<p>I will be a senior next year and I am beginning to look into colleges. Three universities that turn out to be very appealing are the universities above. I am looking for a school located in a nice college town, great academics (especially in the life sciences), well regarded, nice statistics when it comes to placing students into medical school, social, and a nice campus. As of now cost isn't an issue at all. All opinions will be much appreciated!</p>
<p>Why did you choose UW Madison?</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard the academics are great and the school is highly regarded.</p>
<p>Im am applying there too. I was just looking for pros about the school.</p>
<p>Ohh there are many pros from the research I have done. </p>
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<p>All good choices</p>
<p>All good choices. Pick 3 more & roll a die.</p>
<p>Which one would you say has the edge in the life sciences and overall academics?</p>
<p>Probably UT</p>
<p>Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>Why UT over the others?</p>
<p>We are from Indiana and my son is now a freshman in mechanical engineering at UT, Austin. His favorite two schools at the end of the admissions process in the spring were Texas and UW Madison. They are both fantastic schools located in great places. Although I would have preferred he pick Wisconsin (just a 6 hour drive for us) he really, really loved Austin and UT.</p>
<p>Besides the obvious drastic weather differences, one advantage of UT over Wisconsin is that he was admitted directly into mechanical engineering. At UW, you have to apply to the engineering program you want after freshman year and hope your grades are good enough. (And UT’s engineering school is rank higher than UW’s.) Also, UT admitted him into their Honors program and gave him a $5,000 a year scholarship. UT has Honors dorms and they are very nice. (We just moved him in about a week ago). Only 5% of UT students are from out of state while Wisconsin has around 30% I believe. I don’t think this will affect him much, other than the long travel time. </p>
<p>You really can’t go wrong at any of those schools, and we have been very impressed so far with how well UT communicates and tries to make it a small school in various ways. Incredibly organized and efficient so far, as well as extremely friendly. Hope that helps!
(Talk to me again in about 6 months to see if he still likes it…)</p>
<p>Hi! As a student at UT I can say that it is truly awesome and out of the three schools it is my favorite, although I’m totally biased, I had wanted to go to UT since I was in sixth grade! However, my goals are really different from yours. Have you looked in to smaller schools? I transferred to UT from Southwestern University,a liberal arts school in a small town just north of Austin, and it is actually a really great option if you want to get in to med school, they have a really high acceptance rate, I think something like 95 percent of the last graduating class had either gotten in to grad school or gotten a job after graduation. I never wanted to go to med school so for me a big school was really a good option but my mom went to UT with hopes of going to med school but she was unable to get in to med school, despite doing amazingly well, because UT is so big and it is so hard to get good letters of recommendation. This would probably be a hurdle at any large school. I don’t mean to totally rule out the three schools you listed though, UT has a really good natural science college and it has a fairly good undergraduate research program, which is really important to getting in to med school. UW Seattle is in an amazing spot and its biology (specifically its immunology) department is world class, like some of the very best researchers/professors work there. I don’t know that I agree with Korsgaard about UT having the best edge in life sciences, sorry Korsgaard, I do cancer research and I do work with scientists in the life sciences fields and from what I’ve heard the school that is talked about most reverently went it comes to biology is UW Seattle. It is considered, to repeat myself, world class, its researchers are absolutely spectacular and other researchers, and med schools, respect that it is of one of the highest caliber research institutes. UW Madison I know the least about but again I know that the science departments are very well regarded in the research world. UT and UW Seattle are probably going to be in the best locations if you are looking to go to med school because each is in an area with institutes/centers that do research where you can probably find undergrad research opportunities. All of the towns for these schools are amazing, I know Austin is very much a college town while still offering other opportunities. The social scene is very fun but it can be really really hard to meet people at UT so joining a student group is a good option. Good luck with your decisions!</p>