@Yoda13, @egginmegan and @emptyingthenest5 I just wanted to pass along some additional info about LEAD for those who are considering whether to go. As I stated in my posts above, my youngest son who is admitted to McCombs received the invite to LEAD, which I found lacking in details regarding the programs content. I emailed and texted UT’s Campus Visits to get further info about the program including asking if it was similar in format to the “Best of Texas” program that my eldest son attended back in 2016 after he was admitted to Liberal Arts Honors (LAH). UT responded by email and I posted that info earlier; however, I did not notice until recently that UT also responded to my text stating that LEAD is in fact similar to Best of Texas. Based on the cursory information I’ve seen so far, it appears that LEAD is in fact structured similar to Best of Texas. So, in this post I’ll summarize what I recall was the format for Best of Texas.
As I recall, the kickoff event for Best of Texas was a plenary session for all attendees in Gregory Gymnasium. At this plenary session there were the standard or typical speeches to the attendees from the UT’s admissions staff; the president of the UT student body and some other dignitaries. None of this was particularly instructive stuff but it was meant to be a launching point for start of the program. After the plenary session concluded, the attendees were instructed to go to our individual college sessions for the afternoon. Of course, the identities of the colleges are based on the schools that the applicant has been accepted into. This was really the heart of the program.
My son’s individual college session (LAH) was broken into three parts as I recall. There was a combined introductory presentation to both the applicants and their guests. i recall that this introductory session is where we were served the catered lunch. After this introductory part, there’s a second session where the admitted applicants go off on their own for a discussion with current LAH students. While the admitted students were off at this meeting/discussion, the guests (parents and guardians) were given a Q&A discussion with the lead administrator for LAH. The third part of the individual college session then concluded with a sort of table talk as a variety of student orgs set up tables in the hallway outside of the meeting room and the admitted students had the opportunity to pick up literature and speak with representatives from these various programs. This concluded the individual college session. Again, this was the highlight of Best of Texas.
The remainder of Best of Texas were the optional program sessions occurring all over campus. Basically during the plenary session attendees were given a map of the university with an itinerary that listed various optional programs that we could attend. Some of the programs included a tour of campus; a session on financial aid; a session on studying abroad; a session on living on campus; a session on Greek life; and a reception in the Alumni Center for students from underrepresented minorities. Many of these sessions were scheduled concurrently so a prospective applicant and their guests had to choose which sessions they were interested in attending and then use the map to find the session location on campus. My eldest son and I attended a couple of the optional sessions but eventually he simply met up with some of his friends on campus that day to do their own thing and I went to the sessions that were of interest to me. Some attendees simply skipped this part of the program entirely and went home after the conclusion of the assigned college session referred to above.