North Texas Daily

Paul Wedding / Senior Staff Writer

Arlington Independent School District juniors ranked in the top 20 percent of their class will earn guaranteed admission to UNT under the Eagle Advantage program.

“This will be a nice opportunity for those who are interested and those who may not have considered college in the past,” Leslie Johnston, AISD director of communications, said.

The Eagle Advantage program will also take steps to make sure the transition to college is as seamless as possible for AISD students.

UNT staff members will help students with financial aid planning, scholarship applications and admissions processes. Current AISD seniors will be grandfathered into the program, but it will only apply to juniors after fall 2015.

Qualified students who want to be accepted to the program must also apply to UNT and submit their ACT or SAT scores, as well as graduate with a recognized diploma and meet Texas Success Iniative requirements.

UNT is also giving a $1,000 scholarship to all participating high schools to award to a junior involved with the program.

One hundred students from AISD enrolled into UNT last fall, Executive Director of Admissions Rebecca Lothringer said.

Between 500 and 1,400 students are currently granted guaranteed admission to UNT under the Eagle Advantage Program, but it’s unclear how many will actually attend UNT.

The University of Texas at Arlington has a similar program called Bound for Success.

UNT President Neal Smatresk said AISD is just the start, and UNT plans to expand the program across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

“We want to let qualified students know that UNT is a great place for them and create an on-ramp that relieves the anxiety of applying to college and gets them in touch with staff members and advisors from the university,” Smatresk said.

Featured Image: Students walk around the Library Mall a few days before the spring semester begins. The admissions office is located in the Eagle Student Service Center, which is in the Library Mall. Photo by Evan McAlister – Staff Photographer