It's generally agreed that UT-Dallas has the best computer science program in Texas -- McDermott ensured that from the financial side. A&M also has a great reputation in computer science (they have the inventor of C++, among other things).
I'm an honors student at UT-Austin, and our computer science program, I hear, is really good, too. Especially our honors CS program, the Turing Scholars. But I don't think you can get in to Turing Scholars once you've already started college.
So of the three that you listed, UT-Austin is the place to go: Texas Tech and Arlington are weak, and don't have strong CS programs, at least, certainly not as strong as UT's. But UT -Dallas is supposed to have a better program than we do, so you might want to stick with it. Plus the fact that UT-Austin is so much more expensive. Keep that in mind, too, if that's an issue for you.
Ummm, in terms outside of CS, I can tell you that life in Austin is way better than life in Dallas! Something for everybody, open-minded, and very relaxed. And it's not as hard to get in to UT-Austin through transfer as most people think; lots of openings are created from people dropping out because they got in with the top 10% rule from noncompetitive school and they can't handle or afford UTA. So there's a lot of room for transfers. My advice is to give it a shot.
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