I’m a sophomore transfer student.
I’m recently admitted by UT and UWM for biology(entry level) and microbiology program respectively. I will be perusing a pharmacy degree after undergrad. I know both of them have the solid biological science program. So it’s hard to decide. Which should I choose?
They both good schools. They are about the same academically. If you are a Texas resident choose UT. If you are a Wisconsin resident choose UWM. UT is the liberal bastion in a conservative state (this may be changing). However, Austin itself is pretty liberal. UT is much more diverse. UWM is not very diverse.
Its UW or just Wisconsin not uwm (uwm in wisconsin is uw-milwaukee).
Texas is hot and conservative. Wisconsin is cold and Madison is liberal.
No contest - UT. Much better known than UW with a phenomenal natural sciences/Biology program, and you will have less of an issue getting a job. Both are somewhat conservative states if you are referring to politics but both college towns are liberal. Austin obviously is much bigger.
I live in Chicago and UT is more desirable than UW but also much harder to get into. Both are outrageously expensive for OOS.
As far as climate, much hotter in the early fall in Austin that Madison, but you’ll pay for it on the other side in Madison. Austin is also much bigger than Madison. Sports is king at both. Although Madison actually cares about its basketball team whereas UT doesn’t.
Austin is hugely liberal.
My bad. It’s UW at Madison. I thought the ‘M’ stood for Madison.
First of all, congratulations on your acceptances! Academically they are both very good choices.
Which one is more affordable? Can you afford either one without taking on any debt?
Summer in Austin is HOT. Winter in Madison is COLD. Do you have any geographic preference?
UT is much more affordable- my green card is coming.
I prefer hot actually because my home country is Taiwan. But I’m thinking academically, like which will give more benefit to my career.
Thank you
“UT is much more affordable”
“I prefer hot”
To me this says “go to UT”.
Both of these universities are very good. I do not think that you can go wrong in terms of academic quality with either as long as you are going to work hard in your course work and keep ahead.
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FWIW - Most rankings I have seen show Wisconsin’s biology program ranked slightly higher than UT.
“Slightly” is the right word.
I just looked at the 2018 US News rankings (what google found just now), which have Wisconsin at #18 and UT Austin at #27. This still for example puts UT Austin ahead in this particular ranking of some superb schools such as Vanderbilt, Brown, and Dartmouth College. Rice is at 39, Case Western, UGA, and UVA are at a tie for 46. This is still in the range of “fabulous” universities.
I see several schools tied at #73 (Tufts, Notre Dame, Florida) and more at #85 (such as Baylor and BU) that are great universities with strong biology programs and strong medical schools. This is a hint of how many very strong biology programs there are in the US.
I do not think that you should worry about tiny differences in the rankings when you are comparing universities that are this strong. In four years the rankings could easily be the other way around, and it still would not matter. In terms of the quality of the programs, you are comparing two really good options. Since you are a transfer student, I am guessing that you must be doing very well to have earned the right to attend either of the two great universities that you are comparing.
One big question: Are you going to be taking on any debt to attend university for your bachelor’s degree? You should keep your debt down as low as possible.
But really, do not worry about the rankings.
I just looked at niche and UW is 34 and UT is 49, not a huge difference and it’s really all relative.
One thing about UT is it’s easy to get residency there but you have to be there at least a year so if you aren’t planning on staying very long it’s probably not worth it, however, it can be a huge savings difference for tuition.