My D, a junior is top 2% GPA in her class and her PSAT score, SI of 209 as best we can figure seems to equate to about a 2250 on the old SAT (We’ll know for sure after she takes the new SAT this summer). She’s most interested in the natural sciences, probably biomedical, but has strong interests in the humanities and liberal arts/political science type things. Rice and UT are on the definite apply list right now. As far as colleges in Texas, there are lots of colleges, and if she wanted to stay in Texas, does anyone have any recommendations on what other colleges in Texas she should consider, and why? The rest of them all seem to be more or less of the same caliber, with Rice being the high star in the Texas sky, and UT a good choice albeit it a huge campus – although honors classes if she gets in would be smaller. Thoughts?
Texas A&M, SMU, Baylor, and TCU are the only other top 100 universities in Texas. Sure, there are lots of colleges in Texas, but not many will be a good fit for a top 2% / 2250+ student besides Rice and UT.
Thank you @goldenbear2020! A&M sort of falls in the UT category as the other major public school but she much prefers UT – its funny how people are very drawn to one or the other. Maybe she should apply anyway. I saw SMU has freshman scores similar to UT but I did the financial aid calculator (we’re mid to upper middle class) and it would cost about $20,000 more than UT or Rice. She will consider out of state but would love for her to be in driving distance from home (by Texas standards).
@CorpusChristi, has your D visited any campuses to gauge size, social fit, etc?
Lots of ways to make UT Austin feel smaller. I recommend with her varied interests, she look at the Plan 2 major in addition to a science major. It is highly competitive, but viewed as the best of both a liberal arts education and a large research university education.
If she prefers a smaller campus and more personalized environment, visit Trinity University in San Antonio. Trinity in Focus is a great visit day.
Many of the schools mentioned (SMU, TCU, Baylor) and other public schools (A&M, UTD, even Texas Tech) have honors programs, scholars programs, early acceptance to Med school programs, etc worth considering if you find the school to be a good fit. There are a lot of very bright students at all of these places. You will find these all to be more generous with merit than UT or Rice.
Visit a variety then your D may be attracted to some of the elite scholarship programs at some of these schools. President’s Scholars at SMU, Chancellor’s at TCU, etc. McDermott Scolars at UTD is possibly the most generous and comprehensive of any in the country. It attracts elite students that forgo top ranking schools to participate. These are all highly competitive, but just examples of opportunities for top students that find they prefer to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond.
Thank you @lots2do ! That is very useful advice. She has been on the campus of UT and Rice and will visit them again for information sessions in the next couple months, but not the other campuses. I will look into these programs, that helps get us started on the right track on possibilities.
UT Dallas is an awesome school, but not one I would choose for biomedical. They are great for speech pathology, computer science, business, and anything tech.
The honors program at UTD is great. My daughter has really enjoyed participating in it.The perks are very nice: 24 hour honors lounge, front of the line for registration, honors classes (very small and heavily discussion based).
Thank you @awintx! That is a thoughtful piece of advice and I am passing it on to my D. Is it very hard to be selected for honors?
Your daughter will have lots of options at many Texas schools. As @lotstodo mentioned, there are some great scholarship programs available at many private universities. Depending on your daughter’s extracurriculars, she might have a chance at a large merit award at Rice which would bring the price down to somewhere near the price of UT.
She would have automatic money at Baylor, based on her class rank and SAT. https://www.baylor.edu/estimator/index.php?id=926075&s=1
Good luck with the search!
Thank you for the helpful information @ScienceGirlMom. It will be up to her to kind of figure out which ones she may be interested in besides UT and Dallas. I tried the Baylor thing out and it seems it would still cost more than UT. We’re definitely hoping for acceptance and a decent package from Rice so that would also be an option. She doesn’t have nearly as much extracurriculars as most posters seem to have on here but we’re optimistic. She may apply to some out of state “reach” schools also. A lot will depend on her SAT and ACT scores from the summer, and her several AP test scores I suppose this May. This college business is exciting in both good and bad ways!
I would recommend Rice or Baylor for a kid of her caliber and interests if she wants to stay in Texas. UT is good but it’s HUGE and you don’t get much guidance or sense of caring community. Rice and Baylor are smaller, rank well, are great for majors of her choice, give good scholarships, have a family atmosphere and provide good college experience. Both have a great alumni network that comes in very handy in Texas, specially for health professionals. By the way, neither is a party school. UT and SMU are better at partying, most kids enjoy that aspect.
If you don’t get decent scholarships then go with UT, it’s a GREAT school for the price. SMU and TCU are good if she is getting a nearly free ride. SMU and UT have better network in business community.
Thank you @WorryHurry411 . I’m hoping she will get into Plan II at UT but don’t know her chances – it seems like she would get smaller classes and more personal attention with that. I hadn’t really considered Baylor because she wasn’t seeming too interested but that is something to consider. The online calculator indicated it would be about twice what UT would cost, though so am sort of hesitant to have her apply there. Good advice, thank you.
I think Trinity could be a good match. Second best school in Texas in my opinion - behind Rice. Really like Trinity’s core curriculum so the student gets to explore for two years, and can still graduate in 4 years. Best undergrad student/professor relationships I have ever heard of. Beautiful campus in a great city with a lot to offer. Reasonable price once the scholarship money is included.
Thank you @CanuckHorn! We will have to check out Trinity. I hadn’t really thought about that.
I am prospective international student and I will be able to pay $8k-10k per year for my COA. Can I get enough scholarship in UT Dallas? Please reply
@Aguero I don’t know enough yet about the scholarship process criteria at the individual schools to be able to advise on that. I think it will depend on your family’s financial situation and your academic record. You should definitely apply and see what happens. Good luck!
@goldenbear2020 I beg to differ. I was a top-1% high school student who went to Trinity along with other top students. Many of us had quality college options to consider. Trinity has excellent liberal arts programs and professors (in which I majored and minored) AND hard sciences programs, with a brand new science center to boot. Trinity graduates go on to top grad and professional schools in high numbers as well.
My d has similar stats and similar interests. I guess I know many Baylor and TCU grads and would never consider those schools for her because they are crazy $$$ and honestly I’ve never been any more impressed with their grads than grads from the state schools.its not worth the $$$. Looks like she could get the cost down to $30-40k with merit from Baylor maybe. My d wants to go out of state so we are looking at schools with those programs where she would get good merit $$.
If she stays in state the only schools I see her considering are UT and A&M where she will be auto admit. However, she is not thrilled at the idea of A&M lol.
She’d be in for hella money at Southwestern. Apply early and be in the running for the Brown.
http://www.southwestern.edu/aid/types/scholarships/merit.php
@texex1 thank you for the perspective on Trinity. D has said she doesn’t want to go to a college with a small student population the same size as her high school, in other words around 2,000 or less, so she seems to not be too eager to think about colleges the size of Trinity, although Rice seems more palatable since the campus population is 2-3 times the size of her high school. I can see that Trinity is a good school She is going to visit the Rice campus during her high school spring break to get an idea of what its like (Rice won’t be on spring break yet). @Youdon’tsay Southwestern is likewise somewhat small in population for her as is Trinity. @carachel2 I agree, it seems like the net calculator costs on most private colleges in Texas (except maybe Rice) is substantially higher for us than UT would be, and UT Plan II seems like a nice possibility if she were accepted. She visited a Plan II class and had a good feeling about the program. It’s early in the game still and she isn’t really spending much time thinking about this until summer – its mostly good old dad although I do need to stay in the background and let her steer the college ship. Out of state reach colleges are also possible. Thank you all for your input!
The visit to Rice was great, but then I came home and ran the net cost calculator again and this time the cost about about $14,000 per year higher than the first time. Not sure what I did differently but this time I had filed my actual tax return so it was less of a guesstimate. Somewhat disappointing! So it went from cheaper than UT to more expensive than UT.