UT Austin vs UW Madison

<p>Hi. Im a senior and just got accepted to both. im still waiting on UPenn (deferred ED) and Michigan (deferred also) and USC… hopefully ill get into one of those, as im pretty sure i would go to thsoe over ut austin, but i doubt i will… so im wondering how to weight ut vs uw</p>

<li><p>money is not an issue, we make plenty, but i dont want to spend the extra 10k per year at madison if its not really worth it… but really, its not that big of a deal</p></li>
<li><p>sports are a pretty big deal to me… both are fine in that respect i guess</p></li>
<li><p>social life… i dont want to go to college just to party and drink but having an active social life/good dorm life and whatnot is important</p></li>
<li><p>weather. id prefer colder weather to warmer weather usually, but id take warmer weather over too cold weather, but colder weather over too warm weather… basically im worried that UT will be too hot and UW too cold… </p></li>
<li><p>academics</p></li>
<li><p>prestige</p></li>
</ol>

<p>interested in majoring in a humanities related direction - history, english, journalism, politcs, international relations… i really dont know, but strong humanities</p>

<p>thanks for any help and any opinions</p>

<p>from what i know from a little bit of research and hearsay personally i like Madison better soley because of the location. It is suppose to be a great place to live and go to school. Texas doesn't really appeal to me much because of the weather but people say they have some of the hottest girls around. So once again Madison based soley on location, the city of Madison appeals to me more and in my opinion is prettier. Besides that they both rank pretty much the same in all other categorys you listed.</p>

<p>there is little to no reason to go to madison if your instate at UT, unless you hate UT and love madison. UW isn't going to open up any doors that UT won't.</p>

<p>oos for both</p>

<p>it is hard to convince someone to go to a school other than ut just on the basis of location. opinions can never be absolute but a majority of people who visit austin like it.</p>

<p>yeah, the humidity in austin is definitely a turn-off.</p>

<p>wiscosnin has an amazing journalism program</p>

<p>i thought he was instate at UT when he made the comment that madison was 10k more a year.</p>

<p>Since you're not IS either place, I recommend a visit - theres a very big culture difference. The difference in quality and opportunities are virtually non-existant.</p>

<p>I think UW has a little quality edge in arts and sciences and is actually a fair amount smaller at UG. But still big.</p>

<p>The schools are very similar, the only real difference being if you want to go to Texas where it's warm, or Madison where it's cold.</p>

<p>Also, something to consider is that Madison is more of a college town, Austin is a bigger city. Austin has an airport that you can easily get to with reasonable fares, Madison's airport is expensive and difficult to get to.</p>

<p>thanks everyone. Yeah, these two schools are very very similar (why i applied to both) and i really like this type of school</p>

<p>the only thing im concerned with is that austin is going to be TOO hot and humid and madison is going to be TOO cold. and, with cold, you can at least put layers on whereas in heat, you cant really dress for the occasion. any students/residents can shed light on the weather issue?</p>

<p>also, the 10k dollars is because UT out of state for everythign is about 21k, and UW out of state for everything is about 32k</p>

<p>Not any more. UT has raised its OOS tuition a lot this year. You will pay about the same for both next year ($20,364 vs. $20,730).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.utexas.edu/tuition/national.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.utexas.edu/tuition/national.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I agree with GrayMatter that Austin is a nice city.</p>

<p>You aren't going to be in Austin for the worst months (summer). Austin is a neat town, but I think the Wisconsin campus is better. Both are great college towns. For business, UT has the edge. While I love Austin, I am not a huge fan of the UT campus. It seems too urban and compact to me for the size of the student body.</p>

<p>MomofWildChild,</p>

<p>Is the administration at UT-Austin giving any serious thought to reducing enrollment? I thought I heard the UT President say that during a TV interview regarding the 'Top 10%' rule.</p>

<p>Also consider that Texas is 95% in-state students, whereas Wisconsin is more diverse with 62% in-state students, granted 31% of the OOS students come from Minnesota, who the university has an agreement with, so the number is more along the lines of 26% not from MN or WI, still a good number.</p>

<p>As for temperatures, here's the data. </p>

<p>Madison, WI
<a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USWI0411?from=search%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USWI0411?from=search&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Austin, TX
<a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/78701?from=tenDay_bottomnav_undeclared%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/78701?from=tenDay_bottomnav_undeclared&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You won't be in school for the majority of May-August, so look at the temperatures in September-April to get a sense of how hot/cold it's going to be.</p>

<p>They are both very fine schools. If there's any way you can do it, I highly suggest visiting. Schools do have their own atmospheres/cultures, and which one is best for you ... only you can say. So enjoy visiting.</p>