For the fourth consecutive year the University of Alabama at Birmingham has reached record enrollment, with combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment of 17,999 students.
UAB continues to see growth in the number of incoming freshmen, with 1,676 students enrolling in fall 2012. That is a 4.4 percent increase from 2011 and represents a 31 percent rise since 2008.
Students are attracted to UAB for many reasons, including the university’s numerous honors programs, the opportunities to participate in research as an undergraduate, the location in Alabama’s center of commerce and the increasing appeal of the campus.
In addition, the average ACT of the incoming class increased to 24.5, with the mean high school GPA reaching a new high of 3.54.
The total number of residential students at UAB has grown to nearly 2,300. This is the largest residential population UAB has ever had, a record the university has broken for seven straight years. First-time freshmen living in on-campus housing number 1,156.
This year 68 percent of the incoming freshmen live on campus, a record number, and 98.9 percent of those are full-time students.
UAB students have earned several national and international honors in the past year, including a prestigious 2012 Rhodes Scholarship, the university’s first Boren Fellowship, three 2012 Goldwater Scholarships, two UNCF/Merck Science Initiative scholarships (of only 15 given nationally), two U.S. State Department Critical Languages Scholarships, a William Jefferson Clinton Scholarship and the university’s 11th Teach for America corps member in four years.
In the last year UAB was among only 11 universities nationally to earn the coveted Beckman Scholars Program Award for exceptional mentoring and training of undergraduate researchers. UAB had 14 graduate programs in the top 25 in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Graduate Schools,” with the master’s in health services administration program at number 5. UAB’s postdoctoral experience ranked first nationally among public universities in The Scientist’s “Best Places to Work as a Postdoc.”