<p>Well this is long, but maybe there is some helpful information for Texas residents in here and well as our general experience.</p>
<p>We did this with D in 2007. A little high school background, she was an low average (83-85 GPA if I recall) student at a tough & small private high school. ACT of 26, SAT of around 1700, she took AP English 11th grade, took the exam, made a 3, opted for College Prep English her senior year, Pre-AP and AP Biology, did not take that exam, Pre-AP Chem, no physics and was on our school’s non AP math track. She took 4 years of college prep math, algebra I & II, Geometry and Trig, but the only thing that got her through trig her junior year was an awesome teacher (who loved her thankfully), very small classes and tutorial twice a week. She’s an art student, is not math and science brained at all. We have an amazing art program. She wanted to Art Education which is basically an art major and a minor in teaching, 132 hours. In order to do the teacher certification program even for art, she had to have one semester of College Algebra or above and 2 semesters of a lab science. </p>
<p>Knowing her strengths and weaknesses she did a lot of wavering back and forth, but in the end decided to start at a two year private college (before her college search I didn’t even know such a time existed) and on the whole it was the best decision for her. Mostly pros and one relativity big con (for us) but had we done better homework we would have at least known about it.</p>
<p>Pros: 1. And this is an important one, in Texas (and I’m assuming other states as have an equivalent as well) there is what is called Texas Transfer. Its difficult to find information about unless you know it exists and was suggested to us by the art dean, who was her academic adviser as well. Basically it works like this, at a two year school a students takes and passes core classes from a specific list (which you can find with digging on the TEA website, but which her school had available) and this is guaranteed to transfer and meet core curriculum requirements for any Texas public university. The catch is, it was to be recorded on the official transcript as Texas Transfer from the 2 year school. This was great in a number of ways. First, there were some required core classes at the 4 year university at the freshman/sophomore level that were not available at her 2 year school so she was able to substitute some classes that were available and not be behind when she transferred. Second, this allowed her to take a couple of classes that she wanted to take and/or avoid some others, knowing they would transfer and would count. For instance her 2 year school offered the required university core speech class and another speech class that was taught by the president of the college and was an excellent class, both counted at her lower level, and the 2nd class was listed on Texas Transfer so also counted. There was a computer class & history she needed for SFA that was not offered at Lon Morris, but they offered another off the list, so they counted. She graduated with an associate’s degree, transferred just fine. Then met with the new dean for her degree plan which is when I found out how important it was that Texas Transfer be marked on her transcript. They had her as still needing core courses, a quick trip to the registrar’s office for a copy of her transcript marked Texas Transfer and that was cleared up. (Note, I’m not opposed to extra classes so much as it was the fact that she already needed 132 hours for her BA). We we lucky advising at Lon Morris was great, so that first semester she knew her plan to be able to transfer in smoothly.</p>
<p>Pro 2: Small classes, her college algebra class started w/20, several dropped, ended w/12 but she passed w/a B, physics, again small classes, one A, one B, but she was able to know her professors, ask for help, they were available, she would have never been able to do that in a class w/100. (She can do the math/science, she hates it and convinces herself she can’t)</p>
<p>Pro 3: Easier transition to dorm and campus life, had always been in a small school, 40 in her senior class, and she’s not the most outgoing, would probably have been lost, but was able to fit in and was art club president her sophomore year, probably wouldn’t have happened at a bigger school. </p>
<p>How good was the education; To some extent, I think it’s as good as you make of it, she said even with that small a math class, some students made no effort to seek help or ask questions, only complained, hence the drops. Lon Morris chooses students at random to take ACT’s (CAAP) Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, in four areas Writing, Mathematics, Reading and Critical Thinking and she received recognition for scoring above the national mean in all 4 areas, (again she was thrilled by math), I have no idea what the national mean was, so take that for what it’s worth but final result: she transferred into the honors program, is president of the art educator’s club or association, was a finalist in the undergraduate research symposium this past spring, carries a 3.7 (which still thrills her when she thinks about it) SFA was not my choice, she loves it, but she chooses her schools by their art department and professors, she could care less about anything else. She has an art education instructor who she idolizes, has actually taught art at the elementary level, (where she wants to) and has art exhibited in art museums, so that’s the kind of thing she looks for. </p>
<p>The Con: Transfer aid packages on the whole are not as strong as freshman aid packages, which caused her to have to take out a little unsubsidized Stafford loan that I hated to see. However as a finalist in the research symposium, this qualified her for a fairly big scholarship for this upcoming year, which may allow her to not have to take any loan at all this so it might balance out, depends if she can student teach and do her work study, which I’m not sure about. On other caveat concerning financial aid. Texas has (IMO) one of the poorest grant programs for colleges among the states (we rank low in several other areas too, don’t get me started). We have the Texas Grant, which as I found out is A: not guaranteed to every high school student that qualifies for it, when it’s out of money each year that is too bad to all the rest of the high school kids who qualified (seems to me if a state is going to offer a grant for college to high school students based on certain qualifications, it should fund it for all those that qualify, and from the reading I’ve done that’s how other state’s grant programs work) and just in case anyone is wondering it’s only for public schools and you have to start at a public school to ever get it, so because she was transferring from a private college, to a public university, she was not eligible even though she met the criteria as a freshman back when. I knew it was a public school program, I just wasn’t aware that because she started as a freshman at a private she was automatically ruled out for any future use.</p>