I think she should go where she will enjoy most and thereby get the best grades because law/grad school is going to be more about her academic record and not the minute differences between Mays Business or Moody Communications.
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Getting into law school is going to be about GPA + LSAT score. Either option would set her up for a path to law school. Go with the one that will have a marketable career path she will enjoy just in case law school doesn’t work out or she changes her mind. Also, TAMU and UT are worlds apart as far as environment/campus vibe etc. If she likes that urban, middle of the city environment than UT for sure. My son is now a freshman at UT. He was accepted to Mays as well last year, but chose UT Econ major over Mays because it came down to campus fit/vibe for him. Congratulations to your daughter, she has two excellent choices!
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Son got into BS Applied Math program. He loves math and its applications. After his BS, he wants to do a masters (math/financial-eng/compsci) at different school and then wants to purse a quantitative analyst career in finance industry.
We are in-state. Among his other admits, Purdue(Honors) and UMD are his top choices in-addition to A&M. No news on scholarships at any of the schools yet. A&M is instate tuition but as many parents, we don’t want to influence his decision based on fees.
Purely on quality of program and school brand, how would you rate A&M, Purdue(Honors), UMD
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Thanks for the advice! I am an Aggie class of ‘94, so of course I would love for her to to there, but I am trying to be unbiased.
I think any quant analyst will tell you that you should base your decision on fees. Finding returns is what they do, and your ROI on an A&M in state tuition can’t be beat - compared to any other state flagship.
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My son did Mays Mgmt prelaw track and is in 1L at Wake Forest. Another mom on here (you can divulge if you want…)… her daughter did Mays Business honors and kicked butt with GPA and LSAT. Start law school in the fall.
But as it’s been stated already… GPA and LSAT are the main components of law school admissions. Military, work experience, and other factors will give you points, but truly if GPA isn’t high then LSAT must be high 160s to 170s. If GPA is close to 4.0 then LSAT can be lower.
Tons of great law schools out there. UT being one of them (as in top 20). So if she’s wanting to go there, it could be in her favor to do her undergrad there and kick butt!
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One more thing that my D23 and I discussed last year when she was debating UT/TAMU (and pre-law interests) is that the Austin location would be preferable to someone who wanted to get internships or otherwise involved in political/governmental organizations. Not just the legislature but all the advocacy groups, the major magazines and newspapers and SXSW…
But again that goes back to my point of she should do what she’d ENJOY. She’s got 2 amazing options. She can’t go wrong.
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Didn’t realize that A&M has fine print… there needs to be… for OOS as well. My nephew is from Washington, a small private school of 60 seniors… he was ranked 34) and was accepted in October for Mays. When he toured the campus, they told him only 5 students from the state of Washington applied last year, and he shouldn’t have a problem getting in.
Assuming 100% chance going to law school, agree with picking atmosphere and school your D likes best. Grades and LSAT will be more important.
If there is a chance she decides not to go…consider whether a comms degree or a business degree might be more desirable to her in terms of a career path set up.
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The Walton school of business at U of Ark is amazing. It was ranked #34 vs Mays at #23 (by USNews) last year, I believe. Beautiful campus and great weather! They also offer an automatic OOS tuition waiver for applicants with good stats from neighboring states, lowering the cost of tuition to less than $10K per year and it also applies to transfer students. Excellent choice for Business!
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Wasn’t that the premise of it being a Land Grant University? To give the children from farms and blue collar industry an opportunity. That was even before race and other demographics were taken into consideration.
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Quite the contrary. I was making a point that there are lots of highly qualified students out there that struggle to gain admission to Texas flagships due to low-ranking resulting from the Uber-competitive nature of their high schools. I was simply replying to one specific post of yours with the following question:
“Can we just all agree that the following needs to be pinned to the top of every TAMU admissions thread:
“NO YOUR TEXAS HS IS NOT THAT COMPETITIVE.”
Even if you meant it half-jokingly, I thought it was misplaced and insensitive. Like I said, many of these families are desperate for answers and reaching out to the experts here for advice, not ridicule.
This doesn’t take away from the fact that you’ve provided plenty of valuable and insightful contributions to this forum, which is much appreciated.
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Could not agree with you more. Grades and LSAT are key to law school. I did not go to a top tier undergrad or aTexas Public University and I went to Law School in Texas.
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Many of the small rural schools, like Huntington, Livingston, Hudson, Navasota, are highly white or at least the top 10% is. I agree that on average they don’t have the diversified enrichment experiences that a wealthy suburban kid has had. That’s part of the point.
She has alot of great choices so we aren’t too hung up on this one, thankfully. Just wondering about timing. Thanks for being so helpful!
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Yes, beautiful campus. Freshman class size of 7-8k vs 11-13k at TAMU? My father in-law is in Bentonville so we’ve been to Fayetteville a few times when we’ve gone to visit him. Lots of kids from the Austin area high schools end up in Arkansas so she’ll know plenty of kids.
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So this is ancient history, but I was accepted to UT and A&M undergrad. Needed the money, took A&M scholarship. Loved A&M. Got good grades. Got a solid LSAT score. Went to UT for law school.
In my UT law school class UT undergrads were the number one most represented group, followed closely by A&M grads. (We used to hold yell practice in the Law School atrium before Aggie games just to mess around with our Longhorn friends.) The variety of undergraduate majors was striking - just as many liberal arts degrees as business degrees as engineering degrees.
Point is - either school TAMU or UT will be a fine choice for eventually going to law school - at UT or elsewhere. The LSAT is critical. And then lots of other things may influence the decision - cost, location, type of law that interests her, significant other relationship, etc. … So I wouldn’t make the undergrad decision on the basis of which is more likely to translate to UT law success.
But I can tell you that the A&M/UT combo has been fabulous for me. Best of both worlds. I wouldn’t change a thing.
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She said she is leaning Mays because if she changes her mind about law school it would be better to have a business degree. She has no interest in communications, she chose that as a second choice because she heard somewhere that it was possible to transfer from COMM to McCombs down the road. But after seeing the caliber of kids getting rejected from McCombs she thinks a transfer would be a long shot.
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@DSL1 you have been given great advice.
*Does your daughter want to be an Aggie or a Longhorn? Most want one, or the other.
*Does she want to major in business or communications? Very different majors.
My Aggie has wanted to attend law school for years-her dad is an attorney, aunt & uncle, many other relatives & close friends. My husband told her she must graduate with a degree that she could easily make a good living…in case she changed her mind about going to law school. She graduated from Mays-double majored in Business Honors & Management.
(She graduated May 2023, is taking a Gap year currently, working)-
She has already gotten in-state law school acceptances, and is waiting for OOS decisions.
She took the LSAT 3x (one time straight cold turkey-did ‘okay’, not great). 2nd time she studied very little-she was doing her internship and a MayMester class (score improved). 3rd time she took it, she started studying right after graduation, making it her full time ‘job’. She used 7Sage LSAT Prep. Her score jumped dramatically!
Moral-definitely pays to prep & study for the LSAT, even for the smartest, natural test taker. Schools that waitlisted my girl last year (before she decided to work for a year), have now not only given her acceptance but hefty scholarships, too.
Law schools want high gpa and high LSAT score most, then solid rec letters and strong campus involvement & leadership. They don’t care what major.
She has two great choices! Let us know what she decides.
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