<p>one more thing,</p>
<p>I came from a large, upper middle suburban highschool. During senior year, it seemed that a large segment of the population was obsessed with the great schools they were going to out of state. One year later, a number of them returned to the University of Minnesota. Apparently not everyone enjoys having to hop on a plane everytime they want to come home. Some do, sure, but i'm not sure that it's entirely necessary to leave TX to get a good education. but that's just me. </p>
<p>(plus, big schools can be as small as you want to make them. get involved, and it'll seem like a small community very quickly.)</p>