<p>Currently, I have been having a hard time deciding which college to go to. I applied to 7 colleges of which 6 have accepted and replied back to me.</p>
<p>My top 3 choices out of the 7 are:
1. University of Wisconsin at Madison for pharmacology and toxicology
2. University of Illinois at Chicago GPPA for pharmacy
3. University of Texas at Austin for pre-pharmacy (it's listed as undecided though)</p>
<p>However, I have not received my admission letter into UIC GPPA pharmacy yet (the release date for decisions is April 1st), I will assume for simplicity that I have gotten in.</p>
<p>I have visited all 3 of these campuses, UW Madison once, UIC twice, and UT Austin once. I thought UW Madison's campus was beautiful, I loved the integrated city-campus effect and I loved their infrastructure! The location was also amazing, I plan, if I go there, to live on the Lakeshore I also loved the little downtown in Madison, I shopped a little when I was over there during the summer.</p>
<p>UIC's campus, on the other hand, didn't really do it for me. Although I love the fact that it's located in Chicago and very close to its downtown, I detested the almost community-college feel of the campus. The buildings were very plain-looking, there was nothing special about UIC visually-wise that I thought was worth remembering about. There didn't seem to be much going on at UIC unlike the other two campuses I visited.</p>
<p>UT Austin's campus was gorgeous. I visited over winter break so it was brisk, which I liked, and the appearance of the buildings impressed me to no end. You can tell that there's a lot to do on campus and the pharmacy building is gorgeous! (UT Austin has the #2 highest rated pharmacy school in the U.S.!)</p>
<p>However the financial cost varies significantly with each of these Universities, assuming I get 0 financial aid from either of these schools, since I am from Illinois, I would be paying out of state tuition for UW Madison which is around ~36k a year, ~27k for UIC, and ~15k for UT Austin (I would qualify as a resident).</p>
<p>According to my AP Scores, UT Austin would also be receiving the most AP credit, so I could potentially be "further" in my studies there than at the other 2 universities.</p>
<p>The deciding factor, I currently see though is that unlike the other two universities, UIC has the GPPA (Guaranteed Professional Program Admissions) program that allows me, if I maintain a certain GPA and pass the PCAT with a certain minimum score, to be automatically accepted into UIC's Pharmacy School which is ranked around #8 in the nation! That's a big deal for me, I really don't want to have to stress over graduate school more than I have to. The other two schools, UT Austin and UW Madison, though they have better campuses in my opinion, do not have this 8 year program that UIC does and I would have to apply for pharmacy school after my 2-3 years of undergraduate studies.</p>
<p>Are there any current or graduated pharmacy students that can help me with this dilemma? Should I take into account how much I like the campus or should I consider more how convenient I could get into pharmacy school at UIC? I would appreciate it so much if you could give me some insight on any of these schools. Sorry for this long post!</p>