I am currently a senior in high school. So far, I have been accepted into Baylor, UT Dallas, A&M, Texas Tech, and University of San Francisco. Still waiting on UCLA and UCSD. I want to major in Biology and the plan is to get into medical school eventually. I got a CAP offer from UT Austin and I am not sure if it is a good choice since I am only guaranteed a liberal arts major, but I want to major in Biology. Should I do CAP and go to UTSA for one year and try to apply as a biology major? Or should I just attend another university like Baylor or UT Dallas?
Hi, there! Congratulations to you for all your acceptances. Please focus on those! I would not advise you to go for CAP because I frankly don’t see any advantages.
A few thoughts as I have two personal connections to the “other” schools you listed in addition to being a graduate of UT Austin.
Baylor and UT Dallas are both fine, fine schools. I got my graduate degree in 2018 from UTDallas and taught freshman and sophomore level English classes there for 5 years. It has an excellent record for med school placement, if that is your ultimate goal as a Biology major. It used to be exclusively known as a commuter campus, but that is changing. I had students from Illinois, Florida, and even Alaska to name a few places in my classes. Because it has only been focusing on undergraduate on-campus living for around 10 years, all the dorms are very new and very nice. Additionally, it is a very diverse campus with all kinds of people and all kinds of groups to join. There were around 23,000 students there when I last was on campus, but many of those are graduate students. There are top notch professors there doing really cutting-edge research. The city is located in a suburban area of Dallas and connected by bus to shopping, etc. However, it is not the same urban feel of UT Austin. This could be a plus or a minus depending on your own preference.
My oldest daughter is a senior engineering major at Baylor. Would it help you to know that she actually was accepted to UT engineering school and decided to go to Baylor instead? Of course, she got a lot of money from Baylor and that made the decision easier, but she also loved the smaller campus (around 17,000) and friendly atmosphere of Baylor. At Baylor, you would probably have a more personal connection with your professors. They have a Pre-Med/Biology type LLC dorm (Earl) that is very very nice. The campus is easily walkable or bike-able, and, when you decide to stop living on campus, there are really affordable student-centric (fully furnished) apartments close to campus. If you’re looking for a college experience at a place with perhaps even more school spirit than UT Austin, Baylor may be the place for you. You get excellent academics and a real warm atmosphere. My daughter made excellent connections at career fairs and did internships for two summers. She was hired at her most recent internship and will start her job a month after graduation. So, you won’t be left out on connections with a degree from Baylor. Baylor is also surprisingly diverse geographically. Where at UT Austin, 90% of the students are from Texas, at Baylor only about 40% are. There are lots of students from California, Colorado, the deep South, the Northeast, etc. My daughter’s freshman roomie was a foreign national.
Sorry for the long message. I don’t know anything about those other schools, but I would advise you to set UT Austin aside (maybe for grad school?) and look to another place. You would find wonderful but different experiences at either place. I think it ultimately depends on your own preferences: larger, research-driven university that is relatively “young” or medium-sized, undergraduate-focused but still academically rigorous university with lots of school spirit (which may or may not be your thing).
Best wishes! I’ve got a senior and we’ll have to make some hard decisions soon!
If you were CAP’d, you probably have the credentials to get into the Texas Tech Honors program which qualifies you for auto-acceptance into the TTU Medical School. Did you apply for Honors? If not, it might be too late this year.