I am interested in both of these schools, I got admitted into UT Austin yesterday and I haven’t heard back from Boston yet but am expecting a reply in March or April. I would much appreciate some advice on which school is better, I live in Texas so UT Austin is a much cheaper option than BU, but I feel like BU has a lot more opportunities? I know BU’s tuition is a lot, but is there a huge difference between BU vs UT Austin education-wise, etc? I would be majoring in biology, premed track. Also, I would most likely be paying for BU’s tuition myself.
Any advice/comments about each school is very much appreciated, thank you!!
If cost is a factor, there is no reason to look beyond UT Austin for you. Boston U is not appreciably better nor will offer you any more opportunities, and will charge you 5x the price.
All that BU shares with Harvard and MIT is a location on the Charles River. You have been reading too many BU promotional brochures. Texas Austin is as good as BU if not better academically. It would be foolish to pay $120,000 more to attend BU.
When you say you would be paying i assume you mean your parents.
@TomSrOfBoston My parents are refusing to pay for tuition if it is for an OOS school, so I would be paying for BU literally by myself haha
@roycroftmom Thanks for the insight, I think I’ll stick with UT Austin then!
I can’t imagine there are more opportunities at BU than UT. I would think the opposite would actually be true. Full pay OOS to BU vs In-state to UT is a no-brainer decision.
@maroon79 Yeah, I accepted my decision to UT!
@twohamsters. Best decision you have made. For the general education courses, I do not think that they make differences between BU and Austin. In addition. From Senior year, the class size is small in both universities. Moreover, this is the Internet era, learn anything you like there and make yourself strong academically. In a word, TX has more opportunities, from my point of view. If you really want to go for BU, do it for your master or PhD degree.
@Educationfather Yeah, I think I’m just gonna try to get into BU’s medical school or perhaps even residency rather than going there for undergraduate education. Thanks for the advice!
Stay in Texas for undergraduate and relatively inexpensive medical school. Starting your medical career with $600,000 in debt from expensive undergraduate and expensive medical school will constrain your career and life choices than starting you medical career with much less or no debt by attending in-state UT schools for both undergraduate and medical school. For residency, you can apply to places in Boston.
@ucbalumnus I would really like to live in the Northeast sometime in my life, but I also do like Texas a lot and education is cheaper so it would definitely be better. Medical school is a couple of years away but I am leaning towards staying in Texas for it too. Residency, however, I would definitely like staying in Boston! I totally agreew with your point, it’s obviously better to go to schools that are the same level and also cheaper rather than just getting all these loans and having to pay it all off later.
There’s very little difference in the quality of education. It’s a bachelors degree. The only difference is that you’re paying quadruple the price for it. If the degree had M.D. in the title, that would certainly justify the cost. If you’re planning to go to medical school, this is debt you don’t need. Plus, Texas medical schools look much more favorably on applicants that come from Texas universities.
@twohamsters You made a good choice. Keep in mind that there is no other choice, because you, as an undergrad student, are literally not allowed to borrow the full cost of BU without a parent signing for the loans.
@coolguy40 Yeah, now that I look back on it it seems stupid to consider BU for an undergrad education when it’s so much more expensive than UT (which is an as-great school) right in my hometown!
@evergreen5 Oh, I didn’t realize that a parent had to sign for the loans! Honestly I’d probably die trying to pay back my loans for college, if I went in all by myself lol.
You can take $5,500 in federal direct loans without a cosigner for the first year of college. Additional loans require a cosigner, or parent loans.