<p>Just found this board the other day and am looking for information about some Texas schools for my daughter. She's doing very well, but I've recently been "set straight" by some experienced CC'ers that she's probably not "REALLY" smart by CC standards ;o) So I'll just say she's doing well and I want her to at least consider some more challenging colleges than what we've looked at so far (A&M, UT, SFA, Sam Houston State, Texas State). We looked at Rice in Houston today, and have been advised to look into Trinity in San Antonio. </p>
<p>My daughter really likes San Antonio, and it sounds like a challenging school. It's close enough that the logistics could work out well since she's not real interested in driving after her accident last fall. </p>
<p>Her interests are very broad and she's not sure what she would choose for a major yet. </p>
<p>Stat's so far are 2160 SAT, straight A's through junior year, class rank 2 (most likely, but maybe 1 - waiting on transfer information still), 7 years marching band, 2 yrs. scholar bowl, 2 years UIL competitons, Girl Scout silver award, volunteer experience in community and church.</p>
<p>Oh, and wondering if there is a Catholic student center there as well.</p>
<p>A whole Catholic college just a skip, hop and jump across the MacAllister Fwy from Trinity. Incarnate Word is a small private college. If she’s thinking about attending a school with a liberal arts bent with sciences then Trinity will be a good school to look into by your daughter. An undeclared student can explore majors with Trinity’s flexible academic programs. Nice campus, you’ll like.</p>
<p>You can find a forum specifically about Trinity, where you can post your own questions or do a search of topics to research the college, by going to “Colleges” under the Top Forums heading. Scroll down to where it has the alphabetical listing.</p>
<p>Ahh, thanks Jazzymom. Sorry for being such a “noob.”</p>
<p>Batllo, thanks. After talking some more tonight (following the trip to Rice), she likes the sound of a liberal arts program that will allow her to explore a little bit. Sciences and math are definitely her strong points too. Can’t wait to take her there.</p>
<p>I know I’m early in the process, but I’ll sure be happy to finally hear her say "I REALLY want to go to ______ " so we can get more specific about planning.</p>
<p>John, Central Texas here. Your kid will do fine…and CC will be a great resource for you. </p>
<p>Slow down. Enjoy the ride. It gets much easier when you find that safety that she wants to attend and you can afford. Do that first. Everything else about the process was loads of fun. For us that safety was an OOS LAC with guaranteed merit aid for her stats. For y’all, who knows? </p>
<p>Visit. Talk. Search the web. Ask stupid questions. I did. Look at my post count. More than half of them were stupid. ;)</p>
<p>Sorry about the CC awakening. I had it , too. There are not many parents who have kids with stats higher than your kid’s stats as they stand now. It’s just that they all live on this block. ;)</p>
<p>My kid had a very similar SAT score and ACT score and rank and I was stunned (O.K… More than stunned.) when it was suggested that she re-take for elite admissions and merit aid. But they were right. The numbers and EC’s put up by un-hooked kids at elite schools is beyond belief. The larger scholarships at selective colleges attract HYP-stats kids and the winners usually bring more than that. Other than some exceptions for National Merit kids at schools my kid had little interest in, the big awards are rare as hen’s teeth. </p>
<p>If she likes the idea of an LAC in Texas don’t miss Southwestern and Austin College. Some other Southern LAC’s very popular with Texas kids are Furman, Rhodes, Sewanee, Hendrix,…heck - every “national” LAC has a big contingent from Texas. </p>
<p>Again, my D and I had a ball. Traveled the country by pick-up truck and occasionally by plane. Met some great folks and she ended up with wonderful choices. Your D’s story can be the same.</p>
<p>Sometimes your first instinct is the best. I think you’ve made an excellent first choice in Trinity. You’ve done 95% of the analysis – don’t get too tied up in the last 5%. I know many families that have a child - smart ones, like yours - and I haven’t heard single regret or transfer out. Just don’t be intimidated by the sticker price - they will certainly help you out.</p>
<p>I would have a few guesses why you may have ruled out UT in Austin. If you want to broaden your search a bit, in addition to the schools already mentioned, I would include Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans. New Orleans is a cheap SWA ticket away (even a cheap train ticket).</p>
<p>Man. This post is exactly where we are, with the exception of my son is a sophomore (and he wasn’t a girl scout). I visited Trinity last weekend for a symphony. Beautiful campus. Really great atmosphere and location. Limbwalker, you should probably make a campus visit. You may be able to solve your delima. I think your D stats will definately get her in. What were your impressions of Rice?</p>
<p>That’s funny. Yea, we’re just diving into this college search. I think it finally has her attention. I know it does mine. Don’t want to wait too long, and by the sound of some folks 'round here, we’ve already waited too long… </p>
<p>Rice looked pretty nice to mom and I, but daughter didn’t care for it being surrounded by the big city, and there were no stores and shops nearby for the kids to walk to. So it kinda felt isolated, even though it was surrounded by 4 million folks. But nice campus and beautiful buildings. Not for her though.</p>
<p>We’ll visit Trinity and Southwestern soon. Both are within 2 hr. drive, so we may hit them this week or next. Enough driving for this weekend though, esp. in this traffic.</p>
<p>“Sorry about the CC awakening. I had it , too. There are not many parents who have kids with stats higher than your kid’s stats as they stand now. It’s just that they all live on this block.”</p>
<p>Yea, I quickly figured that out. Mom and I were pretty high achievers in HS and college, but we never knew kids like some describe here. Or parents! ha, ha. Guess that comes with small town life. I’ll take the benefits of rural living anytime however. </p>
<p>Limbwalker,
Im sorry I don’t have much to offer. Im actually one step behind you, that’s why I find this thread so encouraging. I will offer to you that I talked to the admissions folks at Trinity and they said my S would be a great fit, and would likely get a good amount of financial aid. My sons SAT was 2060 (first try sophomore). He is thinking pre-med. They were very affiable folks and I enjoyed talking to them (we talked a while). Someone I worked with at the time advised me that the Trinity sticker price is just that, sticker. When they visited and started talking numbers, the school quickly chopped that number in about half. Keep in mind that Trinity has (or had) a billion dollar endowment. Much more that many much larger universities.
I will be interested to know what you think about Southwestern in Georgetown. My father in law is a tenured molecular biologist at UT-Austin. In reference to small private schools, he advised me to look at…wa la…Trinity, Southwestern, and Austin College in that order. He told me the academics are well respected at those schools and he has been to the universities on numerous occasions, especially Trinity.
What field is your D interested in?
BTW…we are at a 1a school between San Antonio and Del Rio (Brackettville).</p>
<p>Small world. We were just in Brackettville last weekend! Took the kids to Kickapoo caverns for a tour, then watched the bats emerge from Stuart bat cave. Stayed the night at Ft. Clark springs and kids swam in the pool. We loved it! But then, we can make a weekend vacation out of just about any place too. But very affordable and the kids will never forget the cave and bat emergence. We were the only ones there at the bat cave to see 1/2 mil. bats come out at sunset. Awesome sight. We just got back from the Houston museum of nat. history yesterday, and the kids all agreed that the trip to Brackettville was much better!</p>
<p>Anyway, she can’t really narrow it down to a specific field yet. She’s always been one of those students that “likes everything” and has never had a problem making an A in any class. In her entire school career, she’s never brought home anything less than a 94, and usually 98-100+ grades. When we ask her what she’s passionate about, she doesn’t have an answer. She’s not a really passionate kid - very measured and logical. Drives me nuts because I found my calling as an early teen and am doing exactly that almost 30 years later. So it was easy for me. Never changed majors or even ever thought about changing majors. And never regretted my choice for a minute. Guess I was very lucky in a way.</p>
<p>But she’s interested in math and science, history and language, and anthropology, and geology, and some types of biology…</p>
<p>limbwalker – sorry your daughter didn’t see Rice Village when she visited Rice. It’s a 16-block or so area of shops and restaurants a few blocks away from Rice. [Rice</a> Village](<a href=“http://www.ricevillageonline.com%5DRice”>http://www.ricevillageonline.com) We visited many colleges around the country on both of my sons’ college searches and we didn’t see very many campuses that had the fabulous variety of nearby shops and reasonably priced restaurants similar to the set-up at Rice.</p>
<p>Oops! Just saw this thread - I posted the post that follows over there first!</p>
<p>I’d never heard of Trinity University in San Antonio until this thread. Then Im reading all the congratulation messages to the graduating seniors in our local paper and one of the grads will be attending Trinity in the fall. Happen to know these people so I called the mom up and asked her about her D’s decision to attend Trinity. Some snippets of what she had to say - </p>
<ol>
<li>Campus is beautiful and the size her D was looking for.</li>
<li> A very extensive curriculum for a school the size of Trinity. It is a LAC with a strong science side.</li>
<li>Reputation of having wonderful, caring professors and small class sizes.</li>
<li>Undergraduate research is easy to come by if you want it, as are internship opportunities.</li>
</ol>
<p>OP, with your D’s stats, she would get a LOT of merit aid at Southwestern and Austin College (Southwestern has a great on-line chart) and a very significant amount at Trinity. </p>
<p>Since you mentioned being Catholic, you might want to at least drop by St. Edwards in Austin while you’re tooling up or down I-35. Your D’s stats would be way above average there, but it’s high on the “Colleges with a Conscience” list and is in a cool neighborhood in Austin.</p>
<p>I’ve always heard good things about University of Dallas, but the campus and surrounding area are not attractive. Sherman - where Austin College is - is nothing great, but the actual campus is lovely.</p>
<p>John,
My wife and I are just laughling because our situations are so alike. She is a secondary teacher at Brackett High School, and took a class out to the caverns last week, but duing the week. Awesome experience. We’re almost a carbon copy of academic achievement. All A’s, 98-100, seen a 94 once, but we got that straightened out in a hurry. My wife was a very academically gifted student at UT-Austin. From my freshman year, my goals were to be an Air Force pilot. Neither of us ever changed interests or majors. As a result of an injury, my S thinks he wants to work in sports medicine, like an orthopedic surgeon or the like. Fact of the matter is, he doesn’t really know. Were pushing him to get a vector in some direction. Gently nudging him toward the math and science route. He competes in the UIL math finals in Austin tomorrow. As a sophomore, we thought that was pretty awesome. Spending some time on CC cured me of that, but I think that’s where his interest will eventually lay.
FWIW, have you looked into aTm? My wife and son went down for an engineering weekend and were quite impressed. Looking at the A&M website, there is not nearly as much merit aid available, but tuition and fees are much less than the privates. A&M may be a good safety school, and a good school for comparision purposes in the event that you start talking $ with the privates. It seems to me that the cost range for all schools is not as different (private vs public) as one would think. The public’s dont offer as much of a price break, but the cost starts out lower. The privates seem to offer merit aid to the extent that it gets the costs down at least close to that of public universities.
The “fit” factor is huge, however. Smaller may be better. My son may have more kids in his calculus class at A&M that he had in his entire high school. That may take some getting used to. If your D comes from a smaller school, she may be the same. If you do look at A&M, look into the honors program. I work with a log of aggies and they say thats the way to go. Im confident your D would qualify.</p>
<p>In the end though, kids are resilient and will grow where they are planted.</p>
<p>FYI, next month is A&M’s SHIP programs, an overnight visit with an honors focus. Deadline to register has passed but if you call there may still be room. The programs are Monday-Tuesday for the four weeks in June, but the first week is closed already.</p>
<p>My ds will be there either the second or third week. He bleeds burnt orange so A&M is a hard sell, but he’s willing to keep his options open if for no other reason than to please me. I’m hoping SHIP is a little more gravitas and a little less howdy.</p>
<p>B.E.S., we sure missed that Rice village. I still want her to consider Rice, esp. since it is so close, but it will be her decision. She’s just not a fan of being boxed in by sky-scrapers, and her tolerance for that is way higher than mine. </p>
<p>As for the Catholic universities, I appreciate the info. If I had to say (and it seems to change weekly), she would be more interested in the best academics she can be involved in, and pursue her spiritual development at her own pace outside of the classroom. She and I both really like the idea of an active Catholic community and student center. But I don’t think she would put that before her academics at this point of her life. </p>
<p>Missypie, I saw the chart at Soutwestern and that looks very encouraging. With that kind of help, we could certainly consider sending her there. Without it, forget it! ha, ha.</p>
<p>Brackett, the A&M campus was just so-so to her, and the attitudes that come out of that place are a real turn-off for her. She can’t stand the in-your-face school spirit. I don’t have as much a problem with some of that - let’s say “enthusiasm” for one’s school - but it’s her decision at this point. And I love your “grow where planted” comment. ha, ha. I truly belive that too. I myself moved almost 40 times before I left for college at age 17! Tough childhood, but that experience gave me a heluva lot of resources to draw from at a very early age. My wife came from a very traditional family, and without assistance she would have really struggled. I’m afraid my daughter follows her in that area. Going to be a while before she’s ready to head out on her own. Maybe that’s just girls in general though. My 14 year old son could probably move out next week and be just fine…</p>
We were just there yesterday - literally two blocks from Rice (the stadium end) there are loads of small shops -well within biking and walking distance. And if you walk around campus, it’s very large and green and the only “tall skyscrapers” are on the Main street side of campus; the other 4 sides (campus is a weird 5-sided deal) are all two-story mansions and nice houses and such, with canopy of live-oaks. Well, anyway - we visited Rice about 6 years ago over the summer, and I thought it was a flat, empty, way too neat looking campus. First impressions aren’t always accurate… both my kids attended/attend Rice have had/are having an amazing time, with so many opportunities for research, so much support for all aspects of their lives, including the flexibility to change path and interests and still graduate within 4 years. They’ve met amazing people. I encourage your Dd to keep Rice on her list and take the SAT subject tests (or ACT) so that if she is accepted she can visit when students are there and really see what it’s like. :)</p>
<p>OP- [Alamo</a> Quarry Market San Antonio Texas](<a href=“http://www.quarrymarket.com%5DAlamo”>http://www.quarrymarket.com) % minutes away, just off the MacAllister Fwy heading north, exit Basse.
Enjoy shopping!</p>
ha, ha. Guess that comes with small town life. I’ll take the benefits of rural living anytime however. </p>