status you have to live through your kids' college acceptance rate(s)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only strange dcum parents care about rankings. kids want to have a good time and great weather.

+1. Sun Belt is also booming economically, while Northeast, New England, and the upper Midwest are all dying.

This.

Plus the astronomical cost of housing, childcare, etc. in DC, NYC, Boston, etc. are prompting college kids to explore other areas for jobs as well as putting down roots.

My kids from Dcumlandia opted for southern schools for college and they aren’t planning to move back home. They aren’t interested in scrambling to save up for a million dollar home with a brutal commute…surrounded by people who will make assumptions about them for living in the south or attending a southern school. They are over it. They remain liberal, but they aren’t interested in the DC rat race and small-mindedness. I don’t blame them.

They are going south because they are priced out of the better cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago. That's it. It's not because they love the south.

See up thread of applications to jobs by college graduates.

Newsflash: NY, Chicago, and Boston aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

We have relatives in all three cities. We like visiting. None of us would ever want to live there. All three are too cold. NYC isn’t a place I’d want to raise kids.

We also know a lot of younger couples who have left to head south. These are people with big salaries (and family money). They want more space, better weather, outdoor activities, etc.

Assuming kids who opted for school in the south are “less than” because they don’t opt for a few cities is interesting…and speaks volumes about you.

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone rejected from Bama?