Hi everyone! I’m starting this thread because it seems like many other schools have a lot of information from current students/interviewees about their particular scholarship weekends but TCU doesn’t have one and I think it’d be useful for future students invited to the Chancellor’s Weekend. Everyone is free to chip in and I’ll try to answer any questions (and hopefully other attendees will too). FYI, the weekend was from 2/18 to 2/20.
This is about the weekend in particular, not the scholarship. I have limited amount of information about the latter since I’m not actually in it yet.
About me: I was invited to the weekend and I think I interviewed well but of course I’m not sure if I’ll get it.
Costs: They don’t pay for airfare. They pay for the candidate to stay in the Honors dorm with a host for the two nights. Parents are invited and I don’t think I met anyone there without their parents but the parents don’t get lodging. I would recommend the Cityview Hyatt House because it’s nearby (7-10 minutes), it’s nice, it’s cheap, it has really good breakfast, and apparently it’s where TCU parents stay when visiting their kids. They pay for every meal while you’re there (including parents and other family members), but the first night is more of a reception with nice finger foods than dinner.
Timeline: The first day is an Honors college preview with just students invited to be a part of the HC. The second day is a lot more “open”. All admitted students are invited. You can choose to go on a campus tour or a tour of Fort Worth. Then there’s the interest sessions and housing tours. You get to see a mock class in your declared major but they let you move around if you want. The second night has a huge Celebration of Achievement dinner where they basically wine and dine you and there are some really good speakers. The third day is your interview. They place you into a time slot anywhere from 7:50 AM to 5:30. I would recommend asking for an early one if you need to catch a flight.
Interview: Here’s where it gets a little weird. So the interview is actually two twenty minute sessions. The first session is called the Presentation, because you’re basically just doing a presentation on yourself. You sit in front of 4 panelists and they you talk about yourself for 5-7 minutes after which they ask you questions, sometimes related to what you said and sometimes related to your application. Before you go, you take a survey where you get your “strengths” and apparently you’re supposed to use your strengths to talk about yourself. Ideas include: How have your strengths helped you? How will your help the world using your strengths? Why do you think your strengths are important to your personality and your story? I used my strengths to prevent myself but I know many people who didn’t. I just talked about two random quirks in my life and how they reflect my strengths. Although I felt that the email traffic pointed us to use our “strengths” results to create our presentation, I think the interviewers just want to hear you talk about who you are and you don’t have to directly mention them.
After you finish that you go to the actual interview with 4 different people. They’re not people matched with your major, if that happens it’s just a coincidence. They ask you about your essays, your activities, and I even got asked about one of my teacher recommendations (Why do you think your teacher said this about you?). Before you go to the weekend they give you a list of sample interview questions but honestly most of the questions are not on there because they’re particular to you and your story and your application. I would still glance at them though to make sure you can answer them. Remember to smile!!!
The interviewers really make an effort to make you feel comfortable. There’s absolutely no need to be too nervous, there’s no “grilling” questions and no one tries to trip you up. However, they do have a lot of information about you with them and some questions get off the beaten path. For example, a biology major kid was once asked “How would you explain DNA to your 8 year old sister?”
General Impressions:
TCU’s community is the most supportive one I’ve seen at any college I’ve toured or heard about. The other candidates and the professors and the current students were some of the nicest people I’ve met. It’s really a school where people are encouraging you to succeed.
Milton Daniel Honors College is beautiful. Hands down the best dorm I’ve been to. The reception/lobby area looks like it came out of a hotel, the rooms are spacious, the beds and the desks are obviously new too. The school provides every room with a mini fridge and a microwave. Also as a side note, if you’re being invited to the Chancellor’s Weekend, you’re obviously part of the top applicants at the school. As such, you might–might–feel a little out of place when you’re just hanging out with the average student. I felt this way a tad bit on the second day because the average kid that gets accepted to TCU is just not representative of the people I hang out with (not that I have anything against them–it just so happens that my friend group is extremely competitive academically and would never even bat an eye at TCU; such a shame! They’re missing out on so much!) and sometimes I felt a little out of place. But when I was hanging out with other prospective scholars and current scholars at Milton Daniel, I just felt really at home. Throw out the rankings when you’re talking about the Honors College. Those kids are amazing and worthy of top schools.
Dress nicely for every event, but casual is okay for the middle day because you’ll be walking a lot. Overall, I felt that even when the schedule didn’t say to dress up, everyone around me dressed up so I was glad that I did too. I mean a nice dress or a button down and khakis with dress shoes.
Overall atmosphere is relaxing but supportive and vibrant. My host’s roommate and her friend took me and some other prospective scholars out to Sweet Sammies and then we walked around West 7th and went to In-and-Out. That was my favorite part of the weekend. If your host wants to do something with you when you’re there, I suggest asking to go down to West 7th!
My only concern with the campus is this: it’s not very diverse at all. I mean racially or socioeconomically or even geographically. I think nearly half the people there were from Texas. Only maybe 10-15 out of 110 came from a state that wasn’t Texas or bordering Texas. I felt a little out of place (I’m Asian), but everyone was really nice so it’s not too big a deal. Among the potential candidates, I would say around 15% were people of color. Maybe even less.
I was they want to enroll 50 Chancellor’s Scholars out of 110. Speculation says they might give 60 or so offers.
I realize no one’s going to find this helpful for at least a year, but hopefully it will be used by many future scholars to come. Go Frogs!