Hello, I am a student in Florida looking to attend school in-state. I am hoping to pursue an ACS-accredited Bachelor of Science Chemistry program in Florida. Now comes the meaty part…I have Asperger’s Syndrome and believe that attending a huge, public university isn’t really right for me. My credentials are a 3.41 unweighted gpa, a 4.21 weighted gpa, a 1280 sat score, and a 28 act score. I was accepted into University of Tampa’s honors program and I’ve been thrown a lot of scholarships and grants by the university, and I live 5 miles away from it so room and board is no issue.
But, I have been hearing conflicting opinions about UT from teachers. I went on UT’s science day tour a few weeks ago, and it seemed amazing to me. They had plenty of undergrad research opportunities and research opportunities with even more for honors students. The professors seemed so personable and for someone like me, I need that sometimes.
I have thought about either pursuing a career in forensics after college or applying to med school, and UT also has one of the only FEPAC-accredited forensic science programs in Florida, which is great if I choose to switch or double major.
I’m not that great of a student as you can see by my credentials, and I have already applied to USF and am awaiting a response. I’m just scared as low-income aspie that I would be limited to either a small private college or going first to HCC and transferring.
A few of my teachers have said that UT isn’t really that well-known for their science department, as its most popular majors are in business, finance, and criminology. But chemistry really has never been a popular major as far as I can tell, and judging by the tour UT looks amazing. I just want to make the best choice for myself without either shooting myself in the foot for not obtaining the name of a public flagship like USF or UF, or squandering a near red carpet treatment from a small and decent private university 5 miles away.
The teachers who have talked badly about UT’s science programs have been elderly though, such as my chemistry teacher who fought in Vietnam instead of going to college directly after high school. The younger teachers at my school haven’t shown any wariness towards it, although I have never explicitly asked them about it.
I just want to hear what people thought. A lot of the information on UT on this site seems to be from 2009, I want reliable, present-day evidence.
Update: Because of the quality of the forensic science program, I have chosen to switch majors at UT from Chemistry-ACS to bachelor of science in forensic science :).