Campus Visit this Sunday

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
1

Hi. Our D was accepted at A&M back in October, and we will be visiting the campus (and Baylor and UT-Austin) this coming weekend. She has events planned at Baylor and UT, but we will be on our own at A&M. We’ll be in College Station on Sunday AM and will have a few hours to explore before driving back to Austin for our flight home to San Diego.

From the TAMU website, it looks like organized tours are only conducted M-F. Can anyone recommend sites on campus we should visit? We have made a housing deposit with Hullabaloo as her preference, so we will be checking that out for sure. We’ll also visit the libraries and bookstore.

Any ideas you have are appreciated.

Thanks!

2

The spring sign ups for the clubs/organizations will be from 1-5pm at the MSC (memorial student center) I would suggest a quick trip through there before you go – there will be LOTS of students there & you’ll get a feel for the other things available on campus. You can park at Koldus building-University Center Garage (across the street) which is open to the public & pay via the machines ( it is an administration building with an attached multi-story parking lot) next to the stadium (Kyle Field). The bookstore is also in the MSC.

Walk thru the buildings (I think she wants engineering, correct?) - some will be open, others not. Generally students are friendly & will answer questions or help with directions (honestly our first trip here a student walked us from where we were lost to the building we were looking for - completely out of his way, happily did it & wished us well). Walk thru hullabaloo although you will not get access to rooms unless someone takes you, but you can always ask if you could see a room.

If you park at UCG, you could walk to the Evans library, then to engineering area , stop at Sbisa ( all you can eat dining hall), head to hullabaloo, and back towards MSC. If you like recreation facilities, go under the bridge to get to the recreation center. There are maps online & an app for your phone. http://www.tamu.edu/visitors/plan-your-campus-visit.html

Expect to walk - it is a huge campus. If by chance, she has already made up her mind based on other schools - the Bush presidential library is also on this campus & well worth a visit. (It is more like a museum if you haven’t visited one before).

It is a shame you won’t be here for a M-F tour, but given your trek from Baylor & UT you should see a difference between the schools even just walking around. Enjoy your day!

3

Here is a link to a self guided tour that might be helpful.

What does your daughter hope to study? I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these schools as each has a lot to offer. I am a graduate of Baylor (‘85) and my daughter is starting A&M at CS in the fall.

https://tamu.myuvn.com/self-guided-walking-tour/

4

@AGmomx2 and @TuBpence22 - Thanks for the recommendations. She’s been accepted into Engineering, hoping to eventually major in Biomedical Engineering.

5

Aggieland Day is on Feb. 10
This event can be a great opportunity to see the campus, tour housing and see the staff, too.
Gig em and Whoop!

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Thanks @LikeMomdid, I would love to attend Aggieland Day, but this will be our one and only trip to Texas before my D decides where she will attend.

7

I think your D is a NMF or NMSF? If so try this link https://admissions.tamu.edu/freshman/national-scholars they MAY be able to help you out on a Sunday (?). Can’t hurt to ask. Although the state of TX is basically closed today due to bad weather…maybe someone is online :slight_smile:

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@Agmomx2, yes my D is a NMSF, and hopefully a NMF. I submitted a request at the link you provided, thank you so much.

9

I hope that y’all have a great visit to the State of TX and the 3 schools on your daughter’s list. :slight_smile: A campus visit is the best way to see which school best fits your daughter’s individual needs.

Even though my older daughter was an Aggie class of '16, and we had visited CStat for games and various other activities during my older daughter’s years there, it was the campus visit that solidified my younger daughter’s decision to attend TAMU. It helped her to see that she would be comfortable being a student there also.

We have not visited Baylor, so I don’t have any info to contribute for that campus.

With UT in the middle of Austin, TX, the Capitol city, that campus has a much more urban feel. The buildings are attractive, I think that they are prettier than TAMU.

The buildings at TAMU are much more utilitarian and a lot are just boxy and not very attractive! There is one classic building on the West side of campus (maybe the Administration building?) that has columns and a dome and is beautiful. I thought that the plain building exteriors would be a turn off for my younger daughter as she enjoys beautiful architecture, but the welcome that she received from the students was what appealed most to her.

TAMU in CStat is a very unusual place! This is the friendliest campus I have ever visited! The students and staff are just so nice and helpful. And get used to hearing “HOWDY!” :slight_smile: If you need directions or have ANY questions, just stop someone. If they don’t know the answer, they will quickly get someone who does know the answer. In fact, when we were just probably looking puzzled, people would come over to ask if we needed help! There is definitely a special Aggie culture, it may not appeal to everyone, but I am grateful that both of my daughters were/are happy there.

TAMU is a HUGH campus and there is HUGE NUMBER of students, so I recommend that your daughter also find at least one small group to join if she enrolls. There are so many different groups, from Freshman Focus groups, major related groups, fun activities including dance groups, and even a Quiddich team, that hopefully at least one will appeal to her. In a school that size, it is important to find a few good friends and even more so since she will be from OOS.

Going Greek is also great if she is interested! Recruitment week is long and can be very hot and stressful, but that is one sure way of finding like minded friends if they can just survive that week. Both of my daughters are in a sorority and have made wonderful friends. When my oldest was married in the Summer of '16, there were 6 sorority sisters in the wedding and a total 15 of her sorority sisters who attended her wedding! My younger daughter has already made wonderful friends who are sweet, smart, funny and kind. A group of them gathered at one of their homes for a safe, fun New Years “sleep over” and there are plans for a get together at a parent’s lake house for Spring Break. Being Greek also gives them another “non-parent” grade requirement level and a built in group of people who can study together or tutor each other besides the social aspect. These friendships are life long and can be helpful wherever they go later in life.

College Station surrounds the TAMU campus and as a city is not a very big place, but it has every type of business that one might need, it is easy to navigate, and again, it is a very friendly place! Every business that I have shopped in has been very friendly and inclusive. I never feel like there is a division between the “town” and the “students”, it is just a really nice place throughout.

Have a wonderful visit to the great State of TX! I hope that TAMU is her best fit, but I am sure that she will thrive wherever she chooses to attend.
WHOOP! :slight_smile:

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@AggieMomAgain thanks for all the wonderful information. My D is really looking forward to seeing the school. She’s interested in pledging, and I’m happy to hear that it was a positive experience for your D’s.

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@kcheves Since your daughter is interested in Biomedical Engineering, as is my son who is currently a freshman at A&M, and also was accepted into UT Austin, Baylor and A&M, I can give you my son’s perspective on the same decision. Baylor does not have a BS degree in Biomedical Engineering; they do have a master’s however. My son felt that their engineering program was not as good as either UT or A&M. He said just reading the credentials of the teachers you can get a good feel, but in addition there were just more opportunities for research, etc at the other two schools. He wants to do biomechanics within Biomedical Engineering so his plan for Baylor would have been mechanical engineering BS with a MS in biomedical, if he had chosen to go there. UT has a great program but for him Biomedical Engineering at UT Austin is strictly from the chemical side. Biomechanics research at UT Austin is done in the mechanical engineering department, so that is where he would have majored had he chosen UT Austin. What he did not like about UT Austin was that he felt like he was in a city the whole time he walked around the campus; he said you could not tell where the campus ended and the city began or vs. versa. The kids were not as friendly there, and being more reserved and introverted, that did not appeal to him. The dorms at UT Austin were very old and not updated (he said they were kind of gross), most kids live off campus in apartments or private dorms which he said were not as nice as A&M’s new White Creek Apartments and Hullabuloo. With A&M they had a specific biomechanics track within the major which appealed to him and he was also interested in a new track they added this year which was biomolecular and cellular. He decided to pursue the engineering honors program at A&M which will allow him to fast track a masters degree. He came in with so many AP credits that transferred at A&M he is already technically a sophomore and after this semester a junior. The way that has worked out for him is that he can finish his BS degree earlier then 4 years while also starting his MS degree so that he can finish both degrees within 5 years, and that was a big positive for him. That’s about all I can remember at the moment, if you have any specific questions I can pass them along to him for you.

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@pbleigh thanks for sharing your first hand knowledge of the BME programs at these 3 schools. My daughter wants to eventually go into medicine. She has been accepted at Baylor and A&M, and is waiting to heat back from UT.

If she went to Baylor, she would pursue an undergraduate General Engineering degree, which has a number of possible concentrations, including Biomedical. This is offered through the Mechanical Engineering department.

The tradeoffs you describe are very helpful, and we hope to come away from our trip this week with a better idea for which school is the best fit. Thanks again.

13

@kcheves While at Baylor, she may want to check out two fairly new residential colleges; Teal for engineers and the one right next to it (can’t remember the name) for health majors. My son really liked those. Another school that has a great premed option in Texas is Rice; similar to Baylor they have a program you can apply for that gets you automatic acceptance into Baylor College of Medicine. And, an option to consider for A&M that my son looked into is Enmed ( I think that is what it is called). It’s a program where you can get your medical degree at the same time as a graduate engineering degree while pursuing development of biomedical innovations to market.

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Aggieland is a special place. The campus is beautiful. You can learn alot wisdom, knowledge and life lessons from the professor. Enjoy your weekend - watch the weather. My husband and I both graduated from TAMU, we are waiting for our daughter’s application decision.
Finds to see… the buildings where your department is, the library, sports arenas and MSC. Well, for lunch go eat Layne’s across the university, Chicken fingers.
Whoop! Gigem

15

If your daughter is interested in Greek life, then just drive through the Sorority row area at TAMU before you leave CStat… A lot, if not all, of the Sorority houses are on or near University Oaks, a street that runs from near the campus toward the main Hwy 6, just above the mall. The houses are mainly typically “Southern” style houses. If your daughter will be a legacy anywhere, check on the possibility of visiting that house.

I don’t know anything about the Sorority house area at Baylor, but I don’t think that the houses are in one general area at UT as it is such an urban campus.

Have fun! If possible, let us know what her thoughts are on her campus visits.

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@kcheves @AggieMomAgain
I can answer to Baylor portion: Baylor does not have sorority houses. Rather each sorority has a room in the Panhellenic Building on campus. I’m not sure where all of the sorority houses are at UT, but many fraternity and sorority houses are on the streets that are west of Guadalupe aka The Drag.

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Another vote for the Greek system here :slight_smile: The sororities are on Olympia, Athens & University Oaks , all grouped together. My OOS D went thru recruitment her freshman year too, made for a very easy transition to TAMU.

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Howdy,
Use the Texas A&M University App
it can navigate y’all around the campus.
The app have good information about TAMU.
Have fun and post about the trip.

19

We’re on our way home now, and I wanted to share our impression of TAMU.

We ended up doing the self-guided tour, and spent about 2.5 hours on campus.

We started with a great tour of the student Rec center, which is the best we’ve seen on our various college visits. Our tour guide was a pre-Med student, and my daughter picked her brain about her experience. Then we went through the MCS, where booths were set up for Greek and other organizations. We walked to Sbisa and had lunch at Smashburger, walked through the Ellis library, and visited Hullabaloo.

Overall impression is that the campus is huge and much nicer than we expected. Everyone was friendly, and I think TAMU moved up on my D’s list.

We also went to Baylor and UT on this trip. The schools are all very different, but each is in the running.

Thanks for all the advice and recommendations!

20

So glad that you and your daughter had a great experience on your visits to the schools in Texas! TAMU is the friendliest, most welcoming place I have ever visited! Let us know what she chooses!