Right now I’m looking at UH and UTD (having a bit of difficulty deciding; leaning towards UH), but I’m wondering if I’m potentially skipping over on any colleges might be worth my time. I’d prefer to be near an urban area and a pro-LGBT/non-religious environment is a must have.
UNT, I believe, has close to a full ride. Denton is a college town with a laid back vibe. TTU has an absolute full ride. It is a conservative area but I went there as a vocal liberal/non-religous person and had no issues. Texas State does offer $10,000/yr which is about half of what it would cost in a fun town. My DD is at UTD with their NM scholarship and it would fit your description - very diverse and exposure to many cultures. There is A&M, but it really doesn’t fit your requirements. When looking at the different schools, do consider the GPA required to keep your scholarship. I know a 3.5 sounds easy when you are in HS but depending on what you are majoring in can be very stressful to keep at a university.
@GTAustin Thank you for the info! I’ll take UNT into consideration and am researching TTU right now. Honestly I’m kind of glad that National Merit lets me narrow down my options, since I’m really bad at choosing from 300 different colleges. :v
Edit: I forgot to mention, I can’t really find any info about keeping up the scholarship through GPA. Does anyone know if there are any requirements for UH, UTD, UNT, or TTU?
I believe UTD is a 3.0 GPA requirement.
I do believe UTD is a 3.0 and TTU is 3.5. I could not find UNT’s GPA. It would be a question to ask them.
This discussion has made me curious, so I have been reading about UTD. It sounds like a great, up-and-coming place! They are smart to reach out to NMSF. Helps spread the word nationwide.
My son is a lifetime 4.0. (4.0/4.7) His recent 1550 SAT also gives me confidence. TAMU Engineering is my first choice and I am not even considering the 3.5 requirement. Am I wrong here?
Both of my girls were similar with scores and GPA. Both went into CS/engineering and neither received less than a 3.5 but it definitely was not as easy as they/we thought. The first year is the key one, staying focused on academics vs social. The GE classes definitely helped keeping it above a 3.5 and kept their stress level down. Getting a 3.5 in their technical classes was a challenge. I definitely would recommend not taking more than 15 hours that first semester and I think the advisers will try to talk you into 12. The key is staying focused on academics and not being drawn into the party scene.
@FSUdad93, one more thing I wanted to mention. It sounds like your son is similar to my DDs in that they have never really been challenged academically. Learning things have come easy to them. They have never had to look for help. It changes in college. They will be challenged and their grades are based on fewer scores. I few tests and a couple of projects will make up their grade. They need to learn to seek help early. My DDs thought they could figure it out themselves and left them struggling when that first project was due. Tell your son to use all available help - TAs, professors, math labs, other students and not to wait if he does not understand something. Try to do it yourself first but seek help when you need it.
I dunno, @FSUdad93 , that sounds like a lot of pressure on your kid. But of course you are best suited to determine if he can handle that pressure.
@FSUdad93 my son went to a boarding high school and kept a 4.0 gpa and had great test scores, so he was used to balancing study and ‘play time’ (as he already lived in a dorm for 2 years). He went to a college in the North East and will graduate next year. Their gpa requirement was 3.0 so I’m very happy he kept his NM scholarship, but he will not graduate with honors (he needed a 3.5)
I guess my advise to your child would be not to rush college and take a few introductory classes, my son used his AP scores to advance and looking back this was probably a mistake.
It would be interesting to hear of a NMFs story who went to Texas State. It has a reputation as being both a party school (heavy party—as in one death already this year) and not a high achieving community at all. From our area, the kids who go there are the ones who barely took an AP class in high school and who had no chance at all of even walking into the doors at TAMU or UT.
I would love to hear differently and would love to hear that Texas State is growing a community of scholars with their NMF program. I’ve yet to read about that here on CC. UTD, U of H, etc. all have made huge efforts in growing their NMF community. But I’ve never heard of Texas State making similar strides.
@FSUdad93 I would think long and hard about a GPA requirement of 3.5 in engineering. That is super high. It all depends on his high school of course. If he is on track to make a 5 in AP physics, AP chem and AP Calc BC then maybe. But keep in mind the support at TAMU is running thin for the freshman caught up in the middle of the “25 x 25” action, the department is massive and these kids are sink or swim.
For reference, my daughter and a cohort of similarly high achieving friends at her school in First Year Engineering are all praying for a 3.0. She had a 34 ACT and was ranked in the top 10/675 at her school. The first semester has been stressful to say the least—and all of her friends will validate this. The average first year engineering GPA after the first semester at her school is 2.98.
If your son was going to be a Liberal Arts major I wouldn’t even blink at that GPA requirement.
Great advice as usual @carachel2 and @GTAustin!
Without the Brown Scholarship at TAMU, it isn’t even an option. The Brown though puts TAMU in play!
I should add that UCF is his first choice at this point. UTD is right up there. We are only considering academic “Full Rides”. If his Harvard application or U Chicago comes through then we will cross that bridge at that time.
@carachel2 I personally don’t have a very high opinion of Texas State based on the kids that I personally know that are going there. My kids joke that if you have a pulse you can get in. To be fair if they are preformance arts majors or elementry ed majors I think it’s a great choice, not so much for STEM majors. Really can’t see a NMF picking Texas State over UTD, Texas Tech or UNT…
I agree about NMF picking UTD, TTU, UNT over Texas State with a major reason being money. Texas State doesn’t offer close to a full ride. I will say the entry standards for Texas State are higher than TTU. I know numerous kids that got turned down by Texas State that are now attending TTU. My brother-in-law, at one time, was being considered for the head football coach there. One of the reasons he turned it down was because it was harder to recruit athletes there because of the academic requirements when compared to TTU. TTU does have a better program for STEM though.