Gonna CRAZY!! UIUC vs PSU vs UTA vs Drexel vs OSU!! HELP!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
1

<p>Since May 1st is coming and I haven’t got my final decision, I turn to CC for help~PLZ!
PLZ help me to select the best-fit school!</p>

<p>I wanna know more about these schools from people who are studying in/graduadated from these schools, only then I can fully know the pros and cons of them, instead of browsing the schools’ pages, u know, only good things flourish.</p>

<p>I picked up these schools after full consideration:</p>

<p>---->University of Illinois at Urbarna-Champaign
---->Penn State University
---->University of Texas at Austin
---->Ohio State University ($6600 Scholarship + Honor Program)
---->Drexel University ($20000 Scholarship)</p>

<p>Waitlist:
---->Washington University in St.Louis (Accept the WL or not??)
---->University of Michigan ( I like it except the weather, terrible)</p>

<hr>

<p>And below come with some of my requirements of schools (huh…)</p>

<li><p>FAMOUS
I’m an international student. well.
So I want my school to be very famous, at least nationwide.</p></li>
<li><p>LOCATION
big city will be the best choice, but it doesn’t matter if the surroundings are convenient, well-accommodated, entertaining etc.
I come from a city with millions of people. :)</p></li>
<li><p>MAJOR
I love business-related majors, such as Finance, Actuarial Science, management
and I am also interested in social sciences and engineering.
So my school had better be well-rounded. ( and I can LEARN in its business school besides its fame)</p></li>
<li><p>CLASS
I hate classes with hundreds of people, or even thousands of people.
and I hate classes which usually the TAs teach instead of professors.</p></li>
<li><p>TRANSFER
Weird/Hard Transfer Policy? I hope not, I plan to transfer to California/Boston after my freshman year. So I expect the freshman year won’t be EXTREMELY hard for me to get a satisfying GPA</p></li>
<li><p>SCHOOL
Racial Discrimination?
Unhelpful Faculty?
Unfriendly Student?
lol…nobody likes it</p></li>
</ol>

<hr>

<p>I like UIUC for it being famous nationwide esp the engineering, but its location and business quality are what matters ( hundreds of people crowd in one class, TA </p>

<p>I like PSU for my uncle, who lives in Pennsylvania right now, strongly recommends it to me, but I hear that it is a party school…student unfriendly and likes drinking, not so good for study?)</p>

<p>I like UTA the most for its great location (intern opportunities? ) and its great business school ( I am not admitted to the business honor program, sigh, could I apply for it after enrollment?) , but discrimination…well</p>

<p>I like OSU, the scholarship and the honor program</p>

<p>I like Drexel, mainly for the scholarship ( does Drexel have the policy that share credits with Upenn?)</p>

<hr>

<p>To choose a school is pretty hard.
Both have their own pros and cons. and I don’t know too much about schools except what they have offered in their web pages. So I really really needs your help.</p>

<p>THANKS A LOT!!!</p>

2

<p>Whoa there, slow down a bit.</p>

<p>First off, you are going to get biased responses on each university’s board, so just a heads up (then again, there are also some people who come on to the Texas board to disuade kids from coming to Texas, so it may not matter).</p>

<p>I also would not choose a college based on an intention to transfer after one year–especially not this list of college. I would instead go to a school close to where I wanted to transfer that would save me money, particularly for an international student.</p>

<p>If you are looking for small classes, you have the wrong list of schools. Public universities in the US tend to have large class sizes, particularly for intro classes. This is just a fact of life. WashU and maybe Drexel would be the exceptions to this.</p>

<p>For prestige, I would say that WashU and Michigan, the two schools you’ve been waitlisted at, are the most prestigious. Then you would get Illinois and Texas, about at the same level (though Texas is looked on much more favorably in the Southern US), then Penn State and Ohio State, and then Drexel far in the back.</p>

<p>As for particular subject areas, you’ve listed both engineering and business. Did you get in to both of these colleges at most/all schools? At Texas it’s very difficult to do both because of the long list of requirements for engineering students. However, Texas is VERY well regarded in both subject areas. You say Illinois is prestigious nationwide, but I don’t really believe that to be the case. It has a good engineering school, yes, but it isn’t going to do any more for you than most other engineering schools will, except perhaps in Illinois. Texas is as well-regarded nationally for engineering as Illinois is.</p>

<p>You can apply for the business honors program as a sophomore at Texas, but it requires you to have nearly perfect grades for the first year. However, the BHP is one of the best undergraduate business programs in the country, hands down.</p>

<p>Secondly, Texas is a party school. People like to have fun. However, just about all of the schools you’ve listed have this culture, as big state schools. Texas probably has the best party scene, but the academics are top-notch as well, and people generally know when to get the job done. I’m sure it’s like this at all of the other schools as well.</p>

<p>Austin is a great town, and most people really enjoy it. There are lots of internship opportunities and UT is rated as having the best job-placement in the country–but it isn’t going to be significantly different than any other school you choose. As for discrimination, I believe you are terribly mistaken. There really isn’t any racial discrimination in Texas at all, and particularly not in Austin. The social scene may be a bit segregated, but this is generally by mutual consent and not because of any stigma or social trends, and I believe that most schools are also like this. Don’t always believe everything you see on television or in the movies–it simply isn’t true. Texas of 50 years ago is not the same as Texas today, and now Texas is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse states in the Union.</p>

<p>This is really the best I can do for you. Honestly I don’t know what you specifically want to do with your life or where you’d like to live in the future, but I do know that Texas will give you a good education so that you will end up successful no matter what field you study if you apply yourself. I would not, however, recommend coming to Texas with the intention of transferring out immediately. More likely than not, you won’t want to leave–so caveat emptor!</p>

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<p>Mosty I wanna major in Finance and UTA’s rank in undergrad business program is pretty decent. among all these schools I like UTA the mose, but without knowing why, which concerns me a lot. so Thanks for getting me a better idea about texas and UTA
but sometimes i’m worried about the size of this sch. it’s tooooooo big! i’m wondering whether this will reduce the quality of personal education and there isn’t a close-knit community.</p>

4

<p>Not Drexel if you’re going for prestige. Although it is in the middle of Philadelphia. And I’ve heard a lot of negative stuff about Drexel (I was accepted there as well)… here look at this site:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.u$nigo.com/drexel_university”>http://www.u$nigo.com/drexel_university&lt;/a&gt; (without the $)</p>

<p>The best thing about Drexel is their co-op program. Drexel students focus on life after college more, less on the college experience itself.</p>

<p>In fact, U$nigo is a great site to look at all the colleges on your list if you want.</p>

5

<p>Thankssssss!!! aberdeen15 !!
I’ve browsed ’ Student Review’ before, where EXTREME comments flourish and that is really scary. and I couldn’t get a clear idea about these schools at SR.
Actually I have come to a decision right now, UTA. I think that will be the best place to enjoy my undergrad education. but UIUC and PSU are too similar to UTA.
My mom loves UIUC for there are plenty of famous professor there ( from Harvard, Yale, Upenn etc.) and the alumni of uiuc are also a strong group.
I’m not sure whether a professor from Harvard will mean a lot to my study, but it is better to have a strong faculty. And that is what makes me hesitated between UTA and UIUC.</p>

6

<p>Just a side note, UTA is not UT Austin (commonly)–UTA usually refers to the UT feeder school, UT Arlington. UT is taken to mean the main campus in Austin.</p>

7

<p>If you are really only going to stay a year, you have gotten a pretty sweet deal by being offered the honors program at Ohio State. At Ohio State, honors freshmen are allowed to choose the classes they want before the seniors, juniors, or sophomores who are not in honors, so you get good choices of classes, and because you are in honors, your classes will be smaller. Also it is not particularly hard to get good grades at Ohio State. At any of the colleges you choose, take fairly basic classes with an eye toward what might transfer to your target schools. Ohio State is still on quarters next year so I think this could help; if you take full loads of basic classes and get A’s, I think it is likely that you might be able to get the letter that says you have been accepted as a transfer after two quarters of college rather than two semesters.</p>

<p>If you were planning to stay four years, I would have different opinions, but if you really just want to go somewhere for one year, get a good GPA, and have some classes to transfer somewhere else, I would recommend Ohio State because you are in honors and because you have that scholarship. Columbus is a fun college town, good bars and restaurants and student hang outs. The students have a lot of fun going to Ohio State football games; there is a lot of school spirit there.</p>

<p>(I do not know enough about Drexel to know whether that would be good or not, but I would recommend Ohio State over the other three for the reasons I listed.)</p>