Just fell in love with UT

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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<p>i'm a current junior in HS and today i fell in love with texas. everything about the school is just perfect IMO, from its academics (FANTASTIC physics program, same with engineering, and i'm pretty sure their biochem is good too, which is good cuz its my backup major) to the friggin amazing Longhorn sports, which have always been a favorite team of mine (Kevin Durant.. my favorite basketball player who isn't on my celtics) to the warm weather and the large city and of course the potential for some great parties after all the work is done.</p>

<p>but i had some questions about UT. i know its a huge school, but how big, exactly, is it?
will i be screwed in terms of a social life (parties and such) if i don't join a frat?
how intensive is the workload for a physics/engineering/biochem student?
how is austin as a city? i've never been, sooo i have no idea what i would expect</p>

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<ol>
<li>It’s one of the biggest in the country (2nd or 3rd i think)?</li>
<li>idk</li>
<li>biochem is alright, engineering/physics will probably screw you over socially far more than not joining a frat (meaning its a lot of work)</li>
<li>austin is a great city, make sure you go to sxsw and acl, there’s always something to do</li>
</ol>

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<ol>
<li> Yes it’s big, but I don’t feel it’s so big that you feel like you can’t make friends, find your niche, and still be involved with the student body at large.</li>
<li> You’ll be fine. There are plenty of social opportunities that don’t have anything to do with the Greek system - I can’t find the statistic right now, but the actual proportion of students in frats/sororities is relatively small when compared to the rest of the student body.</li>
<li>Engineering and physics are some of the best programs in the country, but I’m not sure where biochem ranks. As Redhots mentioned, if you want to land a good job in one of those fields, or go on to graduate school, it could affect your social life with the amount of work required, but that could be said of a lot of majors and really hinges on who you are as a student, if you struggle in any area, etc. Be prepared to change your study habits and reprioritize compared to high school - that’s usually what people struggle with.</li>
<li> Austin is amazing - great live music, great people, lots of activities outdoors, good food. There is literally something to do every day, and lot of things are on or near campus.</li>
</ol>

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<p>Forzworn i will be attending UT this fall for physics and im excited! I hear so many great things about the program and cant wait to do physics research for the FRI!</p>

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<p>wow… seriously, everything about this school is quickly winning me over. Berkeley and UCLA are still ahead, and potentially Reed College, but outside of those…</p>

<p>yeah, i fully expect to (and am more than happy to) commit a large portion of my time to schoolwork, as that is what college is about much more than a social life. I mostly wanted to know about that for weekends and such when i have the time to. i absolutely do not plan on going out late during days i have classes hahah. </p>

<p>austin sounds amazing so far though, i asked my dad and he says austin is one of his favorite cities, and he cited the same reasons as sundoll. definitely planning on visiting there.</p>

<p>@katatonic, hopefully ill be seeing you there the year after! is getting into fri any more difficult or anything than any other honors programs? and as an OOSer, what would my stats need to be around to get acceptance into fri or any of the other honors programs?</p>

<p>and also, sorry to sound naive but i honestly have never been any more south than memphis, and that was only for two weeks for a basketball tournament. whats the southern lifestyle like? are the people friendly? i know us bostonians have a reputation for being (m)*******s (it grows on you, i love us bostonians), are southerners really that much different? and of course the million dollar question… i’ve never heard a bad thing about southern girls- am i being fed lies or is this true?</p>

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<p>I’m from Cali, and it was definitely a bit of a culture shock for me to move here, but more in terms of adjusting to the rest of Texas, as Austin is really it’s own little island of culture and awesomeness. Two of my best friends here are originally from Boston and they love it, but like me they say the couldn’t live anywhere else in Texas but Austin (partly because we’re bleeding heart liberals and the rest of Texas is still catching up in that department lol). The people here are very friendly which I learned when my daughter was hospitalized shortly after moving here, and I was quite pleased with that change from San Diego where, although the climate and locale are great, people tend to be a bit more self-involved. Of course there are still going to be some bad apples you’ll come across just like you would anywhere, but overall I’ve found people here to be very welcoming and outgoing.</p>

<p>I can’t really comment on the southern girls thing since I am a girl but the ones I know are cool. But something to remember about Austin is that although it’s in the South and the middle of Texas, it’s not really a true southern town, at least not anymore. As the Silicon Valley of the South, one of the top cities in the U.S. for singles and its frequent rankings as one of the best places to live and raise a family, quite a decent part of the population isn’t from here - finding a native Austinite isn’t always easy, but at UT you can at least find more native Texans, so you’ll have a mix of southern gals and girls from various other places in the country.</p>

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<p>OP </p>

<p>what are your stats?</p>

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<p>Texas has never really been a “Southern State”. Its culture, people, and traditions have always been unique and have developed separate from the rest of the US. Texas as a whole has cities that are very cosmopolitan, with different cultures from every corner of the world. </p>

<p>In terms of Austin, it is a big city, has diversity, has traditions, and yes it is friendly. But that’s not due to anything like “liberalism”. It’s uniqueness stems from its ability to integrate all sorts of people with relative ease (thus its diverse populace). That’s not a “southern” thing either…</p>

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<p>@sundoll- yeah, moving from cali seems like it would definitely be a huge culture shock hahah. yeah i’d be the same exact way as your friends, i’ve always had a (yes, stereotypical but still…) view of texas as being ranches, cow(boy/girl)s, and conservatives with some large cities in there too. but, like you said, austin seems like “it’s own little island of culture and awesomeness.” i want to visit, badly. like now, hahah</p>

<p>@pierrechn (love the name if thats a lost reference which i believe it is) my stats are:
3.3UW, 4.0W but that was beginning of junior year, is higher now.
top 25% because my school is one of the best in MA, and my class is absurd as well…
took all honors courses in HS, only like 2 non-honors, and APCS this year (expecting a 5)
senior sched is very tough
SATs:
first time it was 590CR (ew) 750 math 670 WR (2010)
second time it was 650 CR, 640 math, 710 WR (2000)
superscored, thats a 2110 composite, 1400 CR+MA
subject tests i have a 670 mathII, and 590(i think?)chem… taking again in fall as well
29 act, 30eng, 31math
both SATs, sadly, i had major fights the night before with my (then) gf of 4+ years so i wasn’t in the best mindset for an sat. taking it again in the fall for a final time, should be much better.</p>

<p>i dont have a ton of ec’s, but i have a lot of commitment to the ones i am doing. i have worked 20-25 hours a week at the same donut shop since Aug '08, and i can probably convince my boss to give me an official leadership role soon because i have an unofficial one already…
i have played basketball on school teams and AAU teams all year round, all of high school, yet sadly all of my major accomplishments from that were in middle school (national tournaments, new england all stars, etc.)
probably taking calc I at a comm college my friend’s dad teaches at over the summer, and i’m going to apply for a job as a lab assistant at another one of my friend’s dad’s company
other than that, i can’t think of anything really worth mentioning, disappointing i know…</p>

<p>EDIT: just remembered my other award/ec: i am (currently) in the running for national merit semifinalist. i got the letter thing a few weeks ago, so i think right now im commended and waiting to see if i get semi. not sure how it works exactly, but i got the letter thing</p>

<p>EDIT2: i’m first generation also. well, i think i am at least… one of my brothers graduated college, the other went to comm college i think… my mom didn’t go to college, and my dad went to college but failed out because of a senior year history class, and never got his degree or graduated. hopefully that makes me first generation, hahah</p>

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<p>Visca I understand where you’re coming from, but really, the diversity that makes Austin so great really wouldn’t be possible without some of its progressive tendencies. That’s not to say it’s the only cause, but it is a part of it, and one of the reasons other parts of TX often find fault with Austin. Seeing as how I wasn’t raised here and relocated here in my mid-twenties, I know I have a different perspective, but being able to stand back and watch the various Texas dynamics play out over has helped shape my impressions.</p>

<p>And a lot of what I’ve experienced first hand all over the state could still be considered typical south (although different when compared with parts of say, Alabama and Mississippi) - yes there are several cosmopolitan areas, but quite a bit of the state is not, and those are the areas to which I was referring.</p>

<p>I think the mix of stereotypical ranches and urban metropolises are what make the state great, but what can also lead to frustration sometimes. lol But it adds to what you are able to participate in - one weekend you can take in SXSW, head out to the hill country for a horseback ride and stop in for a beer in Luckenbach, visit the Alamo and have a margarita on the Riverwalk, or drive to Dallas to the JFK museum or a Rangers game.</p>

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<p>Well i applied to Dean’s scholars and got rejected. Dean’s scholars is ridiculously hard to get into tho. But as far as i know, the FRI isn’t known for being hard to get into. If you get into the honors program you’re basically in it.</p>

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<p>Forzworm,</p>

<p>I would recommend visiting Austin. You can’t explain how cool it is. You also can’t explain the amount of very very good looking girls. When I was a junior, my parents took me to UT for a campus visit. I also was applying to Berkeley (which I also visited). We stopped at an intersection on “the drag” and watched a sea of hot girls walking accross the road. I decided then and there that I was attending UT Austin.</p>

<p>Its best to try and visit in the fall for a football weekend. The campus area in downtown Austin becomes electric. I loved UT so much that I went back to get an MBA 5 years after I graduated. I didn’t even apply to another grad school program.</p>

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<p>As far as girl, every things bigger and better in Texas lol.</p>

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<p>Off topic of how great it is - something I wasn’t prepared for but that doesn’t affect everyone is the allergies. Austin is rated one of the worst cities for people with allergies - something about our position at the base of the hill country, the air from the gulf just sort of makes its way to us and gets stuck (or so I’ve heard it explained), so mold goes up, and we have high pollen counts too. I never visited here before I moved and wish that perhaps I had only because I have horrible allergies and they’re worse now, although I still probably would have loved it and moved regardless. Anyway, just something to keep on your radar if you are an allergy sufferer like me.</p>

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<p>lmao i meant “girls”, Austin is a city that you just need to experience.</p>

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<p>@sundoll- thanks, thats actually a good thing to know, but it is also good that it wouldn’t affect me too much, for the last few years i havent really gotten allergies. good interesting point though, i would never have thought to ask that.</p>

<p>@pierre and bk- sounds good to me hahah, i’m so used to new england girls that it will probably be a huge shock when i go. i definitely want to visit now, it just seems amazing in every way and i’d kill to be there. visiting on a football weekend sounds like something that would be INCREDIBLE.
how intellectual is the atmosphere there though? i know its a big school and all, and i would be in a hard science major, but you never know…
and probably a stupid question, but hows the grad school placement? would a physics degree from tejas help me in getting into the big guns (MIT, stanford, harvard, cal, etc) for grad school?</p>

<p>@katatonic- thats good, fri seems like it’d be a nice way to get into research right away. when you say ridiculously hard, ona scale of 1 - “you’ve got to be kidding me”, how hard is it?</p>

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<p>forzworn, I live in Portland, Maine now, and I visit Boston often, because my husband’s sister lives in Brookline. THERE IS NO COMPARISON between Boston and Austin! Austin is SO much friendlier. Every time I go to Boston, I am happy to leave! The rudeness there blows me away - you probably don’t notice it since you grew up with it. When I visit Austin with my kids, they are always surprised - “Mom, everybody is so friendly here!”</p>

<p>My husband came down to UT from Wisconsin, so he was a real Yankee. He met me the first week of grad school, and we were engaged within three months! So he would tell you it was a good move for him! My dad was his suprevising professor, and we still joke about it - my husband, a Yankee, dating his prof’s daughter! Fortunately, Dad liked him right away.</p>

<p>My ex-boyfriend got his bachelor’s at MIT and then came to UT to get his master’s and PhD in physics. It’s a very intellectual atmosphere. If you do well at Texas, you’ll be able to get into a top-rate grad school (maybe even Texas, if you’re lucky :)).</p>

<p>You’ll probably have to improve your CR score. Texas doesn’t superscore the SAT - they will take the highest combined score from ONE sitting.</p>

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<p>Forzworm,</p>

<p>UT is indeed a big school, however, it becomes smaller when you break it down into the different colleges. You will find that there are some very bright people at the University in the College of Natural Sciences and School of Engineering. Almost everybody now at the undergraduate level is a student who was in the top 10% of their high school class. For the aforementioned colleges, I would say its more like top 5 or 6%. If you do well at Texas, your chances of getting into a graduate physics program are very solid. I believe the Physics Department at UT is ranked right up there with other very strong national programs.</p>

<p>And btw, football is just one sport. Basketball and Baseball are also very solid. We’re always contenders. Sports Illustrated named us the number 1 school in the nation for best collegiate athletics program. Its also the most profitable and highest revenue generating entity in all of college sports. The athletic department generated approximately 100 million dollars last year. Thats more than some professional sports franchises. FYI, this coming weekend UT should be hosting the NCAA regional baseball tournament. Last year we lost the College World Series final game against LSU. We’ve won it all twice in the past 8 years. I’m hoping we can pull it off again. Its really cool when Texas wins a national title in a sport. The Tower, which is kind of the main building and a symbol of the University, lights up orange with the number “1” for the whole city to see.</p>

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<p>Well I was told the FRI had about 900 applicants last year and accepted around 30 so… Yeah its hard. lol But don’t let that stop you!</p>

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<p>*Not the FRI, i meant Dean’s Scholars</p>