Hey guys. Thanks for catching up with us at Sam Houston State University. I'm Jessica and let me introduce you to Mr. Sam Houston himself. He's one of the state's founding fathers and a true Texan. Looking mighty nice.

Sam Houston State University is located in eastern Texas in Huntsville. Near the Huntsville State Park where you can hike, camp, bike and fish. Campus is just one hour north of Houston and 170 miles south of Dallas.

Here at Huntsville, we go out to the lake and go canoeing. We also go to the clubs that we have down here. There's actually a lot to do [inaudible]. There's many, there's clubs, there's bars, there's the mall, there's, we have a skating ring down there, there's Market Street, which is like a small square area where they have different shops and stuff that are open there.

SHSU sits on 272 acres of campus surrounding by forests, lakes and ranches. The campus mall is the main attraction and showcases two clock towers, a water fountain and an alumni garden, making for lots of spaces for students to gather.

Sam Houston is a really wonderful place to be. It's a small community, but it's not too far from a big metropolitan area. I, I think it is, it's unique, it has a small town flavor to it. Students know one another, professors know one another and I think it is a great place to come to school.

Sam Houston is represented by 42 percent boys, 58 percent girls and 30 percent multicultural students from 60 countries. The student to faculty ratio is kept to a low 20 to 1, with an average class size of 30.

The thing about Sam Houston is that it's so like wide in variety. You know it's, there's so much to it. There's lots of Hispanics and lots of you know, African American and white people and lots of everything and everybody just seems to like mix. And that and combined with the way that the teachers are and the classes and the size of the school, makes everything just flow.

[ Laughter ] And it's great. It's just awesome.

Incoming students that graduated in the top 25 percent of their high school class will need a minimum ACT of 17 and an SAT of 850. There are no minimum requirements if you graduated in the top 10 percent of your class.

Our admission standards are pretty much in line with those in the rest of the state and then if you're a transfer student, we have changed our transfer requirements for Fall '09 to be a little more stringent because we realized as they come from the community college, they are prepared with the classes that they do transfer. Our transfer rate is pretty high and we're continuing to improve in that area as well.

In-state students can expect to pay about 5,000 dollars a year in tuition and fees, while those from out of state will pay closer to 12,000 dollars. In addition, residents halls average around 4,000 dollars and meal plans cost about 2500 dollars. SHSU offers 79 bachelors programs, 54 masters programs and five doctoral programs.

In fact, we just opened a facility, it's a forensic facility but it's applied forensic science where the students will be able to actually be able to do research on human bodies decomposing and we want to simulate what a criminal would do to a body and so we'll have them in the trunk of a car, we'll have them buried in shallow graves and students will be able to watch that process and be able to do research.

The most popular ones among students are business, criminal justice, education, visual and performing arts and agriculture.

Sam Houston State is the perfect school and the perfect place to study criminal justice. Sam's just minutes away from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Headquarters in Huntsville.

Sam Houston employs 566 full-time and 192 part-time faculty members. Seventy-four percent hold their doctoral or terminal degree and 59 percent are tenured or on the tenure track.

Actually most of my professors, they're in organizations, they're organization chairs and they're very helpful outside of class. And even inside of class if you want to stop them during the lecture, they'll stop. It's not, our classes are not big enough that they can't stop for a student. They stop for any student that needs help and then they'll explain it to everybody.

You know they've always been very happy that you want to talk to them after class. You know, they're just more than excited to be there for you.

The Bearcats compete in NCAA Division I sports with the exception of football, which competes in Division I AA within the Southland Conference.

Huntsville has plenty of hot, sunny weather. But don't sweat it. Resident's halls have AC and all the comforts of home.

The resident halls are actually very nice. We have a new building that they just built and it's a, we share only your, you share your common area with just one person. You just have to share the bathroom and you get your own bedroom. It's like an apartment style. You have a kitchenette area and the living room area. So there's, they're actually very nice housing.

Sam Houston has over 200 organizations keeping an active buzz around campus. So be sure to jump in and take advantage of the available fraternities and sororities, hobby clubs, special interest and professional clubs.

Mm. Just a little burger bliss to hit the spot. Here at Sam's you can grab one of the best burgers in town. Fat Boys is just across the street from campus so you can grab a bite to eat without being late for class.

So if you're looking for all the success in life and some Texas tradition, then check out Sam Houston State University.

Now that I've seen all of campus, it's time to explore Sam Houston Avenue. Students tell me this is the place to be to hit up all the cool student hangouts, restaurants and shops. So you know where I'm going. For University TV, I'm Jessica, we're out of here.

[ Music ]