We had the first of our National Merit recruiting visits at UTDallas. The National Merit Scholar program, which gives automatic admission to their Honors College, really seems to make a “school within the school” environment. My daughter met for over an hour each with a professor from the dept of choice as well as the director of the NMS program. Also got tours of the dorms and honors facilities from some students currently in the program which gave plenty of opportunity to ask questions directly to the students. They were all from out of state, and they all spoke very highly of their experience and the program. Also completely seemed like the kind of people my daughter would want to be friends with. We were very impressed with the opportunities. Lots of neat little perks like monthly nights out to dinner and the symphony or opera with other National Merit scholars and faculty. Not the right fit for every student, but definitely worth a visit, IMO.