My daughter has been accepted with Murchison scholarship and will be competing for the Tower.
She’s having a tough time deciding between Trinity and UT (I realize they are very different. We live in Austin and are super familiar with UT). One of the factors will be how Trinity evaluates her dual credits. She will have 2 APs (5s) but more importantly, almost 60 hours of 4.0 credit from Austin Community College.
Can someone share experiences or insights as to how accepting of these credits Trinity may be? She’d really like to graduate in 3 years instead of 4.
Thanks!
Yes! I have a lot of experience with this question. Our son attended an early college biomedical high school, and knew he wanted to attend a rigorous school, like Trinity, Rice, or UT. Top tier schools frown upon associates degrees because the students will need to retake many of the classes because of the rigor of the academics. Our son graduated with 57 hours and received 5’s on AP bio and Calculus. Trinity accepted 20 hours as electives and 6 hours for AP for biology and chemistry, for a total of 26 hours. You will find the selection pool for candidates at Trinity is exceptional, so many students will have a lot of college hours.
I cannot stress enough how different Trinity University is compared to a junior college. With only PhD’s teaching the students at Trinity, the rigor and level of instruction, is excellent, yet demanding. My son has found the dual credit classes very helpful in providing background information as the teachers take a deep dive into the material.
Trinity is an AMAZING place, and your daughter will be glad she has the extra hours under her belt when she sees the difference in the workload at Trinity vs. Austin Junior College.
@DisneyMom99, thank you. This is helpful. In the time since I wrote this back in early January, she has been accepted to Plan II honors at UT so we have some tough decisions ahead! (Also waiting on Rice). Plan II will accept some but not all of her credits. But it’s cheaper than Trinity after Murchison (unless she wins the Tower). So it’s a lot to weigh.
I don’t doubt the instruction (through either program) is stellar. Our community college is known to be very strong and some of those hours are through the honors program there too, so I hope it’s given her a very strong foundation. Now we just need to see what makes economic sense and which one she likes better.
Thank you!