<p>For some time now I've been looking to fill out the match category in my list of colleges. I have plenty of reaches, and plenty of safeties. I've finally settled on the above as some good matches for me. I was wondering how each is academically regarded. I really hate to use college rankings because IMO they don't really reflect the quality of the education. Both UT and UCSB have huge party school reputations, but seem to be generally well regarded. UW seems to be slightly less well regarded, but it avoids the party school atmosphere. Can anyone elaborate further?</p>
<p>PS Any suggestions for schools similar to these would be most welcome :)</p>
<p>Can you afford all of them? (Try the net price calculators.)</p>
<p>Do you have an intended major, or are you somewhat undecided? If you are undecided, check to see how flexible each school is with changing majors. At some schools, many majors are impacted, so changing to such majors is difficult and requires applying to change major with a high college GPA in the target major’s prerequisites.</p>
<p>My family should be able to afford all of them, though if I were able to get a merit scholarship and help that would be excellent. I am looking to economics/history/business for intended major.</p>
<p>Check each school for difficulty of declaring or changing into each of your prospective majors once you have already enrolled, and whether you need to select a major at application time.</p>
<p>All of them seem relatively flexible for switching, as long as you put work in. However, I’m more interested in other aspects of the schools right now.</p>
<p>My family should be able to afford all of them</p>
<p>Ask your parents. There are many parents who would refuse to pay the high OOS costs for the out of state schools…even if they could afford them. </p>
<p>You’re in Calif, so UCSB is instate for you.</p>
<p>* Both UT and UCSB have huge party school reputations, but seem to be generally well regarded. UW seems to be slightly less well regarded, but it avoids the party school atmosphere. *</p>
<p>I highly doubt that UW escapes being just as much of a party school as the other two. Any school with big Div 1 sports is going to be a party school…and frankly, nearly all schools are party schools. Hello! What do you think 18 - 22 year olds do on weekends? What matters is that all of these schools have students that are serious about their studies. That’s what matters.</p>
<p>Washington also has a medical school on campus, which tends to boost NAS counts. The UT system medical schools are separate from the academic campuses (fwiw UT Southwestern Medical School does have one of the highest counts of Nobel winners on faculty at any medical school). UT Austin actually has a good amount of NAS members for not having a medical school on campus.</p>
<p>"Ask your parents. There are many parents who would refuse to pay the high OOS costs for the out of state schools…even if they could afford them. </p>
<p>You’re in Calif, so UCSB is instate for you."</p>
<p>Is UCSB that comparable with the others? That one is on the bottom of my list right now because of overcrowding, and larger class sizes from what I have researched.</p>
<p>“It depends on the major.”</p>
<p>For a history/econ/maybe business would I be correct in saying that UT is the strongest in these concentrations, whereas the other two are more science driven?</p>
<p>“I highly doubt that UW escapes being just as much of a party school as the other two. Any school with big Div 1 sports is going to be a party school…and frankly, nearly all schools are party schools. Hello! What do you think 18 - 22 year olds do on weekends? What matters is that all of these schools have students that are serious about their studies. That’s what matters.”</p>
<p>While I’m sure this is true, UT and UCSB have distinct party school reputations that go above and beyond the typical college experience. They are known for this and I don’t want that reputation to influence employers or grad school.</p>
<p>Does anyone have opinions on the big differences between these schools that might help me out? Besides location of course.</p>
<p>I would go more with location. No one in Texas knows what UCSB is. Its not that it has a party reputation, it just is totally unknown. That won’t be any more prestigious than north Dakota state (if you’re worried about what employers might think). Also, I think Washington lacks a party-school reputation because it actually has more of a commuter-school rep. You have to keep in mind that Seattle is the only real metro area in Washington, and U-Dub is in Seattle so a lot of kids just commute.</p>
From what I’ve heard the UCSB grads have great jobs, in fact one guy I know was about to offer a job to this UCSB grad but it turned out he already had a job line up. It seems like there’s a lot of startup near UCSB.</p>