If I become a national merit finalist, I will recieve a full-ride from UF as part of the Benacquisto Scholarship. This means I will literally pay nothing for my college degree. In addition, if I am accepted to the Master of Science in Finance combined degree program my sophomore year of college, I will recieve a bachelors and masters for free from UF (and the program has great placement in Wall Street/ banks, which is where I am aiming). On the other hand, I am considering UT Austin. From what I’ve heard, it has an amazing business program, with internship placement and job placement and everything in between. However, if I don’t get a super-selective OOS tuition waiver, I will have to pay about 58k a year (in that case I will try to graduate in 3 years or less).
Does UT have that much of an upper-hand over UF? I had been under the impression that UT’s program was on par with UMich, Notre Dame, Emory, etc. while UF was closer to PennState (my state flagship, which will be 100k more than UF bc PA is expensive lol).
State schools are known to have pretty impersonal large classes and open schedules. Is this true for both schools? I thought UT would provide a little more attention to students, especially with their job and internship placement, but I am unsure now. If I am worried about being “lost” in a big state school, does UT offer an experience closer to a private college than UF?
I have always been under the impression that UT is very, very selective while UF is more of a normal state school, but looking at how UT accepts students (just top 6%, not really considering the rigor of the high school) it doesn’t seem as selective. Will I encounter a more hardworking type of student at UT?
Even if McCombs is much better than UF business school, is it better than Indiana or similar?
UT has great placement in MC and IB/finance, but the rarely discussed fact is that the students landing those positions are usually in BHP. UF has a lot of online courses for business students, which is a major turn off. For a business student, it might be worth looking elsewhere. UT without BHP might not get you where you want to end up. And UF though free might also limit your options. But dig into the details.
The University of Florida has become quite selective over the past several years. Despite the increased selectivity, UT-Austin is a target school for many elite banks while UF is not.
Most Wall Street finance jobs for those with undergraduate degrees are offered to interns. It appears that you understand your options and their benefits and limitations. Without more specific information about you, your finances & your actual options, the safest course of action would be to accept the full ride scholarship to the University of Florida.
P.S. Apply to all undergraduate business schools which are of interest to you & then examine your actual options.
@Greymeer: Interesting perspective. My impression is that both UT-Austin & the University of Florida are the top choice of highly qualified applicants for a variety of reasons including COA.
OP: If accepted to both UT & UF, it would be financially foolish to attend UT for $58,000 per year versus UF for free. But, if you do get the out-of-state tuition waiver, then UT-Austin becomes a reasonable option.
A/B students (3.5 uw GPA) chances of being accepted to UF are slim. UF’s holistic admissions puts a lot of weight on GPA, much less on test scores. UF selectivity is likely why UF has a better freshman retention rates, better graduation rates, and much better URM (black and Hispanic) graduation rates (both schools have about the same % of URM students).
Of course, none of this should really matter to the OP.
OP: use linkedin and search for the schools. Then select Alumni and start reviewing where they work, etc. For example, if you select UF and then search for alumni who studied Finance, you get the following top five places they live:
1,437 Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area
1,117 Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area
915 Greater New York City Area
823 Orlando, Florida Area
804 Greater Atlanta Area
You can do the same with UT-Austin:
2,983 Houston, Texas Area
2,835 Austin, Texas Area
2,775 Dallas/Fort Worth Area
713 Greater New York City Area
515 San Antonio, Texas Area
You can also see where (which company) they work, and of course, it is much the SAME list of financial institutions.
Most A/B (3.5 GPA students?) are below the top 7% of their high school class. And that is just to get admitted to the university. Getting admitted to a particular major sometimes requires being in the top 4%. There is no way, from a statistical perspective, that UT Austin is a safety school for A/B students in Texas.
Top 6% at individual High Schools isn’t the top 6% across the state. UT admits many kids well outside of the top 6% at good schools. Some of these top kids wouldn’t be in the top 25% at the better public schools.
Just look at UTs average SAT score… 1275 that is 80 percentile… A|B. Coincidentally the same as UF.
There are High Schools here in Austin from which UT routinely admits 100+ students.
@Gator88NE Thanks for that info. It looks like for the most part people in either area stay where the college it, and a few go to New York to work. I guess it wouldn’t make much sense to go to UT Austin without BHP, and even then, maybe not without a OOS tuition waiver. However, BHP is really selective and its avg. first year salary is $80k so most of them probably landed positions as analysts earning more with bonuses on WallStreet.
I did want to ask specifically about the business programs though… since the program at UT is prestigious is it more difficult to get into/ a better program?
Just had lunch today with d and a friend. Friend attends a top 20 LAC. Florida resident and great student. Rejected at UF last year. Maybe yield protection. UF as an instate safety. Not a state that populous and so many ib and schools of choice in the usnwr top 50.
Everything you say about UT is true. Unless the money is literally irrelevant, UF, the number 8 public uni in the country for free is kind of a no brainer. The online class thing is way overstated here on CC.
However if you were looking at an elite LAC or private school with a different vibe. Sure it’s worth a conversation. These two schools share much in common, its tough to justify.
I really can’t say much about UT, and very few folks know much about both UT-Austin and UF’s programs.
Apply to both schools. If you get into UT-Austin’s BHP program, it’s something to consider. But as must folks say, it’s hard to justify spending $58K a year, versus Zero, even for the BHP program.
The graduates from UT-Austin’s program can earn $80K a year in Texas, they don’t have to go to NY. If you looked at the LinkedIn info, you’ll see that UF places more grads into the NY area, while UT-Austin places more on the west coast. You don’t have to go to NY to be a success.
UF publishes it’s Graduation Survey results. Check them out: https://career.ufl.edu/student-outcomes/
You can pick Finance as your major and see the results.
For example, for Finance, the most popular post-graduation destination state is Florida with 46%, while the 2nd is NY with 16%. 98% complete at least one internship. The average starting salary was $61,831 and the average bonus was $7,331. Average time to complete the degree was 3.99 years.
Keep in mind that this is data based on surveys that have to be completed before the student graduates. The data does not include supplemental data from additional sources, such as follow-up requests from alumni or data gleaned from social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn profiles). That’s important when comparing graduation survey/outcome results between UF and other schools.
? By law, 75% of admitted freshman have to be in the top 6%. So we know how many get admitted outside of the 6%.
The High Schools in Texas that get more than 100 kids accepted are some of the best in the nation. The two in Austin are both recognized nationally. UT-Austin publishes the info, and for Texas feeder High Schools, only 15 out of 1,285 have more than 100 accepted students in 2018. That’s a one to 85 ratio or around 1.1%.
The “same” as UF? UF’s average for this year’s class was 1364. Last year it was 1360.
No, it’s not worth the added cost to go to UT, especially if you have a full-ride scholarship in FL. UT is to Texas what UF is to Florida, no more no less. I think the decision is a complete no-brainer. Take the scholarship and run with it, because you’re never going to get anything that good in Texas.
Where would the 58k*4 come from? Hard to justify such costs even for BHP (and absolutely unjustifiable if non BHP).
Apply to PSU Smeal and Schreyer, hope to be invited to Sapphire. Less expensive than UT and excellent placement in NYC/East coast. Email them for details you can’t find on their website.
the online courses are to be weighted v. Benacquisto but UF ( a top public university) is a great deal.
run the NPC on UNC-CH, UMichigan, and UVA.
have you run the NPC on other universities ? Do you know our EFC and can your parents afford it? What’s your budget for college?