Hello. I am an aspiring high school senior stuck between choosing between the University of Texas at Austin or The Texas Tech Honors College. I want to major in biochemistry and pursue dental school afterward, but don’t know which school to pick. I’ve been accepted to both, and although I know it comes down to actually having the drive and brains to get the degree, I’m having a hard time choosing because of mixed reviews on both. I have visited UT Austin and like the environment, and plan on visiting Tech in the near future. In terms of a plausible dental school application after undergraduate studies, which school do you think will give me the “wow” factor in an applicant? I have also applied and been admitted into schools such as the University of Iowa and TCU, but haven’t given them much thought.
Probably not much difference, especially if your application to Dentistry School is buttressed by good grades and scores.
They are both good schools, but it also depends where you want to live, Lubbock or Austin. I would go to UT Austin just because it is a bigger city and more job opportunities.
Neither. Contrary to what many HS kids think, just because they are impressed by college brands doesn’t mean that adcoms at grad schools share their opinion. As Amherst writes in its premed advice
The good news, for many, is that what they do in college is what matters. The bad news, for some, is that they need to do the lifting and can’t expect the “name” to set them ahead of anyone else.
How much would each cost?
You made it into Honors College at Texas Tech, but not a UT, if I understand correctly, or is the UT information upcoming?
Just texas tech, I didn’t apply to the UT one because I was uninformed back then
They’re about the same price, 25k TT and 27k UT
Can you still apply to the UT one or have the deadlines passed?
The deadline has passed
Okay, so it’s UT general, or Texas Tech Honors…
Definitely go for an overnight at each.
Pluses of UT: excellent academic environment, awesome city; minus: without Honors Program, you will be in huge classes and the whole first year is rather intimidating/alienating.
Pluses of Texas Tech: you’re more likely to be top 10% so you’d have better odds at a high GPA, Honors program = lots of perks; minuses: the city just isn’t comparable to Austin, there’s a bit less variety of majors.
MYOS1634 sums it up nicely…Honors program = lots of perks; minuses: the city just isn’t comparable to Austin. Focusing on the academic environment only, as a Tech Honors student you will have a nurturing thriving academic environment with motivated Honors students like yourself as peers and interested, encouraging faculty and administrators. As you will likely be majoring in one of the sciences as a pre-dental student, you will have lots of ongoing counseling advice from faculty and older undergraduate Honors students. (My son graduated from Tech’s Honors College in 2008 and had an amazing experience overall.) Yes, do visit Tech and UT and see for yourself. There is no comparison with Austin, but Lubbock is a city of 250,000 with all the shopping, restaurants, and amenities of a major regional city with Tech as its centerpiece. Lubbock as a city outstrips College Station, Waco, etc., but Austin is in a league by itself. You will be among the many thousands of UT Autsin students, but at Tech you will be in the catered- to academic elite.
UT Austin, imho, sounds much better… but you have to choose at the end of the day what school makes you happy!
One more shot…I disagree with the commenters who say there is little difference between the 2 universities. Both have considerable pros and cons for you specifically as a pre-dental student (or biochemistry major). Let the overnight visit to each school be the major decider for you. During your visit, get past the sizzle and get to the steak for each school and then compare the pros and cons on a spreadsheet. Schedule a visit with one or more faculty members for each department you are interested in and the department administrator who helps undergrad majors. (Of course, I am rooting for Tech Honors.) The visit to the admininstrator who assists department majors helped my son as a high school senior decide against OU as a non-Honors student. The OU department administrator was nice, but obviously stressed with her huge workload of students to assist. He would have been more a “number” at OU. In contrast, the department administrator at Tech said: “Oh, you’re in the Honors College. You go to the head of the line…” for class registration, etc.
@MYOS1634 asks important questions. You said in another thread that you won’t receive Pell, the schools didn’t award you any aid, and you don’t think your parents can contribute either. You can only borrow $5500 in federal student loans as a freshman. Unless your parents can contribute or one of these schools is within commuting distance, I don’t think they’ll be affordable.
Are you sure you won’t qualify for Pell? Retirement money isn’t counted as assets.
Will your parents at least refund you the “college tax credit” they’ll receive if you enroll in college?
Go to UT.
It’s not retirement money its moreover tax deferred income to those retirement funds
Will your parents at least refund you the tax credit they’ll get to help them pay for your college expenses?
Any decision?
I don’t know whether or not this will help, but I recently graduated from the Texas Tech honors program and might be able to give some insight.
I genuinely loved my experience at Tech. As with anything, there were positives and negatives. The honors college, for me, is a lot of what attracted me to Tech in the first place. I really enjoyed the classes I took through the college. On the negative side, there were few classes that would apply directly to my major, but that let me take classes I otherwise would not have and really broadened my scope of experience. I took several psychology classes, a class on Joan of Arc, a class on Travel Writing, and a class on atmospheric science. The people I met through my honors classes and my honors housing became some of my closest friends. I think there was something really special about going to class with the people you lived with. It made it easier to meet up to work on projects, but it also added to that shared experience. I lived in Gordon my freshman and sophomore year and I really missed it after I moved off campus.
While in the middle of nowhere (it took me 6 hours to drive there from the Dallas area), Lubbock is not nowhere. It has everything you could possibly want in a city and is a devoted college town. It even recently got some well-known Austin establishments like Alamo Drafthouse and Torchy’s Tacos. It’s mall is pretty basic, but it had what I needed. I found I rarely shopped anyway because I was needing to save so much money.
Overall, the biggest thing for me was the number of opportunities Tech made available to its students. It had an approach that I think is opposite many major universities. If you wanted to do something, like undergraduate research as a freshman, write for the campus newspaper your first day on campus, even intern on Capital Hill, Tech generally would let you try. You proved yourself as you went instead of having to prove yourself first. Of course, you still had to apply to these things and be accepted, but Tech would still tend to give you a try even if you weren’t the elite applicant. At least that was my experience. The mere fact that they are willing to take a chance on you allows you to grow so much. (I’m not saying that UT wouldn’t do this, but since I didn’t go there, I wouldn’t know.)
To give you an idea, I barely graduated in the top quarter of my high school graduating class, my SAT scores were ok, and my GPA was good, but not great. Through four years at Tech, I participated in a 12 person student council for my college, wrote for the student paper as a freshman (most student papers make you wait), spent a semester on Capital Hill, interned in my college’s marketing department, and two took graduate classes as an undergrad before going straight into grad school. All the while I grew so much academically and as a person.
Whether you go to UT or Tech, it’s all going to be what you make of it. Good luck, and if you have any questions, message me.