<p>My DS is considering TCU- what do you know?</p>
<p>College life? Frats? Admission? Merit scholarships? Any info appreciated.</p>
<p>Big frats. Easy admission. Easy to get good merit scholarships. Decent sports team, especially football. Kind of pricey but at least it’s not 50k+ lol.
That’s all I know about TCU.</p>
<p>Predominantly Greek, very small campus, lots of kids driving around in luxury cars.</p>
<p>Thanks - any more?</p>
<p>Recently checked the website and learned that the student body is 75% from Texas, with another large slug from nearby states.</p>
<p>Admissions is tough to say - I would say that it is generally easy to get in but the passed couple of years the number of applications has been fluctuating because they removed the application fee (ie, I think they have been trying to boost their stats by having a lower percentage of acceptance even though a larger number of those applicants may not be truly interested/qualified). I would say that a large number of students come from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and from the surrounding states but there are also a lot of people from the Chicago and Omaha areas.</p>
<p>As far as scholarships go, that really depends on your situation. Right now everyone in honors gets at least the deans scholarship to my understanding, which is currently about 5k a semester. There are a number of full rides, most are need or performance based not merit based. Base on what I was told by honors freshman year, at least the top 7% of students get the deans scholarship. However, they are currently working to make an honors college instead of just the honors department and I have heard rumors that there will be more scholarship money available for honors students.</p>
<p>As far as other finances go, you are required to live on campus for 2 years unless you live close enough to campus to commute from home. The dorms are about $3k a semester and the minimum meal plan last semester was $1800, so you’re looking at about another $5k a semester on top of tuition which is suppose to be about $14k next semester.</p>
<p>Speaking of food, the cafeteria food is edible but not great and gets old pretty quick. Almost everyone on campus has been complaining about it, so, perhaps they’ll make changes. There is also a “sports bar” and sandwich shop that have better food, but come off the meal plan in a different way than the cafeteria - most people go to them less often because the money they take from the meal plan can also be used at several local restaurants.</p>
<p>The campus has gotten a lot nicer in terms of facilities and appearance over the last couple of years. There’s a new student center and four new dorms and the older dorms are being renovated. That being said, the student center, which holds most of the dining facilities is on the opposite side of campus from most of the classes, so it can be annoying to get to depending on where your classes are located.</p>
<p>Greek life is big, for instance I remember 80-85% of the girls in my freshman class rushed (fall 2006). Not nearly as many guys rushed and I never felt pressured to do so, though I know some girls who did. Most of the major social events on campus are heavily tied to the greek life because most members of the student government and activities committees are greek. That being said, there is plenty to do outside of greek life and most members of the frats/sor. are nice and everything.</p>
<p>As far as academics go, it really depends on the subject area and the department. Class sizes depend largely on the department - premed classes, business classes, and the intro bio / chem classes are the biggest with up to about 150 people sometimes (capacity of the largest lecture hall). Personally, the largest class I’ve had had an enrolment cap of 40. I would say most of my science classes average 10-20 people, humanities around 25, and core classes 30-35. I had a class with 6 people freshman year (german 1) and a math class with 2 last year. </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, in terms of material taught I think some programs, such as the business school are overrated. However, for those who are actually committed to the program, there seem to be some great internship and networking opportunities which will probably be more valuable in the long run.</p>
<p>jlagrone - thanks for all the info, I appreciate that you took the time to write it.</p>