I’ve been admitted to UT Austin, however I’m wondering if attending UT Rio Grand Valley isn’t the better option.
Here are the pros and cons of each for my situation:
UT Austin
Pros:
free tuition - Texas Tomorrow Fund
brother attends school there
prestigious
will live in a dorm
the “college experience”
living in Austin
Cons:
not sure of admittance to business school yet and unsure of said degree being what I want (thinking about CS, but I’ve heard that transferring into that is impossible)
have to pay for housing, food, books, etc.
UT RGV:
Pros:
first year of university’s opening (UT Pan American and UT Brownsville will be merging)
live 10 minutes away from campus
free everything (I will seriously not have to pay a penny for classes, books, etc.) PLUS having money left over for grad school from the Texas Tomorrow Fund
ability to choose major without competition
a feeder program for Space X that recruits CS and engineering students is starting up soon with UT RGV
Cons:
not as recognized
will live at home
losing the “college experience”
I would not have been debating this before had I not found out that a family friend has paid off my tuition through the Texas Tomorrow Fund and the vast amount of scholarships available to me at UT RGV.
I’m conflicted and would really appreciate others’ opinions.
I am of the belief that it is the student, and what he/she does with the opportunities and resources they have, and not the school, that matters.
If you are considering grad school, then GPA and GMAT, LSAT, or MCAT score are what will matter–not what college you graduated from. It will also be nice to graduate debt free and still have money left for grad school. In addition, there is something to be said for being a big fish in a small pond–especially when it comes to internships and research opportunities.
However, I also feel that a big part of college is not living at home and learning to deal with roommates and other issues.
It sounds like you have two great, but very different options. Try to spend some time on each campus and ask yourself where you feel you will be the happiest and where you feel you will be most successful.
Another vote for UT Austin. First, it’s a great college town. Second, the academic experience will be very different - you’ll have more challenging classes, better placement opportunities, more competitive classmates. There’s being a big fish in a very shallow pond that can actually hinder the big fish - you have to think about how you’d fit in at a school where the TOP 25% students have roughly 20 on their ACT, ie., aren’t college-ready (I’m not even talking about the average student there) - how much time will be spent on understanding a text vs. analyzing a text vs. correlating a text to another one? How often will you be the only one of two who have actually prepared for class, the other one being the professor?
Another aspect of this is that you really learn more by living on campus and you grow faster by not living at home. These benefits matter a lot in the long run - and ultimately, research shows that students who lived on campus have a better overall college experience, better grades, and are more involved.
Sometimes, it’s not just a matter of “free” - it’s a matter of “best value”. I’m sure you can see that in your daily life.
The school has to have the opportunities and resources to begin with, and frankly I’m not convinced that UTRGV has even 3% of what UT Austin has.
To the OP, UT Austin doesn’t need to heavily advertise a new program to bring one recruiter on campus. They already have so many that companies have to pay to be able to get a spot, and pay they eagerly do. You also don’t know if you’ll even need to go to grad school, or what the graduate discipline would be in. Finally, once you leave college you’ll still have to pay for R&B, so why not start on it now when you have the opportunity to be in a community of tens of thousands of other people who are all pursing a similar goal at the same school in a city somewhat catered to their desires?
IMO UT Austin is the clear and far superior choice, even if we discount its obvious academic superiority.
I am also generally of the belief that it is primarily the student, and not the school, that makes the experience and the result. However, count me as another vote for UT-Austin. The traditional college experience is a lot of fun; you learn important things and meet great people living in the residence halls; and it seems like it’s a fairly low cost option for you even with having to pay for room and board.
@CoolmanIam The other option might be to start at UT RGV, attend for 2 years and get your core classes out of the way, and then transfer to UT with hopefully a very high GPA. You will save 2 years of housing expense, and still graduate with a UT diploma.
If you were going to do that, OP, then it might make more sense to start at a two-year college. UT-Austin has an automatic admission program; if you graduate from a TX high school and are eligible for automatic admission then, but you attend a TX community or junior college and complete the core curriculum with at least a 2.5, then you are eligible for automatic transfer admission to UT. (The stipulation is a “Texas public junior college or other Texas public or private lower-division institution,” which I assume means a two-year college.)
It appears that UT does admit about 46% of its transfer applicants, but it’s unclear whether that number includes the automatic admits (which would drive the percentage up artificially).
The drop in prestige and opportunity appears to be far greater than the cost of room and board at UT Austin. Keep in mind that even if you are attending the lesser school and living at home, there are food, utility and transportation costs - so these costs can be offset when you calculate the room and board costs incurred by living on campus in Austin. Furthermore, book bargains can be found to greatly minimize the cost of books that most schools estimate. Clear winner here is Austin.