It's Me, Bling, and Everything!: Trinity International College

Our last visit took us to Deerfield, a largish suburb outside of Chicago. When we were first contacted by this school I though oh hex no my baby isn't going to school in Chicago! But after visiting it's in a really cute area and far enough from Chicago to not feel like a big city but still big enough to feel like a town. Much like my favorite city Rowlett. It's too fast paced for Rob, but perfect for me. And the shopping is excellent! Soo many stores and malls. All of which I did not shop at! :( but I won't be moving here so let's get on to the visit!

College Visit

TIU is a Christian school that offers both undergrad and graduate degrees. Since they do have grad programs they also have graduate housing, which includes family housing. It was quite weird to see a playground and bikes but there are several families living in the graduate housing area. That housing area is separate from the rest of the college. There are about 1400 students so it is one of the smaller schools. The campus is beautiful and almost feels as if you are walking through a park.

We started our day by sitting in on a class. Class size is pretty small here and the professors know all students by name. I enjoyed the class but it made me miss teaching even more! After class we met with the professor who is the head of the department and discussed the AT program. TIU also offers pre physical therapy and a dual degree program which would allow Robert to graduate with his masters in 4 to 4.5 years.

After our meeting we went to chapel. Since TIU is a Christian school, they hold chapel 3 days a week and students are required to attend half of the sessions. Chapel is student led and organized. Songs were led by students, announcements were made, and then a guest pastor from a local church gave the message. I enjoyed attending chapel and think its a great way to grow spiritually. Several of the schools we have visited offer chapel but not all make attendance mandatory.

Next, we met with Coach Kenny who we have been communicating with for several months. We had lunch in the caf. I have to say I was not impressed. I only had salad for lunch. The admissions brochure talks about the pizza in the caf so I was really looking forward to trying it and they didn't have any. Also no burgers, no sandwiches, no grilled chicken. You can go to fresh and order a sandwich to go but in the normal caf they didn't have those things. It was a healthier caf than others but nowhere near the variety as other schools. Over lunch they talked football and Ash and I ate and laughed at Ashleigh's impersonation of Rob Aka Bill Cosby!

The best part of the visit was during lunch. While in the caf several players came over to introduce themselves to us. They saw us sitting with coach Kenny so they came by just to say hi and meet Robert. I really liked that. Instead of just saying hi to coach they stopped shook all our hands(I can do without all the hand shaking though, I'm running out of sanitizer) and talked to bubba. That goes a long way. At one school the players didn't really speak. It was a big difference here.

We then toured the school with another girl who is from michigan but is being recruited by Austin College too. Small world! Her mom is hesitant about going all the way to Texas so I was able to show her some pictures of our visit and give them some insight on the school. They thought it was pretty cool that we went there. Trinity has the best dorm we have seen for Underclassmen. They have suite style living with double sinks and built in bathrooms as opposed to community bathrooms. However, they have one laundry room for each dorm. It's a smaller school and the facilities reflect that. TIU does not have the newest or fanciest facilities that we have seen but they do have great people.

We ended our tour with a follow up with admissions. Robert has been accepted already and offered academic scholarships. Being a NAIA school, TIU can offer athletic scholarships so we were asked to do a fasfa estimator to kinda see what our EFC may be. Apparently that is not normally done on site but usually done as a follow up, but was asked so that they could get the ball rolling on an athletic offer.

Final thoughts

An athletic scholarship combined with an academic scholarship would be great. But, this is far from home (home being Texas)! I like aspects of the school, but I'm not impressed with the facilities both football related and AT program related. I do love the emphasis that is put on faith here and the ability to grow spiritually. So I'm a bit torn. We are heading to the game today and to pick Robert back up. He spent the night with the players and went to the women's basketball game. I'm excited to hear about his night.

*** Update. This morning TIU offered Robert a football scholarship. They put together an offer combining an academic scholarship and football scholarship! It's pretty cool to see the letter of intent that he can sign agreeing to play there and accepting the scholarship. Combined they both cover about half of the total tuition at this time. It's still pretty early on in the game so we are going to take our time and let bubba have a chance to figure out what he wants and where he wants to be. Thankfully he doesn't have a deadline at this time so he has the chance to do that. ***