<p>Hello, my name is Amanda. I have been accepted into A&M under Biology, and was accepted into UT under their CAP program which means I will need to attend UT Arlington for a year and maintain a 3.2 GPA in order to be automatically addmitted into UT Austin into the college of Liberal Arts. Here is my problem, I have always been a UT fan and I hated A&M until I visited their campus yesterday and really got an insite to who they are. Now I think I would like it at A&M, but I still really love UT. I would love to hear everyones opinions on the two schools, whether that is culture, hating on them, comparing differences, whatever. I know I need to make my own desicion, but it helps hearing other's opinions.
Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>This is just a copy of a post I made earlier, hopefully it will help you out:</p>
<p>Well first of all, I'm sorry...it sucks. One year ago, I logged into my UT status check to see that evil acronym staring back at me. I was pretty ticked off to say the least. I had gotten into a bunch of other schools, even a few that might be considered on par or better than UT (Wake Forest, U Florida, UGA, UW Madison, McGill, U Toronto, McMaster, Queens, University of Western Ontario). After I saw that I was CAP'd, I began to seriously consider my other options. After visiting a couple of the place, I came to the conclusion that I'm a Longhorn. Both my parents are UT alumni and I was raised to cheer on Bevo and hate A&M (and I do). Ultimately I decided that UT was my dream school, and if I had to take a detour to get there, so be it. </p>
<p>Now here was the hard part. I HATED telling people that I was going to UT Arlington. I found it embarrassing, I mean it's not the best school. When told people that I was going to UTA, it made me cringe a little. Once I got here, my opinion of the school changed a lot. The dorm I stay at here is MUCH nicer than any dorm that I'll ever stay at when I go to UT. Also, believe it or not, not everyone here is really stupid. I've met plenty of friends here that are much smarter than me and choose to go to UTA because of financial reasons or because they just love the place. Some of the professors here are absolutely great. There are some classes that I sit in on sometimes even though I'm not enrolled just because the professor's lectures are so great. That being said, some professors make me want to take a nap, but that's something you'll find at any school. The biggest problem facing UTA is the fact that so many of the students here commute. While this really bothered me at first, what I found out is that it almost helps the campus develop a more tight knit feel because you run into the same people that live on campus all the time. On weekends there's usually a party if you know where to look, or if you feel like blowing a bunch of cash, you can have a fun night in Dallas (15 minutes away). Because UTA is so close to Dallas, I've had the opportunity to work a great internship. Also, I also got involved with the newspaper here and I went from NEVER writing for a newspaper in any capacity to being published once a week. When I came here I met lots and lots of people that were involved in the CAP program, and of those, I only know a handful that are going to Austin. For the most part, this isn't because they couldn't make the GPA, but because they just enjoy life at UTA. It really isn't all bad (SHOCK! HORROR!). </p>
<p>Basically this is my long version of telling you that the CAP program isn't that bad of an option. Right now I have a great GPA, great friends, and I'm going to be right where I want to be in Austin in a few months. If UT is really your dream school, I suggest that you don't settle for your #2 choice. I'm sure a lot of you are concerned about "wasting" your first year of college, but I definitely wouldn't consider this year a waste. If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them for you. I know this time last year, I would have really liked to have someone answer some questions for me.</p>
<p>Thanks for that! Anyone else willing to share their opinions, please!!!???</p>