Watching the Gilmore Girls with my mom and my sister as a young girl was my first impression of college. When one of the main characters Rory went to Yale for college, I knew that I wanted to go there as well. When I got older, I realized that I didn’t have the grades to go to Yale, and I couldn’t stand extremely cold weather.

Then, last year, I decided that I really wanted to go to college in Texas. I promised myself that I would settle for nothing less than the Yale of the South.

This was my first college trip, and I was lucky enough to find my Yale of the South on my first tour. On Thursday November 21, my family and I toured Texas Christian University (TCU). TCU was not my first choice going into this trip, but from the moment I stepped on the campus, I knew that I belonged there.

When we walked into the administration building, they us greeted with Southern hospitality. They had screens on the walls welcoming all of the students visiting that day. You could tell that they genuinely cared that we were visiting their campus, and they wanted us to feel welcome and comfortable from the beginning.

They then took us into a room where a representative of the school spoke to us about the school’s academics, sports, student life, etc. After that, three student tour guides came in and introduced themselves. We got to pick who we wanted to go on our tour with, and it just so happened that one of the girls was a Journalism major from Florida.

As of right now, I plan on double majoring in Journalism and International Studies with a minor in Photography. We went with Justine, the Journalism major, and we were the only ones who decided to tour with her. She took us on the normal route of the tour to see the doom rooms, the recreational center, classrooms and more, but she also took the time to take us to the journalism department to see what that was like.

While we were there, we met her advisor/journalism teacher/Emmy award winner Aaron Chimbel.  After that, she took us back to the Administration building and that was the end of the tour. Their student body was gregarious, and they all had such a great sense of school pride. Every student I saw was either wearing the school colors purple and white, or the school mascot the Horned Frog. Some students I saw even said “Go Frogs” and gave us their school hand symbol. TCU made a spectacular impression on my family and me.

TCU was not the only campus we visited on this trip. We also visited Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas and University of Texas in Austin (UT Austin).  I liked SMU, but not as much as TCU. They had a beautiful campus, but I didn’t get the same sense of pride and community.

When we visited UT Austin, I did not like it at all. I had always wanted to have the typical college experience, but once I stepped on the campus, I realized that I would just be another student in a lecture hall, and another face among more than 50,000 students.

Although I fell in love with TCU, that doesn’t mean that I am done looking at colleges. I am looking at many other schools in the South, as well as out West. I look forward to continuing my college search, but Texas will always be number one in my heart.