<p>wis75, I have La Crosse over Minnesota mostly due to cost. Also, I’ve heard very mixed reviews concerning Minnesota.</p>
<p>What is wrong with MINNESOTA? Please elaborate.</p>
<p>It’s a big school. Bigger student body than UW-Madison with slightly (emphasis on slightly) lower academic stats from attending students. Like all schools it has its strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>I think mostly it gets a bad rep from Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Nothing is necessarily wrong with Minnesota. I visited and really loved the campus. It is really beautiful (and huge). The cost is a turn off though, even with reciprocity. I’ve also heard some unappealing things about it being overcrowded.</p>
<p>That is what I thought. We chose to apply Minnesota for the same reason. We know it is big and crowed. Oddly enough, these are attractive features for us. In terms of drawback, the weather. That is all. The campus looks & feels better in summer :)…</p>
<p>BUT, Minnesota is hands down, better and more prestigious academically than UW-LaCrosse. This leads you to better employment prospects. Hopefully academics is a primary consideration of all.</p>
<p>Agreed. Some current professors in Wharton School of Business at U Penn got their undergrad degree from U Minnesota. There were many Nobel Laureate are associated with U Minnesota. To say the least, U Minnesota is on-par with UW Madison, perhaps slightly lower in ranking for some programs.</p>
<p>LaCrosse is not in the same league as Minn and UW. Hence the warning about choosing one’s college when considering future grad school or jobs. Go to the best school you can, or at least a comparable one.</p>
<p>Well good thing I got into Madison because I really didn’t want to be a gopher!</p>
<p>Too bad UWapplicant because Minnesota IS a good school. For perspective, my daughter also applied to UW and to Minnesota, along with Maryland, UNC-Chapel Hill and Michigan. I am faculty at Minnesota and got my PhD at Wisconsin. I also taught at Maryland for 12 yrs. All three schools UW, MN and MD are excellent, and they are big. Like all big R1 publics, they offer a lot of opportunities, strong faculty and yes, a large student atmosphere. They all suffer from shrinking public $ yet continue to offer world class higher ed. Our preference for our daughter to go to UW or Maryland is only due to location. She’d prefer not to be so close to home, and we sympathize. But if she ends up at Minnesota we know that she’ll have a great experience with a rigorous program. </p>
<p>I believe that these large schools can be daunting for some students, but have tremendous resources a complete campus life experience, and lots of movement for students to find the demand (and the parties) that they want. I’ve taught and directly supported the range of stellar academic students to those who well, struggle, and those who the university needs, including athletes. Good schools should provide support to the range of students and I do think that UMN, WI and MD do this. </p>
<p>I hope you’ll be happy at UW, but if things don’t work out, we’d love for you to consider Minnesota. (and remember, it’s not that much colder or snowier and at least in the Twin Cities, you won’t have to travel to see major concerts or professional sports).</p>
<p>Speaking of job opportunities after graduation, Minnesota is just as good. You have got many of top Fortune 500 companies located in the Twin Cities…Something to consider, if graduate school is not in the plan…</p>
<ol>
<li>Penn state</li>
<li>Indiana</li>
<li>Miami (OH)</li>
</ol>
<p>Minn placement is not quite as good. It is very limited to pretty much Minn and WI where 84% are placed. UW places 36% in WI, 11% in Minn, 16% in Chicago, 9% in the East, 6% in the South, and 5% on the west coast. Minn places 6% in the East and less than 2% anywhere else. So if you want to look around the entire US for jobs UW has much more national recruitment. And UW grads going to Minn earn slightly higher average pay than Minn grads @ $50,000 vs $48,239. UW finance grads earn much higher overall pay @ $53,000 vs $48,000.</p>
<p>Who cares about pro sports when you have top-flight sports for your own college in walking distance?? Most college kids at schools with major D-1 programs are college fans first while in school and often for a lifetime thereafter. The pro sports crowd for football and basketball tends toward the more blue collar and less educated.<br>
As to concerts-- there are more than enough right in Madison and at today’s prices for the big shows ($100+) most college students are not going to many such shows. Also the college crowd tends to favor more eclectic bands that don’t charge $100 for a ticket in a 70,000 seat stadium. Plenty of those bands play Madison.</p>
<p>Great information again, Barrons. Very useful indeed, since my S was admitted by both UW and UM…It is interesting that he was impressed by the U Minn campus (in summer). UW campus, on the other hand, was not as impressive in his eyes…Well, the difference in job prospect will pull him towards UW…I hope.</p>
<p>While harder to measure I think the overall school pride is significantly stronger at UW. And more national in scope as the alumni are also more national due to a long history of OOS kids and placement. I also can guarantee the UW campus would grow on him as it has several features UMinn can’t touch.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yelp.com/biz/memorial-union-madison[/url]”>http://www.yelp.com/biz/memorial-union-madison</a></p>
<p>I’ve been accepted to U of M - Twin Cities and will attend if denied admission to UW. However the atmosphere still just doesn’t compare to Madison’s. I guess it’s all a matter of preference though because I know plenty of people who get that “perfect fit” feeling when at the Minnesota campus.</p>
<p>For my daughter:</p>
<p>UW-Madison - 1st choice, postponed
U Minnesota Twin Cities - Accepted
Penn State Main Campus - Accepted (Dad’s an alum)</p>
<p>We’re Wisc residents and luckily my daughter would feel very at home and not so very crushed to go to U Minnesota. Penn State is still in play for her too though …</p>
<p>UW-Madison is my first choice but am not overly optimistic about getting in. Already accepted by UMN-TC & OSU-Columbus and between these two I would like to hear from you guys which is more preferred and why?</p>
<p>What major and what are you looking for?</p>
<p>barrons, psychology.</p>
<p>I do know UMN is highly rated in that dept but OSU is not bad either. National ranking wise, USnews ranks OSU higher. Both have big beautiful campuses in big cities. Weather wise, UMN can get really cold in winter. Is there anything else between them I must know? At the moment, I am leaning towards OSU though.</p>