UChicago vs. University of Texas at Austin

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
1

<p>So I’ve been debating between these two schools ever since I got accepted into UChicago and I’ve made a million pros and cons lists but I still can’t seem to come to a decision. </p>

<p>At UChicago, I would major in economics, which they’re world renowned for. However, I’m really really worried about the workload. It seems that everything I hear (and I’ve talked to people who go to UChicago) is that you have barely any time that isn’t spent studying, and I want to be able to enjoy myself at college. I also am worried that my gpa will be kind of terrible there which will make getting into grad school difficult. And there’s the fact that they have a quarters system, which means three finals a year that I’m not too pleased about. But you know, there’s still the prestige, and I love how witty the people seem, and I really like their class variety. I also love the house traditions and I write harry potter fanfiction so it’d be like fulfilling my hogwarts dream. I also got a $10,000 a year scholarship from them which isn’t really much in the grand scheme of things since they’re so expensive.</p>

<p>At UT, I got in for advertising, which they were rated number one in the nation for. I also think I’d like advertising more as a major, because I want to be head of advertising of a huge corporation as a dream job. It’s also way warmer in Texas, and both my parents went there, and they claim that they’d move back to Texas if I attended, which I really want them to do. I also want to live in Texas once I graduate from college, because I see that state as my home even though I grew up in NJ. UT also has a great social atmosphere, great athletics, and lots of students which I like the idea of. Although I’m worried that since everyone there will mostly be from Texas, it’ll be harder to make friends there since cliques will already exist. I also think my gpa would be higher at UT, because they only ever have curves that increase your gpa instead of a bell curve. I’m also worried that I wouldn’t get to know the professors as well at UT because of how big it is. And I’m worried about how the greek life seems to rule the school. I’m also an out of stater for UT, and I got no scholarship from them so it would be 40,000 a year, which would be 10,000 less than UChicago.</p>

<p>There’s a part of me that really wants to go to UT, but then there’s a large part of me that thinks it would be incredibly stupid of me to give up such an amazing opportunity at UChicago. I go to the number one math and science high school in the nation, and I didn’t work my butt of for the last four years for nothing. Not that UT isn’t an amazing school, because it is, it just doesn’t have as much prestige as UChicago does. I almost wish I could go to UChicago, but have the workload and weather and location be like UT.</p>

<p>UGH sorry I just really have no idea which school I want to go to. I’m leaning towards UChicago today, but yesterday I was convinced I should go to UT so I thought I’d ask your opinions because I’m completely out of them.</p>

<p>So please let me know your thoughts and thank you for reading through this!</p>

2

<p>you’re not going to get a really impartial answer on the UC boards</p>

3

<p>Have you attended an April Overnight at UChicago yet? I went to one on April 12-13.</p>

<p>The students said that yes, there is a lot of work; and yes, the quarter system is a little stressful, but they come to the school first and foremost to learn so it’s not the end of the world (makes sense, doesn’t it?). </p>

<p>I definitely think that attending UChicago would allow for less social time than UT Austin, but students there were not locked in their dorms 24/7. They just needed to learn strong time management skills. </p>

<p>Also, if you were accepted as an unhooked applicant, you should feel confident in your ability to do the work. Top schools are not in the practice of admitting slouches. </p>

<p>The students liked that the quarter system lets them take more classes over their 4 years, that reviewing for the final is much easier when they only have to review the past 10 weeks, that the quarter system allows them to go on break without worrying about exams, and that the classes pass by relatively quickly.</p>

<p>IMO UChicago for 50k/year is a far better deal than UT Austin for 40k/year, although neither of these two options are a steal by any means.</p>

<p>Also, maybe you should look at the heads of advertising at major corporations that interest you and see what they studied and where they graduated from, to get a better idea of how powerful an advertising degree at UT Austin is. I personally have no idea.</p>

<p>Good luck with your decision.</p>

4

<p>First of all, do you need to take (additonal) $10K/year to attend U chicago? If so, it depends on whether this feels like an undue burdent on your or not. Only you can tell whether this is something you can live with or not. If not, can your parents shoulder additional $10K tuition burden? If so, then you can only look at the merit of these two schools, and decide. If not, then this is the discussion you should have with your parents. </p>

<p>However, if I were your parent, I would say, with $10K difference, there is NO WAY I would recommend my kid go to UT when he has an option to go to U Chicago. </p>

<p>In general, in this day and age of state budget crisis with politicians who think cutting funding for high education is a totally risk free way of pretending to balance the budget, I don’t understand why anybody would choose a public university as an out of state student paying tuition almost at the same level as a private school. How do you know that UT system wouldn’t think raising the out of state student tuition is a very easy to increase the revenue? After all, this won’t ire their voters, will it? We hear about students not able to graduate in four years in popular majors due to the course offering conflict, etc etc in many public schools these days.</p>

<p>And, to boot, UT is NOT even close to U Chicago in terms of prestige, quality of education, diverse and thoughtful student body, ample faculty access, etc, etc. There is absolutely no dimension where UT excels U Chicago. U Chicago is an international powerhouse. In fact, in most international rankings, U Chicago is ranked within top 5, or at worst top 10, and within top 3-4 among US colleges. </p>

<p>So, I am scratching my head why this is even a hard decision. </p>

<p>Regarding advertising major: well, if you know that you will NEVER change your mind for a major, perhaps, your indecision has some merit. However, you are only 17 or 18 year old. Kids change their mind wrt the major. </p>

<p>At U Chicago, you will be surrounded with student body that is FAR more diverse (not even a fair comparison) than UT with interesting peers from all over the world. You will have easy access to top tier faculty members (at least my son has had VERY EASY TIME accessing all of his faculty members even as a first year). You will have employers from all major elite companies recruiting on campus, not just REGIONAL ones. You will have the best preparatory education for any top tier ultra elite graduate school programs.</p>

<p>Note: when it comes to which school, I don’t normally go so ballistic in favor of U Chicago. In fact, when it comes to Berkeley, UVA, Michigan as an in state student vs. U Chicago, I have ALWAYS favored the public schools: the tuition difference was way too big. When it was between U Chicago vs. its peers, my vote was “it depends”, and I frequently made a case in favor of the other schools.</p>

5

<p>Go to UChicago. You’re right; you didn’t work your butt off at a #1 high school to attend a school like UT Austin. </p>

<p>You can always go to UT Austin for grad school. You can’t always go to UChicago for grad school.</p>

6

<p>Thank you all so much for the input! I’m actually doing an overnight at UChicago today, so assuming all goes well I think that’ll be my choice :slight_smile: You all gave amazing insight and have really helped me out a ton.</p>

7

<p>

Kind of like how McKinsey recruits at UT-Austin as well as UChicago…of wait it doesn’t recruit at UChicago. I actually think McCombs might be as well targeted by Wall Street as Chicago and does slightly better with Management Consulting than U of C.</p>

<p>[University</a> of Texas - Austin | Careers | McKinsey & Company](<a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/Careers/Apply/University_recruiting/Schools/BA/University_of_Texas_-_Austin]University”>http://www.mckinsey.com/Careers/Apply/University_recruiting/Schools/BA/University_of_Texas_-_Austin)</p>

8

<p>Goldenboy:</p>

<p>Give it up. We are well aware of these stats you continually bring up. A point of frustration, however, is that you don’t account for how schools may change over time, and you also focus on one very specific area (i.e. management consulting). </p>

<p>I’m sure, for example, that years ago before Penn’s College of Arts and Science improved, McKinsey was only interested in recruiting at Wharton, and didn’t focus much on the College. As Penn’s College has improved markedly in the past ~12 years or so, this has changed.</p>

<p>It seems that UChicago is undergoing a comparable change, and may see the fruits of this labor a few years down the road. What do you think?</p>

9

<p>

The top banks and consulting firms have always recruited at the College of Arts & Sciences at Penn from what I can remember. My friend who graduates from UChicago in 2011 said the only banks that recruited even moderately at the school were Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan. You basically have to be a member of Blue Chips or CCIB to have a chance which is not the case at Dartmouth and Duke.</p>

10

<p>Goldenboy:</p>

<p>I doubt that the banks recruited from Penn CAS as vigorously in the past as they do now. Remember, in the 1990s, Penn CAS was considerably behind Wharton in terms of selectivity and opportunity afterwards. The school generally wasn’t that highly ranked (I think around #16 or so), and many Penn CAS students felt a bit of inferiority in comparison to Wharton, which had the same sterling reputation then as it does today.</p>

<p>Zoom forward to the present, and the situation is quite different. Penn CAS has closed the gap with Wharton, and the reputation of the college has improved considerably. No one considers Penn CAS to be the “ivy league gutter school,” as was readily the case some time back.</p>

<p>Given these trends, I think it’s doubtful banks/consulting firms didn’t adjust their recruiting practices accordingly. In fact, it’d be kind of surprising if firms didn’t increase their recruiting at Penn as the college grew noticeably stronger. </p>

<p>Given recent trends at UChicago, which seem to mirror the changes at Penn in the early 2000s, why wouldn’t a comparable trend be the case?</p>

11

<p>Are you sure McKinsey does not recruit at Uchicago? McKinsey was founded at Chicago Booth.</p>

12

<p>[About</a> Us | History | McKinsey & Company](<a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/About_us/History]About”>http://www.mckinsey.com/About_us/History)</p>

<p>“Management theory was still in its infancy when James O. McKinsey (or Mac, as he was known by friends and colleagues) founded the firm that bears his name in 1926. He had left his academic career as a professor of accounting at the University of Chicago to build a firm that provided finance and budgeting services, but quickly gained a reputation for providing advice on organization and management issues.”</p>

13

<p>Yo bro, Chicago be hard but you’ll have fun if you can cope with the work load. With that said, UT is a great school as well. Flip a coin bro, that’s the only way to pick between schools of comparable quality.</p>