<p>I was wondering do you guys think UT is underrated? It has top programs in most fields (Business, Law, Engineering, and is decent for pre-med), yet somehow, schools like UCLA, UNC that aren't as high as it in many of these fields seem to have a better rep. Is it mostly because of the top 10% rule, which lowers it's selectivity rating? I dunno, what do you think?</p>
<p>confused_senior,
I think you targetted one source of the problem-the Top 10% rule. The politicians may love it, but there is no question that this drags down student statistical profile and lowers the respect that others will have about graduates of UT. If the politicians really cared about UT, then they'd devote more of their energies to improving the funding to UT and other Texas colleges. More than the student profile, UT lags badly in comparisons of things like faculty resources and financial resources. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the faculty has maintained a good national reputation at least by the Peer Assessment tool used by USNWR. By this measure, the ranking differences with colleges like UCLA and UNC are tiny.</p>
<p>any more opinions?</p>
<p>I think UT-Austin is underrated. It has excellent business and engineering programs. Austin is an awesome college environment and the women are fantastic.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is also size. UT has a huge number of undergraduates, causing large class sizes, higher faculty/student ratio, and difficulty in registering for required classes which results in taking a longer time to graduate.</p>
<p>UT is an excellent school. It's reputation is growing, and I think it definitely deserves more love.</p>
<p>Confused_senior2,</p>
<p>I don’t think UT-Austin is underrated. Contrary to your belief, UT-Austin’s Engineering School is not by far superior to that of UCLA and many schools do not award undergraduate business degree. It is an established fact that UCLA’s Anderson smokes UT-Austin’s McCombs in terms of reputation, academics, student selectivity and job placement. I think student selectivity is correlated with the prestige of institution of higher education. In that regard, UT-Austin lags behind UCLA as follows: </p>
<p>USNWR Selectivity Rank:</p>
<p>UCLA: 19 (Tie with Northwestern, Georgetown, USC)
UT-Austin: 48 (Tie with RPI, Tulane)</p>
<p>The Princeton Review Admissions Selectivity Rating: </p>
<p>UCLA: 98 (on a scale of 60-99)<br>
UT-Austin: 92</p>
<p>However, I believe it is an accomplished fact that UT-Texas is one of the top 50 schools in the country.</p>
<p>UNC has a better rep due to higher selectivity.</p>
<p>UCLA has a better rep because it has vastly better graduate programs (except maybe for Engineering). The professional schools are also up there.</p>