Texas Christian University

Date: May 29 2016
Major: Accounting (This Major's Salary over time)
TCU within the last few years has been putting an effort to up its game. Like any other school, it has both pros and cons.

Pros: the campus is beautiful and the dorms are really nice. The sports facility is great and you can play most of the mainstream sports here on campus. The students are generally good looking, friendly, and well-off. Some people say TCU kids are spoiled and cliquish and that may be true. As for me, I'm non-Grrek and a minority, but I try to keep an open mind and be cheerful and find that the general people here are friendly, regardless of their backgrounds. If you are a shy and not used to reaching out, you might get the impression that TCU kids are snobbish and fitting in might get hard though. It's all about the attitude that you carry. For a school with the word Christian on it's name, TCU is actually pretty open minded. Yes, there are a lot of southern conservative kids, but there are also a good number of liberals, people of different religions and nationalities. Heck you can even be openly gay and be in a fraternity here. TCU is happy medium between the liberal utopia UT and the conservative bastion Baylor. School spirit is very high considering that TCU boasts a lot of highly nationally ranked teams: football, baseball, tennis.

As for academics, the class size is small and most professors are approachable. I find the core curriculum to be very solid and well-rounded. The courses are challenging yet manageable. The opening of medical school in 2018 and the physical expansion of the business school are very exciting. I'm an accounting major and TCU has a pretty good replacement rate with the Big 4 firms. In Texas and in the south plus California, TCU has a decent reputation.

Fort Worth is a decent town, and if you get bored, Dallas is only like 40-minute away. Transportation to and out of TCU is pretty cheap given that people from far away would mostly use the megahub DFW airport to transport.

Cons: as I have mentioned, the student population might feel homogeneous. Greek life rules. Girls and guys dress in the typical sorority and fraternity styles. Individuality is not very common here.

As for the business school, TCU should work harder on employing good professors. I have had quite a few of classes with adjunct lecturers and they are generally not good. If you want to major in finance, i would advise you to stay away from here. The finance professors are mostly very boring and the school doesn't offer a whole lot of finance classes. SMU finance department would put TCU's to great shame. Only the few very brightest finance kids would get employment with major investment banks in either Houston (majority) or New York. If you seriously want to consider a career in banking, consulting, or private equity, UT and SMU triumphs over TCU in every possible way.

In the end, TCU will be what you make it out to be. If you put in the effort, TCU will be a great experience regardless of where you come from. If you are passive, I'm afraid you will struggle unless you fit the stereotype : white, wealthy, and republican. For a school with a fifty-thousand dollar price tag, I expect more from TCU, academically. However, it's worth noting that TCU has been rapidly growing in reputation in the past decade and I believe the school will continue to solidify its prestige in the future. It will still take a lot of work for TCU to catch up with the likes of UT and Rice, or more moderately, SMU.