rootube said:
levypantsEOY said:
greg.w.h said:
My daughter just graduated in December. It's just as competitive now as it has been to get into the more valuable degrees.
That's factually incorrect. Admissions accepts over 70% of applicants, which is more than it has been in decades. That is not okay.
First off greg.w.h, congratulations on your daughter graduating from Texas A&M. Despite what all these knuckleheads say that is a great accomplishment and I am sure you are very proud.
Second admission rate it a completely dumb way to measure the value our University. We are better now that we have ever been and Sharp is doing an outstanding job. The only issue even worth discussing as it relates to college education is the insane spiraling costs. Cost will be the undoing of the entire system A&M and the rest.
My wife and I and the family (both her sibs and extended family) are very excited for her and proud of her. I wanted at least one of my children to go to A&M and she made the choice over UTD and the school in Austin. My first trip ever onto the Austin campus was supporting her. Within about 30 minutes she had her mind made up to go to College Station instead largely because she felt Texas A&M feels like a campus not a part of a city.
An improv team that works off of life experiences was practicing on me that weekend with this story and did a great job of framing up exactly how I felt: showed me being a mix of frightened and supportive as we were touring the campus then quietly jumping up and down and throwing my fists in the air when she chose to go to A&M. All true.
As to the admissions: we need to be very precise in how we view them. There is admission to the University which is essentially admission to the University Studies degree. Then there is admission to a specific degree program. The Top 10% auto-admissions are to the University Studies degree first and foremost and IF they qualify for another College then they could be admitted TO THE COLLEGE but not yet to the degree program. When I matriculated I was admitted to ChemEng directly in the fall of 1979. My daughter was admitted as an academic admit to the College of Engineering because she met their requirements. She considered M.E. and BioMedE and then applied and was admitted to CompSci before transferring to Psych. She had a better GPR than I had in her two years in Engineering. (I also transferred out of Engineering to Chemistry and then on graduation moved into computer science and information technology just teaching myself.)
UTD is not at the same level as Texas A&M, yet, based on what I saw, but the president at the time had really worked hard to turn it from a commuter school to a residence school and they have exploded their residence hall offerings especially for freshmen and sophomores. Their engineering labs are new and nice and have great equipment in it (the kind you learn on not that does the work for you.)
The idea that UTD is in position to overtake A&M is an incomplete thought. The idea that it is a very good university in a city (actually on the north edge of Richardson, not in Dallas at all) and it has a meaningful charter especially going back to its days as a graduate research center and therefore engaging post-baccalaureate students very well especially in computer science is a meaningful thought.
I do not see Texas A&M as a diploma mill. I do understand why people are concerned it could be viewed as one. The question very much is whether you believe the school's culture overcomes it's growth or is diluted by growth. I haven't asked my daughter if she would make the same choice again, but she is intending to do her graduate work elsewhere because she wisely thinks a broader learning base is better than a narrower one. I think we should ALL think in terms of exactly whether Texas A&M is an institution that is primarily foundational and formative or i deeply interactive with the student throughout lifelong learning. Today it is only foundational and formative in my opinion.