Am I "too smart" for UConn?

TaciturnType
Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:25:59 +0000

I think I can be of some help here. I would suggest you read all of it because I racked my brains out of this decision in the spring (still not sure I made the right choice).

Background: I would consider myself a very intelligent student (2nd in a class of 320, 2260 SAT, 5’s on 7 AP exams). Other relevant info: I’m an engineering major, and I’m quite interested in academic/professional pursuits such as research, engineering societies (AIChE, ASME, IEEE etc.), and engineering teams/projects (ChemE car, concrete canoe, steel bridge, FSAE). I’m also a runner (about 5-6 runs a week and the gym when I can fit it in). I’m pretty quiet and shy in most cases. Lastly, I’ve only been here about a month, so take this with a grain of salt.

Academic rigor: If you decide to come here, there will definitely be people smarter than you. There are people smarter than me here. You’ll probably get honors because there’s no EA to worry about, but don’t take that for granted. Make sure your SAT M+CR is 1400+. I know a kid who is smarter than most of the people in honors, but he did poorly on the reading section. It was irrelevant to his engineering major, but they don’t really care. Back to the students. There are people that study really hard (myself included), and who don’t party. Some will retake the course if they have AP credit to get a GPA boost. This means it’s difficult to place well on the curves, because many people have already been tested on the material. Lastly, they’ll let you build basically any schedule you want. They limit you to 18 credits for the first semester, but after that you can go pretty high. I went a little overboard this semester (calc-based Physics II, Honors Gen Chem, Honors multivariable calculus, intro to CS), and I’m already starting to feel it. Essentially, if you want to be challenged, you will be. If you want to avoid the morons (they’re here too), try to sign up for smaller classes. You’ll be forced to take a couple 200+ lectures with them in it (I had some idiots saying YOLO #winning sitting behind me in class yesterday), but they generally fail out by sophomore year. A note here - in engineering school rank/prestige doesn’t matter that much. Most of the hard sciences are hard as ****, and there’s plenty of good research around to make up for the lack of prestige. Pre-meds are in a similar situation. If you’re majoring in like philosophy or creative writing, or music however, you should probably visit the department yourself.

Financial: I received a full tuition Presidential Scholarship (for vals and sals). You’ll probably get a half-tuition merit scholarship. Such a scholarship would put the total COA for this year at about $21-22K, which isn’t that cheap. I received a $3,000 private scholarship as well, but even without that it was about half as expensive as the private schools I was accepted to. Unless you’re some kind of super star in an area you’re not telling us about, you probably won’t get huge merit aid from the privates. I’d expect to be looking at $20k/year at UConn vs $40k/year at privates. Is this a concern for you? How much can your family pay? How much debt are you willing to take on? Sometimes I look at my HS friends’ posts on facebook and regret not going to a fancy school, but then I remember 4 years from now I’ll be ~$70k up on them.

Social: Don’t underestimate how important this is. You go to a large school (if you’re in CT I’m guessing many of your graduates go to UConn), which is lucky. It means you’ll know a good number of people regardless of what happens the first week. As I mentioned, I’m not an extremely social person (username relevant), so I’m not bothered by the fact that I’m not invited to all the parties and the like. UConn is trying to cut down on the number of crazy parties on/off campus, but it’s definitely still a big part of the atmosphere. There isn’t a ton to do in Storrs (if you’re not into sports and academics like me), so a lot of people fill their free time with drinking. If you want to avoid this, you’ll have to be pretty active in finding friends. There are all sorts of people here, and I’m sure you can find someone you like, but cheering it won’t be as easy as if you went to a small private school. If you are the big D1 sport-fan, pre-game chugging type, you’ll it right in. Otherwise just try and be more social and friendly than normal if you want a consistent group of friends. You don’t want to be isolated from everyone and having nothing productive to do with yourself.

That’s about all I can think of right now. I can answer specific question as well.

For those of you who aren’t as interested.

TL;DR - UConn classes are as hard or as easy as you want to make them. There are smart students, and they will push you, but only if you sign up for those classes/that major. It’s likely to be about half the cost of attending a private school. The social atmosphere is quite focused on partying, but you can still find your niche if you try hard enough.