<p>Hey Croft,</p>
<p>Great job getting into Furman! For a general idea of what the school is like, check out some of the older posts on this forum. We’ve covered a ton of stuff; if you have any other questions feel free to ask.</p>
<p>As with Elon, I’m not an expert on SMU, so it’s hard for me to offer a direct comparison. What I absolutely recommend is that, if you have the time/money/ability, stay overnight at both schools. I hosted a few guys last year, and it was an awesome experience. All of them, in the end, chose Furman. </p>
<p>If you want to visit Furman, you’ll have to do it soon. Contact the admissions office to try to set something up; you can also message me if that doesn’t work.</p>
<p>When you visit, make sure that you’re getting set up with a student who has a similar major/interests that you do. If you visit Furman, it’s not really going to be as informative if you stay with a freshman music major, who probably has taken all of one or two non-music classes at the school, and doesn’t know about Mock Trial, the Paladin newspaper, WPLS radio, FU2 TV, or the pre-law society. Ask your host to try to show you around all of the key parts of the school, and to introduce you to their friends. In my experience, people bent over backwards to give me and my prospective students things to do. </p>
<p>After visiting, you’ll know which school feels right. If two schools are really tight, I think that you really do have to visit to decide.</p>
<p>Now that I’ve thoroughly argued for a visit, I can talk a little bit about your situation.</p>
<p>Furman’s pre-law program is very, very, very good. Our Mock Trial team is one of the best in the nation (frequently beating the Ivies in national tourneys). Our Political Science program is tip of the top-notch. If you want to go to law school, Furman is a fantastic option. You’ll have close relationships with your professors, tons of opportunities to consult with the pre-law department, a great number of fellow pre-law students, etc. I can’t say enough about the experience I’ve had.</p>
<p>As for journalism, Furman doesn’t offer that as a specific major, but I do know that it’s possible to create your own major, which would be very doable by picking from classes in the Communications dept, and the English dept. Both are very good. The school administration is awesome to work with, and we’ve recently brought on a journalist from the Greenville newspaper and a long-form non-fiction writer to the English department. The Communication dept tends to focus more specifically on broadcast communication, and rhetoric. On a sidenote, I have lots of friends in journalism programs around the country (I was my HS’ newspaper editor in chief), at schools like Syracuse, Northwestern, Maryland, and Wisconsin. There is something to be said for getting immersed in a journalism program, but the piece of advice I got from the reporters I talked to was that it was much better to major in something more practical and liberal-artsy, all while gaining experience working on campus media outlets. I write for the school paper (not as much as I’d like to), and have a radio show on campus. At bigger schools, it can be hard to get a leadership role in those organizations if you aren’t part of the J-school, and don’t want to devote 40 hours a week. I love the laid-back atmosphere at Furman.</p>
<p>SMU is twice the size of Furman, and has a law school on campus. I don’t know exactly what that means for undergrads, but I would imagine that’d be a bit of a plus. The atmosphere of the two schools is also different, with SMU in a major urban center–Dallas–and Furman outside of a medium sized city. </p>
<p>I can’t comment on SMU’s journalism program, so I’ll leave it to you to research that.</p>
<p>I hope that answered some of your questions! If you have anything else FU related to ask, feel free to do so.</p>