<p>Hi,
I am nearing the end of my junior year and have started looking at colleges pretty seriously. I love everything about UT Austin-- they have exactly what I want to study, the town is amazing, there is a great music scene, etc. The catch is that I don't want to be involved in Greek Life/football games/party scenes. I know that, of course, at any school you can find people similar to you, but I am just wondering if it is possible to go to UT Austin and avoid the party scene and Greek Life culture while still having a good experience?
Thank you!!</p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>It is a huge place so you can easily avoid Greek life and football. I know several kids who are doing just that and are very happy.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg05_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=788”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg05_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=788</a> indicates that 4.9% of women and 3.4% of men join sororities and fraternities at UT Austin. Because UT Austin is big, 4.9% of women and 3.4% of men can fill up a lot of sorority and fraternity houses, making them appear to be a bigger presence in an absolute sense, even though over 95% of students are not in them.</p>
<p>I totally agree with the above two comments. But as a side note, there are different types of football fans, different types of sororities and different types of parties. You may not appreciate the raging drunken raves but may want to go to dance parties with your nerdy friends. I’ve talked to quite a few people who never expected to go Greek in college but did anyway because something about the scene attracted them and it was different than they expected. And lots and lots of students who have zero interest in football prior to attending a big football university get swept up in the fervor and school spirit - or at least attend the games just for the social atmosphere.</p>
<p>So yeah, it’s totally possible for you to avoid it, as large D-I universities are about a lot more than just parties, Greek life and football (especially one as well-reputed as UT-Austin). But keep an open mind.</p>
<p>It was possible for me, and I lived in a dorm with 60% sorority girls! My freshman roommate was a gung-ho Chi Omega. She was never around, so it was like I had a single room. But my first day at UT, I met the girl I would room with the next three years of school. I found MANY friends. UT is like a big city with lots of small neighborhoods. You find your niche and go from there. And I was SHY in high school. By the time I’d finished my BS and MS, nobody called me shy any more! 
I was an engineering major, by the way.</p>
<p>We just toured UT during spring break - on paper it looked to be a good fit for my son who is interested in CS. Our tour guide spent the first 15 minutes standing in front of the football stadium teaching us the fight chant. He said he picked the college because of the football team - he was a real deep thinker. I could tell we were losing son so we saw another tour starting and went and joined them. This tour guide was just finishing her explanation of the ticket package for the football games. The tour lasted an hour and we saw no academic buildings, just the outside of a library but spent a good 15 minutes inside the exercise facility/pool area. Toward the end the guide asked for questions and people started asking about rushing sororities so we left. It was the strangest tour I have ever been on and between my kids I must have toured 15 schools. We got to lunch and said WTH was that? There was no mention of the award winning business school, the PlanII honors program or the CS department that Bill Gates is pouring money into. We got out the campus map and found the new CS building on our own and son explored there, but what a way to hide your light under a bushel basket - unless what was highlighted is the priority. </p>
<p>Maybe there should be a nerd tour that visitors can request. </p>
<p>Sorry the tours you got were so football heavy in orientation. I have yet to have that tour. Son is in CNS so we got the accepted student CNS tour and saw all those science and CS buildings you were hoping to see. We went on Physics Dept open house day and saw a watermelon drop, too. It was the week for the FRI, Freshmen Research Initiative, to present, so the bottom level of the science building was crowded with posters and student presenters. </p>
<p>On subsequent visits I have always made it my mission to show up an hour or so early so I can drop by one of the museums and walk around. My son tries to take me to eat at a new ethnic dive restaurant to eat every time I visit. </p>
<p>You’re revealing a lot if you consider every touring hs junior who would like to see an academic building to be a nerd. He would have loved to have been on the tour you recently were on but would have settled for a brief walk through the library, it would have been a better use of 15 minutes than watching students tan by the pool. I realize that the school is huge and the possibility of finding your “peeps” is there, but why not show off your best features on a tour for prospective students? To paraphrase your opening line - maybe they could have a “bro” tour for potential students who aren’t really interested in academics.</p>
<p>Hey, I’d be in favor of that. Speciality tours, I mean. </p>
<p>It is a big place and accommodates all kinds of different people. The casual Austin tourist would like to see the football stadium and the tower and the fountain. The CNS major wants to see the general stuff plus the science buildings. The business kid wants to see the business building, etc. </p>
<p>There are non football sports that are successful and people like to follow, including swimming and Ultimate. I’d love to peek inside the natatorium and watch practice. </p>
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<p>Humm, here is a possible reason. Did you consider that the tour is mostly directed at the masses of students who hope to get in via the Texas Automatic rules --be it 7 to 10 percent? For the small arny of such candidates, choosing between UT, Texas A$M, or Texas Tech is indeed all about football, weather, and EC activities. </p>
<p>For the rest of potential applicants, there is little reason to “sell” the engineering, business, and Honors’ colleges as they require specific applications. The students who are interested in such programs usually know much more about the programs that those poor guides. </p>
<p>You confirmed this by showing that you had little problem finding about the tremendous academic opportunities on your own! The sad reality is that most tours are simply royal PITAs and hardly as instructive as one might hope for! </p>
<p>PS I hope you enjoyed your lunch in Austin. There is a plethora of “good eating” on and around UT’s campus! And some truly spectacular! By the way, football is contagious in Austin. Many people who did not care for it … became great fans. Hook 'em! :)</p>
<p>I’ve been on CC since 2006 (and I lurked before that) so of course I knew about specific programs - heck I’ve even evoked the xiggi method of SAT prep with kid#1! I wanted husband and kid#2 to see/hear it from someone other than me. BTW, at the info session preceding the tour the room was 50% New Yorkers!</p>
<p>Oh, even New Yorkers deserve some good football! /smile! </p>
<p>My point was that most organized tours will leave many questions unanswered. Not to mention that most questions that will be answered are also answered online. IMHO, the best part of visiting a school is to appraise the feel and look of the school. Do the students smile or look happy? Does the weather seem clement or bearable? How is the traffic around the school? How do the dorms and cafés look like? And more of the same. </p>
<p>The academic questions are best answered through digging into the faculty pages and by contacting the school officials. This said, all the best prepared and laid plans might fall short or be for naught. I was SO prepared to move to Austin’s BHP until I visited the small LAC that stole my heart within ten minutes of stepping our of the car. Go figure! </p>
<p>Many students, myself included, want to see the school spirit around sports. While sports are not the only thing (part of why I chose Vandy over Bama), they are something that a lot of students love. I know that I would not be nearly as happy going to a college that did not have a sports culture.</p>