choosing and getting into college

[Aggie_Ama]

Eh I didn't do it right, I did most of my planning and deciding on my own. My counselor just didn't click with me.

College Class of 2003 here, so pretty recent as well. I knew I had to go in state or get a scholarship due to my parent's ability to pay. I narrowed it down to four state schools and was blessed that Texas has an automatic admission for anyone graduating in the Top 10% of their class. Since I knew none would reject me I applied for 4 that I thought I might like. Two were smaller schools I didn't think I would like but I thought by chance I might get a partial academic scholarship or something. Then I went to tour the campuses and get a feel for what I wanted. I went the UT-Austin visit and hated it. UGLY tall buildings, noise of downtown and just something very not me about it. Then I saw Texas A&M- trees, quiet, lots of cool WWII era buildings, sprawling campus and a town that is college centric. I knew where I would be for four years after 2 hours.

We had large classes at A&M and it worked for me very well. On some classes where discussion is key the class only has about 20-40 people. I took an African American Literature class like this and it was one of my favorite classes. Some of the classes I took (Zoology, Management, Finance) had 300-500 people but I was okay with that. Some were large (Business Law at 150-200) but the professor really made the class smaller and knew a majority of us. Honestly every semester I had huge classes and small ones, it is a mix and it worked for me.

+1 on taking AP if he is a good enough student and has the desire. I tested out of 27 hours through AP and CLEP tests at the university, starting college 3 hours shy of being a sophomore. I also got to bypass the so-called "weed out classes" this way. I was able to graduate in 4 years but only one semester took over 13 hours. Many of my friends that wanted out in 4 years took 17 hours or summer school every summer. I took 9 hours summer school my first summer just so I didn't have to suffer through notoriously boring classes at A&M.

My advice- tour campuses, talk to the guidance counselor about strengthening his application, take college brouchures with a grain of salt (on paper UT seemed like my first choice). I got to do an immersion weekend at A&M which started Friday and it ended up being great.