<p>or is it? It really just seems like a party school to me (save for McCombs and the engineering department). I never really understood why UT was considered such a good school.. not saying that it's bad though.</p>
<p>Correct me if I'm wrong (gonna be a senior in high school next year) but do you think UT is prestigious? Or, if for instance I made it to a school like Princeton/Stanford/Cornell for computer science and partial financial aid, would it be worth it to go there instead? I'm from Austin, Texas, and from what I've heard, a lot of UT undergrad students seem to lack focus and don't care about their future until they're almost ready to graduate. Does anyone from UT, as well, have anything to say about this? I hope I didn't offend anyone too much.</p>
<p>So yeah, would you say that over the years, the prestige of UT undergrad (or UT in general) has been falling? staying the same? rising? Also, what does the modified top 10% aim for?</p>
<p>first of all i assume you mean UT austin specifically. UT Austin is a great school, but any state school is likely going to be branded a party school by intellectuals like yourself. however, it has enough resources, projects, and great professors that rival or outdo many top private universities. Your classes are going to be bigger and you will likely be easier lost in the crowd.</p>
<p>However, in terms of is it overrated, it is not fair to judge it as a whole due to the massive difference between UT austin honors and UT austin the football crazy school.</p>
<p>^ haha good point, ccclay
yeah. i guess i just don’t want a huge party school, since if i were in the honors program and studying a lot, i’d kind of feel as if i were “missing out” on something.</p>
<p>i just want to go to a school where everyone’s fun, yet focused, and can still be relaxed. basically a social environment where it’s easy to make friends (who aren’t geeky/antisocial, and aren’t party animals either). a sense of good community is what i’m lookin for i guess.</p>
<p>I live in TX too, I think our opinions are dragged down by the top 10% rule though.
Like I personally know a lot of stupid people who go to UT, and then you have honors kids who are reallyyy smart. Like here in Texas we grow up thinking that UT is at the same level as Texas A&M and the only difference is between if your parents were Aggies or Longhorns</p>
<p>You are considering computer science? I am in computer science, and I can tell you that UT-Austin is probably considered one of the top 10 US computer science departments, certainly one of the top 20. For artificial intelligence, it’s even better. Why? Well, it’s a very good department. It has world-class research, and lots of resources, and graduates a lot of good people.</p>
<p>I know little about the university as a whole, but you did mention computer science specifically.</p>
<p>UT has a large number of highly ranked programs. It isn’t just business and engineering. There is quality throughout the university. I started a thread in the UT section of this forum showing some of the rankings. </p>
<p>The one kid i know who is going there is a complete moron. He’s from out of state too. I was once paired up with him in a group project and he offered me 40 bucks to do all the work. He just bairly passed the class. No way he could get into our state’s (NY’s) flagship university, Binghamton, and he CERTAINLY would not have gotten into Princeton/Stanford/Cornell.</p>
<p>If you get into Prince, Stanford or Cornell you go. You work two jobs if you have too. Those schools are several leagues above UT.</p>
<p>UTexas is an excellent public university. Any school that size is going to have its share of partiers and students with a non-intellectual focus. You can get a great education and many of the programs are highly regarded/ranked. The school has an excellent reputation and in this economy, an in-state student who chooses it will have no stigma attached to attending UT over a costly private.</p>
<p>My advice is to get the heck out of Texas for school unless you want to go to Rice or Southwestern, and go to either a more prestigious school with similar entry requirements or a less-prestigious school (like U Alabama) that would offer you a sweet deal. </p>
<p>Texas has one of the most screwed-up public university systems in the nation, and this is coming from an Ohioan!!! (trust me, take a look at our state Uni’s and you’ll see what I mean…)</p>
<p>UT is a great school (I know many that were surprised that I turned it down for Vandy). The problem is that, counting graduate students, there’s 50,000 students on campus at any given time. Even the person most suited to a big school would still probably feel lost in the shuffle at some point. If you can get in the honors program, though, they’re very good at making your class sizes smaller and creating a feel similar to an LAC while still being a school that offers an amazing sports atmosphere and myriad majors to choose from.</p>
<p>^ my teachers have told me that UT has always been a great school in the past. however, its prestige has drastically fallen, according to them, ever since they started blindly accepting anyone who qualified in the 10% at their high school. this law is extremely unfair to those attending academically rigorous high schools such as westwood high school.</p>
<p>The “majority” is essentially an uninformed mass of mouthbreathers who know nothing about much of anything. People with any in depth knowledge of colleges would consider Texas one of the better schools in US with some areas that are among the very best.</p>
<p>Barrons, I never said UT was a bad school i said it has solid academics. It is a huge party school with bit time sports. It is not prestigous buddy its comparable to UF.</p>
<p>Well you are point blank wrong superstar12, even my interviewer from Harvard said UT was a good school, because it is and has national prominence in a number of fields: nursing, engineering, business, law, computer science, and pharmacy. It is an excellent school. And for a Texan it is good bang for your buck.</p>
<p>How am i point blank wrong? is your reasoning that bad? In the Northeast its just not well known that UT is well regarded in academics. The same is attributable to Northwestern, it is simply not recognized here that well in the northeast. Don’t manifest yourself with ignorance…the majority of people don’t think like you or CC’ers.</p>
<p>when thinking of prestige typically schools like ivy, Cal, MIT, Standford comes to mind…not UT. I think you guys are taking my comments way out of context here.</p>
