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2020 Application

Welcome to the Blount (pronounced blənt) Scholars Program Online Application. Although this will easily be the most fun you will have in connection with your college search, you may want to give the application the once over before starting. This will enable you to save your responses in advance in a word processing program, which is always a good idea with web submissions. Not trying to get all in your business, or anything. Just saying....
Please note that your information is saved on our server as you enter it (however you must still hit the "Submit My Completed Application" button at the end to finalize things).
Ok, so the application has three sections:
- Section One - Pedestrian but nonetheless necessary biographical data--name, contact information, GPA & test scores, etc.
- Section Two - In which we try to get to know the person behind the myth. This might include: querying you about your preferences, passions, prejudices, and peeves; asking you to inhabit hypothetical scenarios or imaginary worlds; having you write a little poem; requiring you to translate a prose passage from Iriquois into Urdu.
  
  Ok, the thing about the translation was a gag. We do ask you to solve some differential equations, though.
  Ok, the differential equations bit was a gag too. Loosen up, will you?
- Section Three - Wherein we wax curious about how Blount might fulfill your educational quest and how you see yourself fitting into the program.
Now get busy. And remember: if you're not having fun doing this application, you're living wrong.
Section One
Just the facts.
Name*
First Last
Email*
Enter Email Confirm Email
UA email*
Enter Email Confirm Email
Permanent Address*
Street Address City State / Province / Region ZIP Country
Phone*
CWID (if issued)
Areas of Current Academic Interest*
GPA*
Current High School*
SAT EBRW (if taken)
SAT Math (if taken)
ACT Composite (if taken)
Reference's Name (Please select someone who knows you in an academic capacity. N.B.: we are not soliciting a letter of recommendation, simply the contact information of a reference in the event we feel we need additional information.)*
First Last
Reference's Position/Title*
Reference's Email
Enter Email Confirm Email
Residence in the Blount Living/Learning Center during the first year is required. Please indicate your assent below.*
- I understand the Blount residency requirement and am willing--indeed, am eager--to live in the Blount Living/Learning Center.
Section Two
♫ Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...♫
Please run with the following prompts. How long should responses be? Totally up to you--there's no minimum or maximum length.
In 2006, Gregory K. Pincus contrived a new poetic form, the “Fib”, which he describes thus: “A Fib is a six line, 20 syllable poem in which each line gets its syllable count from following the Fibonacci sequence. This means the six lines have a syllable count of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 respectively. Some would say the first number of the Fibonacci sequence is actually a zero... so imagine every Fib starting with a beat of silence.” An example is below. Replace it with Fib of your own.*
Our names generally come to us unbidden but, as W.C. Fields once remarked, “It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.” Rename yourself onomatopoetically and explain how the sounds you’ve chosen say something about who you are.*
So your first week in the dorm, you discover that the occupants of the double next door are none other than Pig-Pen (who, despite retiring from the Peanuts strip in 2000 after 46 years, still looks like a nine-year-old) and Mr. Clean (who, frustrated with waning adulation from housewives owing to declining product market share, has decided to pursue the college education he never obtained). It’s only been a week but, predictably, these guys are already at each other's throats about the condition of their room. Imagine a brief exchange in which you undertake the task of conflict resolution with the two of them.*
In his landmark study of scientific change, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn identifies historical shifts in scientific thinking that he calls “paradigms”. According to Kuhn, paradigms are “universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.” And he further observes that the people who have achieved the “fundamental inventions of a new paradigm” have almost always been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. If Kuhn is correct about the young and the new-to-field, speculate upon why this might be so.*
Take a blank piece of paper (8.5 x 11) and make your mark upon it, so to speak. You may write, tear, draw, color, fold--anything you like except a photo collage (which doesn't rule out either photography or collages). When you're done, scan it and upload. Alternately, of course, you can create a digital file from the outset and just upload it. It must be in one of the formats specified below, though.*
Accepted file types: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, pdf, doc, docx, txt.
Are you a smoker?*
- Yes
- No
Gentle applicant, you shouldn't smoke. It's unhealthy. And besides, the dorm, indeed the whole UA campus, is a non-smoking area. Promise you'll give it up. (Note: agreeing or refusing to give up smoking will not affect your admissions decision.)*
- I promise to quite smoking.
- Negative. I'm not promising. It's none of your business and I resent the institutional paternalism that has produced this question.
Excellent. Don't start. It's not good for you.
Section Three
The Fit
How did you first learn of the Blount Scholars Program?*
What aspect(s) of the Blount Program induced you to apply?*
Far from operating on a merchant/consumer model, The Blount Scholars Program is a partnership between faculty and students. Blounters, as students in the program are called, are legendarily intrepid in helping to shape their academic and social lives. Which of the Blount groups below could you imagine yourself participating in?
- Executive Committee (student governance)
- Ambassadors (student recruitment)
- Mentors (new student orientation and transition to UA)
- Social Committee (Fun--note capital "F")
- Media Committee (print publications, website, social media)
- Blount Instruments (music, aka the food of love)
- Poetry Collective ("the art of substantiating shadows")
- Trivium et Quadrivium (trivia team--undefeated!)
- Blount Cineastes (film group--turtleneck sweater required)
- Roll Tile (mah jongg club)
- The Blount Truth (literary magazine)
- Check Please! (chess club)
- BFF's (Blount Fibre Fiends: fiber arts collective)
Now name an activity that isn't in the list above that you could imagine initiating.*
What did we miss? If there are additional documents (tax returns, dental X-rays, talley sheet from that time you bowled 285, etc.) that you would like to include in your application, please upload them here. (Optional)
Drop files here or

Accepted file types: jpg, gif, png, pdf, mov, doc, docx, txt.
reCAPTCHA
Almost done! Although your information is saved on our server as you enter it, you must check the reCAPTCHA box above and hit the submit button below to complete your application. Otherwise, you will have to fill out the entire application again.
“But how can a program committed to diversity and social justice discriminate against robots?”, you ask? Actually, we don't. The reCAPTCHA is just for the bad robots: corporate spyware, denial of service attacks by competitor universities, foreign governments trying to tamper with Blount's application process. But benign, curious robots that are clever enough to pass the Turing test are welcome in the program.
How good would a bot have to be in order to fool us, i.e., to be as good as one of our applicants?
Insanely good.
Comments
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College of Arts & Sciences | The University of Alabama

2020 Application

Section One

Section Two

Section Three

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