Hi, I’m a senior at a college preparatory boarding school in New Jersey and I’m very interested in going to school in Texas. I have a 3.87 unweighted GPA, 1320 SATs (720 English, 600 Math; taking again soon), and I will have taken 4 APs and 6 Honors courses. As for ECs, I play a varsity sport (non-recruitable), I perform in two stage productions per year, perform with the school orchestra, jazz band, and A Cappella group, and I am helping run my school’s election seminars this fall. I’m a non-denominational Christian, so a religious school doesn’t turn me off, but I would like the opportunity to party a bit in college. I would prefer a school that is known for providing good financial aid. I understand that Rice is probably way out of my reach, but I’d be interested in learning more about SMU, TCU, Trinity, or any other Texas colleges that might be of interest and what distinguishes them from each other. What is the general feel? What are the kids like at each school? How easy is it to get to DFW/San Antonio/Waco, etc. from the NYC area? Thank you for your time and help!
I can only speak to TCU as both my kids (B&G) attend/ed. TCU is in Fort Worth (don’t confuse with Dallas). It’s a great city of reasonable size and very focused on TCU. We have all gotten to love the city and all it offers. Tons of great restaurants, bars and events. Easy to get to from anywhere since it’s 20 min. from DFW airport. TCU has been a great school for our family. Good merit aid for both kids (come from CA) so that cost is comparable to UC schools in CA. The class size is great and professors are engaged. Son was Biology and admitted to medical school (TCU is well respected with TX medical schools) upon graduation. Daughter is a business major and has had good success with internships since TCU’s Neeley is well respected in the metro plex in business. Both love the TCU sports scene – mainly football and baseball. Both were/are involved in Greek life and all that brings. All in all, a great experience. A few not great things – affluent, not much diversity, and for somone from NYC, it’s TX with a heavy south and mid-west vibe. Not a bad thing, just very different. You should visit them all while school is in session so you feel the student presence.
You never provided your intended major but I will offer you this. TCU and SMU have the same vibe. They both offer great campuses and are located in the heart of city. SMU is located in Highland Park which is a very affluent area of Dallas. Although you are in the heart of the city the area has the feeling of being in a affluent bubble. There is lots of entertainment in the area. Baylor is located in Waco Tx which is a medium size city for Texas. There is more of laid back feel to the campus and and college life kind revolves around the campus. Baylor feels more self contained than SMU or TCU and you will find a bit more diversity. I really don’t know a whole lot about Trinity but my son does have a friend who just transferred from their. San Antonio is not nearly as cosmopolitan as Dallas and Fort Worth. Trinity is a fairly small school and students are required to live on campus for all 4 years. It will give you that truly LAC feel. I never known students from Trinity to be big into partying but you can certainly do it in San Antonio if you chose.
Thank you both! My intended major would be somewhere in the history/political science/economics sphere. Are any of the schools you mentioned known for having better programs in that area?
If FA is a must, then why arbitrarily focus on a particular state?
Have you run the NPC?
SMU has the reputation of being overall very affluent, and TCU also to a lesser extent.
Trinity, Southwestern, and Austin college are all good private colleges, with Trinity the most reputable; St Edward’s is in Austin if you want a smaller, private school located in a big city with a huge university. (Also, Austin TX is quite liberal, whereas many areas of Texas are quite to very conservative.) All 4 are most likely to give you merit aid for your stats. Texas Lutheran is smaller and easier to get into.
Why Texas?
If you want the South/West, why not Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona?
Especially if you can increase your test scores, ASU Barrett would have merit scholarships for you. In Arkansas, you have Hendrix (and, not far, Rhodes, in TN).
If you can consider more states than Texas, you’d have more possibilities.
What’s your budget? What do NPC’s say at SMU, TCU, Trinity?
Here’s a useful list of colleges and the average amount of need-nased FA they give.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/
You will, of course, need to consider what the school’s average admit rate is to put together a realistic list for yourself. A quick-n-dirty way to do a rough screening of this is to multiply the “admit rate” column with the “avg need based aid” column, to derive an opportunity-weighted list.
I can add a little for Rice as my daughter attends. It’s a beautiful campus located in the museum district, downtown Houston. It’s a fairly small school with a residential college system. There is no greek life. It’s know for being very generous with financial aid so don’t count it out.
Southwestern is a nice liberal arts college. Although they call themselves “university” as in Southwestern University,
Budget is up in the air. My mother is getting a new job that will make her salary drop considerably but we don’t know by how much. A rough estimate for how much my family could pay would be around $15k to $25k per year. Also, I like a lot of schools in other states (Tulane, Rhodes, U of Miami, etc), but I have some family in Texas and I think it would be nice to be near them.
Run the NPC on every college you listed as well as every college listed above.
Cross out all colleges above 25k.
Look at Baylor as well
^^Baylor has some of the worst FA. I have known students who have gotten great scholarships and wind up still paying close to 25-30k a year.
The education is great, but it is expensive.
What I recommend students on is not to look at price until the end of the day tcu, Baylor, and smu will give out scholarships and financial aid to get students. For poly sci/ economics and those types of majors I can only speak to smu but they are some of our strong suits along with business. Smu is beautiful and one of the best academic institutions in the state of Texas. Based on the most recent us news and world report national university rankings it was tied at 56 with ut Austin tying it for second in the state behind rice. The population of the most recent admitted class was 38% in state 7% international and 55% out of state. It is close to love field and dfw airport so travel is a breeze. It is also the best decision I have made thus far in my life. Be sure to visit schools and ask questions.