I NEED HELP ON DECIDING WHERE TO GO FOR COLLEGE? (Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Texas)

State Forums
1

I have a very complicated and long situation here…
I live in Austin, and I love living in Austin. I love walking the trails at Zilker, and I think I would really enjoy downtown while I’m in college. I got accepted to St. Edward’s with a $15k/year scholarship, and it’s only a ten-minute drive from my house, so I will not live in a dorm. I’m still waiting for UT Austin, but I’m looking to other back-ups just in case and so that I have more options. So I’ve been thinking about applying to UTSA and UT Dallas.

Some of the pros of going to UTSA is that it’s closer to Austin, and I can just drive back every other weekend or so, and see my friends and family and stuff. I could also experience living in a dorm, and get that “college experience” everybody talks about. Some of the cons are that dorms are like $10000, which would make the total price about the same as I would pay if I went to St. Ed’s, which would equal to around $22000/year. If I don’t get into UT Austin for my freshman year, I’ll try to transfer my sophomore year either way. In case I can’t get accepted by transfer however, it would be nice to be already attending a pretty good school for my major, which is Computer Science.

With that said, I’ve read in forums that UT Dallas is probably the next best UT in Texas. I’ve also read that they have a pretty strong comp. science program, and that they give a lot of scholarships. The only cons for me are that it’s 3 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES AWAY from home, which obviously means I can’t drive back and forth every other weekend, and that I would pretty much be stuck in Richardson/Dallas, where I don’t know anybody.

Help please? I contemplate these things everyday, whether or not I should apply or just go ahead and go to St. Ed’s. ACC is another option as well, but my parents aren’t too keen on me doing that.

2

If you don’t get into UT simply go to UTSA on the CAP program and transfer to UT at a later date. You will be only taking core classes so going to UT Dallas makes little sense to me unless they give you scholarships.

3

I would suggest you visit both UTD and UTSA if possible. UTSA is a bit larger (has football team) etc. Not sure if you can find out about transfer options from St Eds to UT but I would guess its fairly common. UTD definitely gives off a more academic vibe, has nice dorms but is not going to have the campus feel of Austin of course or even SA for that matter. UTD has a large endowment for a satellite campus so might also have good scholarship options as well. FWIW 3.5 hours is considered a fairly short drive in Texas. I can spend an hour just driving across Houston. If you are pretty sure you will transfer to UT, I would go to the cheapest route where you think you will get the highest GPA to help you transfer.

4

Two of my kids go to UT Dallas. There is a bus service between UTD and Austin that operates every weekend. A round trip ticket is $55. You certainly wouldn’t want to make the trip every weekend, but this makes monthly trips home feasible even without a car. I had no idea this existed until this schoolyear.
http://www.protixonline.com/events/details/?event_id=157

UTD offers great scholarships and their computer science program is very strong. My husband hired a lot of UTD computer science graduates when we lived in Dallas.