<p>Considering Mech. Eng. or Aero/Astro Eng. Any insights on these colleges as far as quality of education, quality of college life, etc. would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Virginia Tech, better quality of life according to the Princeton Review, very good engineering school</p>
<p>Any more feedback, please?</p>
<p>UT Austin is beast</p>
<p>One concern is that there is more geographical diversity among the other 3 (i.e. approx. 65% in-state and 35% out-of-state). UT has about 95% in-state. </p>
<p>Why do you favor UT?</p>
<p>Any feedback from OOS about UT in general and their Mech. or Aero. Eng. programs in particular? How do OOS fit in and like UT?</p>
<p>universityquest, VT is a better choice than VT, very reputable engineering program, more % of people study engineering at VT</p>
<p>UT is a great, larger school with excellent academics. However, if your concern is geographical diversity UT is mostly instate due to the texas top 10% rule filling up its class.</p>
<p>Wisconsin has the best overall experience of all of them. National student body, great programs, great town. None of the others has all three.</p>
<p>UT is a really good school. Their admissions policies are the only bad thing about them, but if you get in without being a top 10% student from a ghetto school, then you are jet-set at a great university and a great college town.</p>
<p>UT is waaay more prestigious than Wisconsin, PSU, and VT. Plus I’d argue that Austin is way cooler than Madison, but that’s just a matter of opinion, because Madison is pretty cool as well.</p>
<p>UT’s engineering is higher ranked than VT. Go with it, plus UT is an awesomely fun school.</p>
<p>UT is hardly as prestigious as UW rather than way more. Agree Austin is a great town but most of the fun places are not within walking distance of campus. This can create all sorts of problems.</p>
<p>
There are free bus rides to 6th Street where you will find some nice restaurants, lots of bars and live music. You do need a car to fully enjoy the “live music capital of the world”.</p>
<p>My choice for engineering:
UT=Wisconsin (great academics and great fun) > PSU=VTech</p>
<p>One caveat. Engineering is a restricted major at UT so it may be harder to get it from OOS.</p>
<p>Barrons, I’m not a UT booster. In fact I am going to OSU, one of UT’s Big 12 South rivals. My parents both went to OU and they have always preached a hatred of everything UT. Each year in October I’ve had the embarrassment of the feud between my parents, rabid OU people, and our neighbors, rabid UT people…the insane lengths they went to show more proud than the Jones’s, including one year we had the OU emblem mowed into the lawn.</p>
<p>As much as I may dislike both OU and UT personally, I have enough respect for them academically that I can at the very least put in a good word for UT over UW, VT, and PSU. I can’t debate the fact that UT is an elite public university. No one can, despite that every other thread on this forum practically is about UT. You on the other hand ARE a Wisconsin booster, because all of your posts I’ve seen today were about how awesome Wisconsin and Madison are. I think that qualifies you as a Badgers guy, or you aren’t playing down your connection to Wisconsin, whatever it is.</p>
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<p>I’ve had a LOT of fun staying in Austin from time to time. 6th Street is about half a mile from the edge of UT, and you have to pass the beautiful Texas State Capitol, but it and the rest of downtown Austin is actually very walkable. There are other trendy areas of Austin that are closer to UT’s main campus. The great thing about Austin is the social status that the city lends to its denizens. You pretty much can’t get that anywhere else.</p>
<p>UT-Austin and Wisconsin-Madison are roughly equal in terms of academic excellence and reputation. And both Austin and Madison are great college towns. This said, those two schools are sufficiently different for most students to pick one or ther other based on fit. </p>
<p>Penn State and VTech are also good universities, but they are not quite as strong as UT or Wisconsin.</p>
<p>“UT’s engineering is higher ranked than VT”</p>
<p>yeah by 0.1-0.2 points on the 5 point scale US News uses, I’ve been to VT and it’s an amazing campus and people love it there, since UT,VT and Wisconsin are all around the same range for engineering (it really doesn’t make a difference between a #10 and #19 school), I’d go to VT</p>
<p>Pierre, in terms of campus atmosphere and experience, I think all four universities mentioned in this thread are excellent. VTech is indeed a great place to go to college and Blacksburg is a nice college town. But I could say the same thing about PSU, UT-Austin and Wisconsin-Madison. Also, in Engineering, all four are roughly equal, ranked between #10 and #15 in the nation. Where I think Texas and Wisconsin separate themselves is in their overall academic excellence/reputation and in their college towns. University Park and Blacksburg are nice, but Austin and Madison are AWESOME! And in terms of overall academics, Texas and Wisconsin are slightly better than PSU and VTech. If those four schools cost roughly the same, all else being equal, I think TRexas and Wisconsin are more well-rounded than PSU and VTech.</p>
<p>Pierre, I know nothing about any engineering, but if USNWR uses a 5.0 scale, isn’t .2 points pretty significant?</p>
<p>also consider costs, VT is by far the cheapest I think</p>
<p>Not really osucowboys, the rating is opinion-based. A 0.2 or 0.3 difference is negligible. </p>
<p>Pierre, VTech costs roughly $30,000 to attend (including R&B, books and other costs).</p>
<p>PSU and Wisconsin cost in the $33,000-$35,000 range. </p>
<p>So on average, PSU and Wisconsin are roughly $4,000 more expensive than VTech. Of course, that is not insignificant, but I would say that VTech is “by far the cheapest.”</p>
<p>Texas, at about $40,000 (for Engineers), is indeed much more expensive than VTech.</p>