UTA has all the resources in place you need for a ...

UTA has all the resources in place you need for a great college experience but it is up to you. The university is definitely coming up very rapidly, becoming more and more selective and attracting better students: It's evident everywhere.

A lot of alumni and current students complain and therefore give the school a bad name: things such as a lack of school spirit and such is only a problem to the people who just come to campus and leave right after. At this school, there is two kinds of students: The ones who are ambivalent, and the ones who are excited, have spirit and like the college. A lot of the people who come here don't bother in trying to make friends or being involved, as they have lives off-campus. However, there is a strong social life here, but it is not as apparent as other colleges where everybody lives on campus, but it's definitely here.

New buildings, tons of new professors, Arlington is spending hundreds of millions renovating the vicinity. Once you factor in the financial aid, which is very, very generous compared to other universities; the school offers probably the best educational experience per dollar in the DFW area (SMU, TCU are small liberal arts schools that simply cannot compete with the resources of a large research university). UTD gives nowhere the amount of financial aid and scholarships and is nominally more expensive.

The administration is aggressively pursuing its goals of better graduation rates, more funding and making sure UTA will become a prominent college in Texas, by attacking and claiming the DFW metroplex first. It is aggressively snatching away talent from UT and UTD in order to become the best college in the area and being mentioned up there with A&M and UT; though this won t happen overnight. However, in less than 3 years graduation rates have gone up by an impressive 10% and population has grown exponentially, all while bringing in students with better qualifications. The recruiting efforts are something to be amazed at.

A lot of its metrics, which affect holistic rankings (such as graduation rates and such) are also weighed down by its demographics, many people commute here in the evenings and are non-traditional students ( which I think is awesome!) that might take maybe one or two classes, where as large schools of comparable population have 95% full time traditional students.
Don't let "rankings" fool you, we have great professors and small-ish class sizes (again, compared to other schools of similar population).

I will be graduating debt free and I m happy with the fact that I have received a strong education and have made great friendships from people I never would have come in close contact with during my highs school years.

Overall, the best value for your dollar in the area.