I don't want to rain on Packer's enthusiasm. In fact, I love it. BUT, we alumni need to be honest if we want to help make UA what it deserves to be.
For some reason, over the last 8 or so years, Auburn has been out-recruiting Alabama's in state students. UA is surely getting its fair share of top in state students, but just look at the following links to see that Auburn is getting a much bigger share of the students in Madison, Jefferson, Shelby, Montgomery, Mobile and Baldwin counties. What is strange is that UA was out-recruiting in state students by the mid 2000s, then let Auburn go back to winning the in state recruiting battle around 2010. I have been following this from about 2010, and have been noticing the trend become more of a problem. I HOPE UA has woken up and realizes they need to do better. This in state tuition freeze seems to suggest that!
https://web.auburn.edu/ir/factbook/e.../soafmfhs.aspx
http://oira.ua.edu/factbook/reports/...-high-schools/
On the other hand, I would rather see UA greatly raise its admission standards to keep out the students with low ACT scores. There is no reason why the state flagship must be expected to take in students with an ACT of below 21. It is absurd. UA has an extremely wide middle tier range, from 23-32. Schools like FSU, Clemson, USCarolina, etc, have much higher lower tier quality, even as UA has a much higher quality upper tier. Raising standards would probably make it difficult for UA to reverse the in state problem for a while, but over the long term, increasing selectivity would make more of the top Alabama students want to go to UA, not Auburn. For some reason, too many people still think that Auburn has much higher admission standards. I think Auburn does (their high acceptance rate reflects largely their overall higher quality but much smaller applicant pool), but it is not as greater as so many think.
I agree with another person here who said the Board of years ago made a huge mistake letting the Huntsville and Bham campuses to have the Engineering and medical focus, respectively. What in the hell where they thinking? It is much easier for those schools to get research funding and if you look at their state funding, they get FAR more per student than does UA. It is pretty depressing seeing how much more money both UAB and Auburn get. Yet Auburn folks insist the state starves it to keep UA pretty. Another big Auburn fib.
I just hope they start the Capital Campaign before the next crash! One thing that is confusing is that Auburn's endowment is still less than UA's. Could be due to the fact that many of the pledges to their campaign won't come in for years to come.