UW Madison vs UT Austin

College Search & Selection
1

I got admitted to both schools and I really wasn’t expecting this. I also got accepted to Northeastern University as a marketing major, but I’m not going there cause of the tuition.

For UW Madison, I was accepted as a pre-business student in the college of letters & science. What I like about this college is that it is in a sort of a small urban area. Since I am obsessed with that country side life, I think the surroundings of UW Madison will be a great match for me. The other reason is it’s wonderful weather. However, in winter, it gets extremely cold and I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that. I’ve been living in South America for many years and it’s not really cold in winter here. But I guess that will be ok cause I’m originally from Asia and have experienced the harsh winter climate.

UT Austin admitted me as an economics major in their liberal arts college even though I applied as a business major. I get that because my high school gpa was sort of low. (The dilemma of having a low gpa and a high SAT score lol)
In other words, I’ll have to try so hard to change the major because UT’s business school is REALLY competitive.
I love the diversity of UT. There is a large latino population and I would be able to communicate with them in Spanish (I guess?) and that’s sorta important because I don’t want to lose my Spanish. BUT I heard that the racism there is serious and sometimes, the minority race gets killed because of xenophobia. Also, I don’t like the weather. It’s even hotter than where I live and I HATE THAT.

I’ve never been to the US and cannot visit there now because I am taking the IB DIPLOMA exams in three weeks. The cost of attendance is approximately the same including the dorm rate. I know UW Madison doesn’t have a business school that is as good as the McCombs but I’m thinking of transferring to another private university where I can get a certain amount of scholarship as an international student. Both UW Madison and UT Austin are state universities and that’s why they wouldn’t give much scholarships to international or out of state students. I cannot afford the tuition for 4 years.

SUMMARY :wink:

UW Madison:
PROS
nice weather & environment
education in general
relatively higher rates of smaller classes (than UT)
CONS
cold winter
relatively weak business school

UT Austin:
PROS
excellent business school (one of the top schools in the US)
diversity
jazz music (I love jazz)
CONS
hot summer & no snow in winter
relatively higher rates of bigger classes (than UW Madison)
economics major

THANK YOU

2

Where can you afford the costs for four years?

Note that scholarships tend to be less common for transfer students.

3

@ucbalumnus
I mean, my parents. I’m also gonna work in campus starting from my freshman year. This year, I couldn’t really apply for scholarships because of my low gpa (and this is because I had to learn two new languages - english and spanish - and deal with personal problems). However, I’m going to work really hard in college to push up my grades so I can be eligible for scholarships.

4

Large scholarships are very unlikely after you start college.

5

Can you visit them?

6

Pre Business at Wisconsin is not a guarantee of entrance to the business school. I’d be careful on that one. They have shifted their paradigm to a more direct admission model, making it increasingly difficult to gain entrance to the School of Business. You might want to look at that.