[andutu]

I'm a student attending UT Dallas. Not only am I in the honors programs there, but I also have an AES scholarship which grants me a stipend of $3,000 per semester.

I know several people who've gotten into prestigious institutions such as John Hopkins who are going to UTD instead.

It's not like options don't exist. Yeah UTD isn't some brand name, but it's a good starting point.

I blame universities to some degree for this problem, but I also blame consumers. I was once a starry-eyed high school student who applied to the likes of CMU and got rejected from all save UTD and A&M, with A&M basically giving me nothing. People realize that these schools open doors through elite social connections, more so than say UTD, but you can still network outside these elite institutions, it'll just be a little harder.