<p>I’m going to admit it, I’m a little biased, as I’m a recent TALH graduate, but I think you would be a good candidate for TALH.</p>
<p>I will say a couple of things:
Your SAT scores are above the minimum required for TALH (500+ in all sections), which is most of what matters. Beyond your scores, what we are looking for is maturity level and the real, considered difficulty of leaving home early. The interview and essay process is meant to flesh out what kind of addition you will make to the TALH community.</p>
<p>In one of those odd, legislative historical things, Lamar University itself actually has a fantastic engineering program (far more established than other programs, including the humanities) because of the prevalence of refineries in the area. Many, many of my non-TALH friends were engineers, and the engineering-hire rate out of Lamar is insanely good.</p>
<p>As a sophomore, I chose to attend TALH (as opposed to applying for TAMS) because I did not like the many aspects of the mandated curriculum at TAMS. I liked the smaller student body and the easy access to administrators and mentors I found at TALH. Many of my peers are (were?) pre-med students; my best friend is a math/bio major. TALH does not mandate extra English/humanities courses-- we take a Humanities survey course offered only through the Academy and a capstone course spring of our senior year, but that’s it. We take courses to fulfill Texas 4x4 requirements, and beyond that, what we take is up to us. I was able to take several higher-level English and math courses at TALH because I had the space in my schedule to do so. TAMS requires college-level biology, physics, and chemistry of all of its students, a committment I was unwilling to make.</p>
<p>I also really loved the independence I had at the Academy. Unlike at TAMS, where, I believe, many classes are taught as TAMS-only sections, where your peers are only TAMS students, I really enjoyed being able to take classes alongside Lamar students and learning from that group. I felt fully integrated into the Lamar community as well as the Academy community, and I loved having that independence. From what I’ve heard of TAMS, TAMS offers you an extremely diverse community within the school itself, but the TAMS community is not as well-integrated into the UNT community.</p>
<p>There are ways in which TAMS would be a better fit-- if you’re interested in extensive research/math competitions/competetive academics, I’d go to TAMS. TALH (and the Beaumont area in general) is a fairly low-key place academically-- most students are not as high-powered as my friends who went to TAMS.</p>
<p>TAMS also has a lot more extra curriculars, because they do have a larger student body. They also offer more support systems and opportunities for students, because they are a larger school. You will get far more of a traditional ‘high school’ experience there than you would at TALH.</p>
<p>However, I absolutely loved my time at TALH. I grew immensely as a person and discovered some really invaluable mentors. I loved the support I received through the administration and the wide range of people I met that I would have never done so otherwise-- not only high school students across Texas, but also some really inspiring, hard-working students at Lamar, traditional and non-traditional alike. It was a wonderful experience.</p>
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