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UGH! Thank You! Somebody that gets it! That whole nonsense about "old school mentality" and this type of thing only happens at IVY league universities is a ridiculous statement.
I'm glad you feel confident that you made the choice you did. Clearly, it works for you, and that's what counts. As someone originally from out of state, it's been my experience that the only Texas schools that are universally "known" are UT-Austin and Rice. As far as many of the (very good) others--TCU, SMU, Texas Tech, Texas State, the other UT's, etc.--they might only be known for a set of specialties, if at all.
Really, it depends on the field and the specialty within that field. The one objective category in which UTSA excels, as I mentioned earlier, is in the influence of the research its faculty produces. (In the Times Higher Education ranking a few folks cited, the research influence of UTSA's faculty was much higher than that of UT-Dallas. Of course, only schools younger than 50 years old were listed. But even there, UTSA beat out [by a wide margin] other good US universities, including Florida International and George Mason.)
I don't know much about business, but I do know about liberal arts and sciences. If you want to study Latino literature, UTSA is one of the best places to do it. One of the recent grads from the English Department's doctoral program got a professorship at the University of Minnesota, in a top program. UTSA's Anthropology Department is the only one in the United States (I believe) that has two professors who have held the position of Program Director in Physical Anthropology at the National Science Foundation--an impressive fact, and a very important one for grad students who seek funding from that institution. (English and Anthropology are the only two departments in liberal and fine arts at UTSA that have doctoral programs, although Psychology just had one approved.) There are other facts I could trot out, but it would get tiresome. (OK, just one: in recent years, UTSA has produced more than one finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship, see Ovations | UTSA's College of Liberal Arts Magazine)
Business programs and careers may work in one way, but other fields can work very differently. If you get good grades and a stellar recommendation letter from a well respected expert in a field--and UTSA has many of them--then you can go very far. I've seen it happen many, many times. Of course, that just says that UTSA has the resources to allow you to do anything you want, if you put in the effort. If you don't, a C average and a basic BA can only take you so far, and that holds for just about every university.
In some ways, UTSA reminds me of the City University of New York. It was founded as a school with a large percentage of minority students and an "open access" mission: if a person wants an education, they can get one. I think that's great, although it's slipping away at UTSA as the school has decided to become more selective. And, like CUNY, on top of that broad undergraduate mission are some quickly improving doctoral programs. Some of CUNY's programs are top-notch, as are some of UTSA's. It's a bit of a balancing act, but there are models out there.
All I can say is that in many parts of this country (and the world), and for many fields, a great GPA and a degree from UTSA will do just as much for you as a degree from SMU, TCU, Texas State, UT-Dallas, etc.
Some things to throw out there.........UTSA acceptance rate is 83%. The debate team was #1 in the country last year.........no big deal right? Well, they beat out Harvard and many other top notch universities to get there. Also, the football program is already 100% (at this point in time) ahead of season ticket sales that they had last year (15K)......so the program does look to being a big success. The architecture program has entered numerous competitions against all the big name U's in Texas ...... including Texas and A&M and won.
First of all I would love to thank you for your well articulated post. This exactly what I have been asking for! I definitely do agree with you that Rice and UT are really the only nationally known universities (maybe A&M) in Texas, where as the later are strong in Texas and maybe the few surrounding states. SMU is known for its business and Law school and I was biased in choosing it because these are both programs I intend on using.
The strength you list as anyone has an opportunity to become what they want from UTSA is in my opinion a great strength of the University and shows that one can still accomplish their goals from UTSA if they have the proper motivation and drive. This is true at pretty much any University however as excellence is certainly rewarded. I’m not going to touch the newest school ranking because I believe it has little value and is by no means a selling point.
I don’t really have much knowledge of the liberal arts department at UTSA because i never had any interest in any of their programs or liberal arts in general; their value is severely diminished because your return on investment is very low for a B.A. when compared to a BBA or a BS. I will just take your word that UTSA has a good Latino literature program since it has happens to be in a Latino majority community. Not sure what the point of a latino studies degree would be anyways.
I have heard that UTSA is spending a lot of money acquiring talented professors more and adding new programs which are a good thing to a point, however I would advise against speaking to the successes of a few students when compared to the whole student body. The fact is that there are still much better programs for graduate studies at other schools in Texas which will continue to siphon away all the top talent. I still think a student can be successful if they go to UTSA however I still believe their options would be better if they went somewhere else, specifically a school where their professors teach not TA’s(A serious problem at all public Universities these days). I disagree with the statement that UTSA allows you to do what ever you want because they do spend the vast majority of their money in their science departments and allow other programs to suffer because of it. Some colleges get all the help while others get ignored. On top of that they will be competing for graduate spots with people who have been held to more academically rigorous standards at other schools. The CUNY reference is a spot on representation for UTSA. I think UTSA’s strength was the open access policy and they should have focused on this instead of just constant expansion.
I still have to disagree that a great GPA and business degree from SMU and TCU will do much more than the UTSA equivalent. Texas state and UTSa are close enough to be peers but UT Dallas and Texas Tech has a noticable advantage over both univeristies. SMU is at the point where they are leagues ahead of UTSA and UTSA will never be able to compete with them. This is from SMU success stories about an 08 grad that works for PricewaterhouseCoopers which happens to be the number 1 ranked accounting firm.
http://www.cox.smu.edu/web/guest/wayne-rowe-08
Last edited by Jkeenan87; 06-27-2012 at 10:01 AM..
Some things to throw out there.........UTSA acceptance rate is 83%. The debate team was #1 in the country last year.........no big deal right? Well, they beat out Harvard and many other top notch universities to get there. Also, the football program is already 100% (at this point in time) ahead of season ticket sales that they had last year (15K)......so the program does look to being a big success. The architecture program has entered numerous competitions against all the big name U's in Texas ...... including Texas and A&M and won.
Go Runners!!!!
(To be clear Saytown, I would like examples showing how UTSA has moved up and become a better ranked university. Please show me some kind of evidence that proves that UTSA would give me an edge over other Texas Universities. Any program will do. Yesterday 01:28 PM)
Just a reminder that you have not answered my question.
I am happy to hear that the debate team did well however the only article I could find said they were #1 for a brief period of time. Could you find a link that shows them as the 2011 national champions? Actually you have not provided any shred of evidence to back up a single claim you have made. No one cares about UTSA football it does nothing to enhance the academics of a university which is all that matters unless you are 1% of college football players who actually make the NFL which will not be at UTSA. All you are doing there is bragging that the school has made more $ off of you so congratulations. For the architecture claim please provide a source as i cold not find anything.
Your claims to the greatness of your university are not strong selling points and am still waiting for one.
(To be clear Saytown, I would like examples showing how UTSA has moved up and become a better ranked university. Please show me some kind of evidence that proves that UTSA would give me an edge over other Texas Universities. Any program will do. Yesterday 01:28 PM)
Just a reminder that you have not answered my question.
I am happy to hear that the debate team did well however the only article I could find said they were #1 for a brief period of time. Could you find a link that shows them as the 2011 national champions? Actually you have not provided any shred of evidence to back up a single claim you have made. No one cares about UTSA football it does nothing to enhance the academics of a university which is all that matters unless you are 1% of college football players who actually make the NFL which will not be at UTSA. All you are doing there is bragging that the school has made more $ off of you so congratulations. For the architecture claim please provide a source as i cold not find anything.
Your claims to the greatness of your university are not strong selling points and am still waiting for one.
I cant spend my entire day compiling examples, but here is a wiki of some things I have found.
All programs are fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the UTSA College of Business is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
The College of Business is the largest business school in the University of Texas System and is nationally ranked by Princeton Review, BusinessWeek and HispanicBusiness.
The College of Liberal and Fine Arts, which has the highest enrollment at UTSA, ranks second in the UT System for external research funding in arts, humanities and social sciences.
More than 50 percent of Honors College graduates have been accepted into postgraduate universities and medical and professional schools The College of Sciences collaborates with other leading research institutions such as Southwest Research Institute. Since 2005, UTSA and Southwest Research Institute have maintained a joint doctoral program focusing on space physics.
The College of Public Policy's Center for Policy Studies is in the top five certifying institutions in the U.S. for American Humanics, a program that brings together universities, nonprofit organizations and community partners to prepare professionals to lead nonprofit organizations.
The College of Architecture ranks first in the nation in awarding degrees to Hispanic students, according to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine.[12] Research initiatives
In addition to the educational advantages UTSA offers, the school generates more than $1.2 billion in annual business revenue in San Antonio and directly employs more than 5,000 people.[13]
In a 2007 study released by Academic Analytics, UTSA was ranked fifth for faculty scholarly productivity among other large research universities in the state of Texas.[14] It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a "High Research Activity" university.[15]
Proposition 4 was passed by Texas voters in November 2009. This piece of legislation named 7 emerging research universities in Texas that could compete for additional state funds in an effort to increase the number of tier 1 institutions in Texas. Factors such as research expenditure, graduate degrees awarded, and scholarly productivity all play a part in which schools receive the most funding.[16]
The school reached a new record of $56.8 million for research expenditures in fiscal year 2011. This represents a five-year increase of 75.8 percent.[17]
UTSA is second in the UT System for research funding in biology, social sciences, arts and humanities, microelectronics and computer technology
We shall see where UTSA is at in the next 5-10yrs.
I'm a UTSA student now and was looking to enroll in the Lyle School of Engineering after graduation for a graduate program until I recently swore off academia permanently/long-term.
They both represent one thing that I believe makes it no difference from UTSA--it's still a regional school. UTSA doesn't "buy" you a degree, networking isn't all that great from my experience (but I also have been in my career before having a degree), but it's still regional. SMU's great for DFW, and DFW is more influential, and perhaps especially so in business (I obviously am not a business student, so it didn't seem worthwhile to attend SMU). UTSA's regional is smaller and less influential, but nationally, both probably generate a blank stare compared to a UCLA, Berkeley, etc.
Anyway, I don't have 100% favorable comments on UTSA. I certainly got a decent education in my major for the price, but I'd never depend on a university to provide me with opportunities for my career unless I wanted to go into academia. Case in point: if I wanted to do a graduate study in statistics, I had at least two connections to SMU (which has a good stats program) that I didn't have when I was at UH. If anything previous posts have illustrated, UTSA's good if you want to do something research-related and you need recommendations. To my surprise, faculty members in the departments I requested recommendation letters from have influence in schools such as Rice, SMU, Baylor, UC**, CUNY (Brooklyn), etc. etc. So in that sense, a GPA speaks volumes. It's why UTSA can produce propaganda like this: Commencement Close-Up: Jessica Jimenez breaks the mold for success
Personally, I don't find US News rankings reliable anymore. The methodology doesn't seem too great, and from a statistics standpoint, looking at data without context/comparison/analysis is bad news, especially observational data, which is what most evidence I've seen in this thread is. Comparing data (especially observational data) is tricky--just looking at data and saying they're different so one's better isn't a good approach. That argument has been used in discrimination/salary cases and it usually doesn't hold because there's not enough evidence to suggest a difference.
I agree that both schools are more regional in scope however SMU is clearly a better university and our reach is much closer to a national level than UTSA will ever be. The DFW area is also vastly superior in terms of careers than San Antonio. I of course agree that SMU will never be UCLA/USC/ND/UC-Berkley. UTSA however will never be at the level of SMU either.
I do not doubt that you can get a good education from UTSA. In fact I know it is possible and it can be significantly cheaper going there than other schools. If that were an argument you were trying to make I would concede wholeheartedly that you are correct.
UTSA may have some success with their research department and a few of their top students may indeed be successful since many graduate programs do not care which school you went to and your GPA and recommendations will carry you. I know this how law school admissions work, As in a 3.5 174 LSAT from Berkley will not get you into Harvard Law but a 4.0 GPA from UTSA and the same LSAT will get you in. It is not impossible to achieve ones goals from UTSA, however the overall student body is of low standard and the academics in general are as well. Perhaps the Honors College has some good students but I feel that these students would probably be successful in transferring to better intuitions or they have a good reason to stay such as a strong bond with a professor that is looking for a research assistant. The thing than annoys me about UTSA propaganda is that it focuses on those one or two students that can be at UTSA because they receive a full living stipend and free tuition as a deal for being at the University. I met a student there that was in their science department that turned down A&M because of this.
I also agree that US news’s individual ranking system is a bit ridiculous and a better grading scheme has to be implemented to give prospective students better information. However I do not see how UTSA can be considered a good university when they have a 7% graduation rate and low standards of admitted students. UTSA still has a long way to go to becoming a respectable university. Kudos to it trying and all but frankly im still not convinced.
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That whole nonsense about "old school mentality" and this type of thing only happens at IVY league universities is a ridiculous statement.
