Is Trinity University in Texas a good university?

Answered

Hi @flora

Trinity University is an excellent liberal arts college. It is not a large research university like Rice or UT-Austin. In the great state of Texas, Trinity would be the best LAC. Similarly, Reed College is the best LAC in Oregon, Colorado College is the best LAC in Colorado, and Pomona/CMC/Pitzer/Scripps/Harvey Mudd is the best LACs in California.

LACs are not for everyone. If you already know you want to study Business, Engineering, CS, or Architecture or Nursing, you probably want to go to a university that specializes in those. But if you just want to get a great well-rounded college education that is multi-disciplinary LACs offer great courses in English, Foreign Languages, the Humanities, History, Math, Music, Art, and great foundational schools if you intend to apply to grad school later on to become a Lawyer, Doctor or anything else.

The first thing you will notice about a LAC is its size. Typical LACs are between 1500 and 3000 total undergrads. So Pomona has like 400 per class, and Colgate has about 800. Ivy league colleges vary between 1500 and 3000 per grade. And a large state college like UT Austin has 10000 per class. So at a LAC, you will know pretty much everyone in your grade by the time you graduate. Think of a LAC size like a high school.

And just like an HS, LACs have sports teams, orchestra, dance teams, art classes, and tons of clubs. The big difference from HS is that LACs are very well funded and endowed for the most part. So a little college like Trinity has close to $1.5 billion dollars in its endowment which is like $1 million per student enrolled. What that means is that the quality of resources is very high. You will find excellent housing, dining halls, classrooms, sports fields, and equipment at LACs.

LACs are modeled like boarding schools for older students. If you watch some videos of the best boarding schools like Exeter, Andover, and Deerfield Academy, you will see a strong similarity between them and LACs like Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst. The only difference is that the students are older and the work is harder. But the environment is pretty much the same.

LACs typically are pretty hard to get into. Trinity has about a 30% acceptance rate. I would compare Trinity to Scripps College, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, Whitman College, Reed College, Trinity College Connecticut, Kenyon, Macalester, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, St. Lawrence, Connecticut College, Bryn Mawr, Marist, Franklin and Marshall, Denison, and the University of Richmond in terms of difficulty.

Trinity is like a 3rd tier LAC. A 2nd tier LAC would be like Vassar, Hamilton, Colgate, Bates, Haverford, Colorado College, Washington, and Lee, Davidson.

A tier 1 LAC would be like schools with less than a 12 % acceptance rate, Barnard, Amherst, Colby, Bowdoin, Williams, Swarthmore, Grinnell, Pomona, CMC, and Wellesley College.

Hope this helps.