As an example of a school to which Trinity appears analogous, consider Richmond. Both schools were reclassified from Regional Universities to National Liberal Arts Colleges in U.S. News, and both schools are supported by notably large endowments.
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Well, being named “Trinity” and started by some church, as well as not having professors indoctrinating the kids on atheism, is as far “Christian” as most parents would care for. Even if no kind of service or affiliation is dominant on campus.
@merc81, that’s a good school that matches us (lower D1 though). Keep them coming, appreciated.
I don’t know if we should count VA as a good-weather state or not!
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Two things that I would note:
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Many schools are seeing an increase in applications and are getting more selective, not just Trinity. My daughter is interested in College of the Holy Cross. Holy Cross saw its admit rate fall from 36% to 21% in one year. Alarming.
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All of the ranking services periodically make changes to their ranking methodologies and this can cause schools to shoot up or shoot down dramatically in one year. Perhaps this was the case for Trinity…I am not sure. The methodologies also create some really odd rankings that simply are not true. For example, UC Merced was listed as the Number 60 National University last year. Very few people would likely agree that this is true, but somehow UC Merced did really, really well with the US News methodology.
I would also say that our family likes what we have seen from Trinity U and it is on our list. The school is moving in a good direction.
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Thought I’d share a few from my kids’ lists that maybe your son would like.
Furman (D1 though)
Wofford
W&L
Centre
Sewanee
Rollins (not as familiar this one)
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What does this mean? Many liberal arts colleges started with a church affiliation but most have severed ties. Trinity is definitely NOT religious.
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While Trinity has a historical connection to the Presbyterian Church, and continues to be a member of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, it has been independent since 1969. There is zero mention of anything related to religion in their Mission Statement - they don’t even mention something like “Spirituality”.
Yale was established by a Church, and Princeton mentions “God” in its motto.
Even the most militant Atheist parents don’t care that a college was established by a church or that the name has some religious connotation. According to The Princeton Review, Grinnell College has the highest percent of atheist and non-religious students in the USA. Grinnell College was established by Congregational ministers and was historically affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
Atheist parents and kids don’t really care about many colleges that are presently affiliated with Churches. Duke, Georgetown, Emory, Santa Clara, Fordham, St Olaf, and many more well known universities and colleges which are affiliated with different Churches are full of atheists or kids with Atheist parents.
There is no group which avoids anything that is considered “Christian” as much as Orthodox Jews. Atheists avoid “Christian” because of personal choice. Orthodox Jews avoid things that are Christian because of their own religion.
Emory University has a Chabad Chapter, as does Georgetown, and Chabad is an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sect.
So no, nobody is avoiding Trinity university because it’s called “Trinity” or because it was established by a Church, unless they are fringe something or other.
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Sorry I wasn’t clear.
I meant as a Christian family, we don’t mind little cultural or religious background for any school, though we re not actively looking for it. In the case of TU, it is the state that might be conservative, not the school.
I don’t mean to offend any side here, was just commenting on my son’s preference.
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Where are there professors “indoctrinating” students in atheism (which is a very tough subject for indoctrination, since atheism by definition lacks any doctrine whatsoever)?
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Definitely agree. However, as Trinity U’s reputation grows, any assumptions among parents that it is faith-based will disappear. We have Trinity College up here in New England (one of the NESCACs) which is rarely, if ever, mistaken for a religious institution.
FWIW, I was raised in New England but spent several years in the San Antonio/Austin region while in the Air Force. I’m a huge fan of San Antone. Its a great place to spend 4 or more years. Trinity U will start attracting New England students who don’t want an LAC where its cold and gray for 4 months of the school year. I say gray because there’s less snow and more cold rain, which is worse for the spirit.
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Specifically on Holy Cross, which our two kids attend: They have a new president, who was previously the BC Law dean. He did a great job pushing that law school from mid-tier to top-tier. At HC, he is smartly working to increase selectivity while making other substantive changes. For example, increasing the endowment and adding academic resources (not that the school was falling short in the latter; Holy Cross has always been rigorous due to the Jesuit foundation).
Point being that you don’t need to be alarmed by the improving HC stats. They’re real and meaningful. The more important consideration is student fit. Compared to the other prominent Jesuit institutions, HC really focuses on “men and women for others” as well as intellectual depth. It does not have a competitive pre-professional vibe, which may or may not be important to students.
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Curious what sport your son is looking to play… feel free to DM if you don’t wish to share publicly. I live in San Antonio and know a lot of kids at Trinity.
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Like many smaller schools, it also depends on where the student wants to go after graduation. If they stay in Texas, Trinity’s reputation is perfectly fine; the school and it’s academics are known.
That said, many LACs develop national reputations, although it takes decades. For example, any executive, finance, medicine or law professional in the US knows Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin and the like.
Agreed. Many schools were founded before their areas became high-crime or less desirable. It’s just a function of socio-economic-geographic changes. Most schools have decent student safety measures.
Well, the trade-off for going LAC and not a national research school is that most of his AP classes would count for credit, rendering him a sophomore from day one. So he finishes in 3 years (or goes for double major in 4 years) and enjoys a better cost/experience in return for committing to a masters degree from a bigger name.
I believe the AP credits factor is not considered by many parents/students. It is actually a big column in our google sheet 
So cost/experience, AP credits, and getting to play sports. 3 factors that are tipping the scale towards an LAC, for this high-achieving student. If we can get that in a good-city nice-weather place, it would be worth committing to a masters degree from now.
He is also hoping to get better and play D1 for a year during grad school.
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If the overall educational experience is meaningful to you, why do you want to cut it by 25%? Graduating early means fewer professors to engage with, develop relationships with; fewer opportunities to stretch intellectually; an entire summer missing from the job/internship/research column.
Your logic baffles me. AP credits aren’t considered by many parents/students because nobody believes that an AP class in HS is superior to a well taught college class. You may get credit for it- but that doesn’t mean that a HS teacher has the same clout with graduate schools, employers, etc. that a college professor does.
Last year my company needed to hire a very narrow, highly specialized role. The recruiter in charge of the assignment called three professors that the hiring leader knows well (they are considered THE subject matter experts in the field). One of them wrote the definitive textbook. One of them is quoted weekly in the Economist, WSJ, FT, etc. when there’s a story about this particular function.
Each of them had former students to recommend. And we hired one of them.
You want to cut into these opportunities by 25% by graduating early? Or reduce the number of professors who can write a fantastic recommendation for grad school by 25%?
I get doubling up on classes once you are in college to graduate early if the money is a significant issue. But relying on your tenth grade AP Bio teacher to help propel you professionally is not a good plan.
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Educational plan is not limited to his undergrads. If he is already committed to 2 years masters (in addition to some MBA at some point in the future, probably) then the question is 5 years or 6 years before finishing school to start his career. The trade-off becomes whether it is better to take a second major (Math or Finance for example) versus sparing one year of tuition and starting his masters right-away. Either way, he is gaining something compared to schools that don’t accept AP credits.
Yes, more classes at college are definitely a miss. But keep in mind these are mostly the spanish/history/English/Humanities classes. He will still get all classes related to his STEM major, and then some. I think if you need to cut something, then the value of these classes and connections are the lowest hanging fruit, and you’re not cutting them entirely.
I doubt the professors you mentioned in your comment recommended students from other majors for “a very narrow, highly specialized role”? No future CS recruiter or M.Sc. Supervisor will want recommendation letters from his Anthropology professor. They will want it from his CS professors. Nothing is free, and you’re not only paying extra tuition, but also a full year of his career in return for the advantages you highlighted.
We went through same question when discussing skipping a grade in elementary school for another child, and the decision to skip the grade was worth it. Yes they might have missed on many things, but they gained other degrees of freedom in their life. YMMV
I guess there are folks here who like the LACs because they truly believe in the value of interdisciplinary curriculum, while others don’t have a very clear preference for that philosophy versus the research university all-engineering style. I can look at our value system and see us in the second camp.
You can doubt it but you’d be wrong. The student we hired was not majoring in the subject… but according to the professor who recommended him was outstanding in every possible way-- including the creativity with which he approached problems- possibly because he was an “outsider” to the field.
You do you. But don’t presume.
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History professor here. I’m not going to respond to being insulted as “low-hanging fruit,” but I will tell you that my absolute best student last semester was an aviation science major who’s now considering minoring in history because he can see how it enhances his overall undergraduate program. There’s a reason why MIT and CalTech place significant emphasis on humanities and social sciences. Scientists and engineers and the like benefit from thinking about the social, political, and cultural impact of their work.
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In practice, many students with AP credit use it for advanced placement (what AP originally stood for), so that they could take more upper level courses or free electives in college instead of lower level courses covering material that they previously learned as advanced high school students.
Yes, this goes against the common recommendation on these forums to repeat unconditionally your AP credit, but that common recommendation could be a waste of time and tuition if the material is known well (which can be checked using the college’s old final exams for the course that may be skipped).
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While we all know how little the USNews rankings mean, it is worth noting I think that Trinity rose 19 spots this year in the LAC rankings, to 40.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges?_page=5
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