Trinity U in San Antonio vs UT Austin (Plan 2) for Classics Major

txfriendly
Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:44:16 +0000

Full disclosure: I grew up in Austin rooting for the Longhorns, and in recent years I’ve visited Trinity several times with my D22/D26 and done a fair amount of research on the school. I also provided some research assistance for a family friend whose kid was admitted to UT for Plan II/Classics a few years ago and strongly considered it before choosing an Ivy.

I love small schools in general, and specifically I love Trinity and sort of regret that it finished second for both D22 and D26 - I think each of them would have been happy there had they not been admitted to their first-choice schools. In this kind of big-school/small-school dilemma, I typically recommend the small school if the student is open to it - even moreso in this case where the student appears to prefer the small-school vibe.

With that said…this is the one time where I might deviate from that approach, though it’s a very close call. For a student intending to pursue graduate study in a particular area, the difference between a large department with diverse offerings and small department with few choices is meaningful. D22 has experienced this, having majored in a tiny department (2-3 grads per year) at an outstanding university that is nonetheless not particularly known for her field. She found that as a Jr/Sr, there were very few courses available to even complete her major requirements, much less meet her specific interests. At one point, only 6 upper-division courses were being offered in her major for a certain term - she had taken 4 of them already in prior semesters, and another was offered by a professor that she didn’t care to see again. She ended up relying on cross-listed classes in affiliated departments, some of which required special administrative approvals to count for her degree requirements. It won’t end up being an issue long-term, as she is aiming for professional school rather than an academic career, but if she had chosen to pursue a Ph.D, I think it would have been difficult from her current spot.

I also think that, as much as I love the small-school atmosphere, it is sometimes possible to replicate many aspects of this with a small cohort of like-minded students inside a very large university. The difficulty of doing this is often understated, as a lone student may spend years trying to identify and locate these needles in a haystack of tens of thousands. But here, Plan II and Classics provide two overlapping but distinct cohorts right from Day 1. I might opt for the academic experience of UT and trust that Plan II/Classics will provide the small community feeling that is usually the province of small colleges.