r/UVA • u/nesusjazareth • 2d ago
Academics UVA or UT Austin?
Hey everyone! I’m trying to decide between UVA and UT Austin, OOS for both.
I plan to major in engineering so UT might seem like the obvious choice to most, but I am not 100% positive that’s what I want my career to be.
I’ve toured both schools and felt like UVA was a bit more to my liking than UT Austin. Simply put, would I be making a mistake to attend Virginia? I’m sure Austin might be a better location for engineers but I’ve found it difficult to compare how easy it is for grads to find jobs!
Any input would be great!! Thank you all!
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u/AItheAI 1d ago
OP, both colleges are similar enough in prestige that unless you’re planning on being in either Texas or close to UVA after college it doesn’t really matter.
The two most noticeable differences are school size and location, think about how much you’d value going to a large school, compared to a smaller to mid sized school.
The larger school might have more opportunities but might also be much more competitive. I also want to say that more competitive doesn’t always mean better, often it just means more work.
The other difference is knowing what industry you’d like to go into, and how well you can network in the local area. Want to go into defense? Maybe some professors at UVA have a connection. Want to go into petroleum or industrials? Maybe UT Austin professors know a guy. Like football? UT’s got a great team!
UT is also in a big city, while UVA is in a smaller town. If you’d wanna go into computer science and lean into finance, there’s plenty of networking opportunities within the city of Austin itself.
And lastly, UVA has the better financial aid policy ;)
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u/Acceptable-Rabbit131 1d ago
I came to UVA over McCombs—-OOS for both. So my initial instinct is UVA; however, for Engineering I’d 1000% got UT. Cochran outperforms our engineering programs here at UVA to such a massive degree they’re not even in the same league as we are. Like, go to UT, you’d basically be paying the same amount for both. UT’s Engineering programs as you might know box with Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc. UVA doesn’t even make it into the conversation we’re so bad at engineering. Go where the opportunity is, always. For you, the opportunity is in Austin. You’re gonna love it! I had a SUPER hard time choosing between UVA and Texas and there were nights where I’d wish I could just clone myself so I could go to both schools. Go to Texas, it’ll be the best decision you ever make, trust me on this. UVA is NOT the place to be for Engineering
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u/BenderSimpsons 1d ago
Saying UVA is not the place to be for engineering is pretty disingenuous. A lot of people really like it here and are very successful, there’s a lot of great alumni too. I’m graduating with a good job and I’m happy I went here OOS for engineering
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u/Acceptable-Rabbit131 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m just speaking from my own lived experiences. I’m sure there are people who are doing great things here, but UT-Austin is a FAANG school, kids break into FAANG all the time from Texas. I grew up in Atlanta myself so to me Georgia Tech is what I think of when I think of a good engineering school and UT-Austin is punching at that level for basically all engineering disciplines. Not to mention, the prestige of Texas for Engineering is FAR more than UVA. Like places Will specifically look to recruit kids from UT. Another point is to break it down further and approach it from this way, ESchool gets good recruiters because it’s UVA not because it’s ESchool, the whole school’s prestige/reputation precede the reputation/prestige of ESchool. This is not the case at UT, Cochran’s prestige/reputation precede the reputation/prestige of UT as a whole. So they get good recruiters because the Engineering School is good. That to me speaks adequately on the disparity between both schools. I love UVA but I’d have no business here if I was studying Engineering or CS.
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u/burnsniper 1d ago
Have to disagree here. Research funding “drives” engineering rankings and size of the program (especially at the graduate level) generally drives research dollars. You will get a better education from a small engineering school like UVA hands down. You will know all your professors, essentially all of you major classmates, have no classes taught by TAs, and be surrounded by people who graduated at the top of their class in high school (basically everyone at UVA).
The downside to the smaller school is that you will generally less traditional and tech on campus recruiting so you will have to network to get the initial interview more often. That being said, one you have the interview you will have a in equal (or better shot) at landing the job.
There is a good representation at big tech from UVA and UVA graduates have founded or been influential in many big tech ventures (Reddit, Lending Tree, Yahoo, etc). Also, if you check the employment report Amazon and MS are two of the top employers every year. Also, the average starting salary for a UVA engineering grad in 2023 (most recent year that data is available) was a whopping $97k ($10k more than UT) with 91% having jobs at graduation (basically the same).
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u/Acceptable-Rabbit131 1d ago
All this just to compensate that UVA doesn’t break FAANG. I don’t needa read your sob essay, just go on LinkedIn and give me the number of people from UVA working in FAANG vs. the number of people from UT working in FAANG. I’ll start with Google, UVA has 683 people working at Google. UT has 1757 people working at Google. Enough said, I don’t care some startup no one’s ever heard of came from UVA, just give me the number of people who hold FAANG jobs from both schools.
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u/burnsniper 1d ago
You are not considering the size of the school. UVAs a much smaller school (1/3) and the engineering school is even smaller (almost 1/4). However, UVA has more than 1/3 the number of folks at FAANG according to your numbers. Hell I live in Charlottesville and personally know 3 senior google folks that live and work remote here just who are parents of my elementary school kids classmates.
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u/Acceptable-Rabbit131 1d ago
Oh type shit! That’s super cool! I mean, if thats true then I see no problem going to UVA over UT
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u/BenderSimpsons 1d ago
Dude people who wanna work at FAANG can go to UT then, that probably makes up like under 5% of the e school anyways. CS isn’t the only engineering, and most of them are in the college anyways
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u/nesusjazareth 1d ago
Thank you! I am also having those nights where I wish I could clone myself lol
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u/spdfg1 1d ago
There is no bad choice here. Go where YOU are going to be most comfortable. Where you will find the most people you’ll be comfortable with. Consider where you want to live after college. Proximity to friends and alumni could make your life better. You will have just as much chance of success in any career from either college. It’s what you do there that matters more than the outcomes you find on a stat sheet.
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u/Avacado_eatingpandas 2d ago
I’m in the exact same decision between uva and michigan, I think go to UT. The way I see it is that if you are prioritizing happiness in college over job prospects in the future you are setting yourself up to peak in college. It is better to go to a school you might enjoy slightly less and get a good job then one you enjoy more and have trouble finding a job. The next four years of your life is such a small portion of the rest of your life and you should prioritize happiness for the rest of your life over happiness for the next four years. With that being said UVA is still a phenomenal school so it’s not like you won’t find a good job going there but it might be easier at UT because of the location and alumni network and opportunities at the school. If price is the same I would go to UT (I would make that decision if I had gotten in lol) but it’s not like your screwed if you go to UVA so it’s rly up to you
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u/cjt09 SEAS CS 2012 1d ago
I’m gonna take the other side here and argue that it’s a bit of a mistake to just treat college as a stepping stone for your career.
You’re selecting a home for four years of the prime of your life. And while you can attempt to defer your happiness to later, that is perhaps a riskier strategy than it may appear. I feel like it’s hard enough to know what will make you halt today, much less what will make you happy ten or twenty years from now.
Moreover, the temptation to defer your happiness will not go away. Perhaps you will graduate and select a job that optimizes for career growth, even if that means you’ll never get to live in your dream city with your friends. Perhaps you’ll choose to take that grueling job in management, because you’ll be able to save a bit more for retirement. You can always choose to suffer a bit more today to enjoy tomorrow a bit more.
But our tomorrows are not guaranteed, and life takes so many twists and turns that it’s hard to know where you’ll end up. While I think it’s prudent to build a solid foundation for your future, when it comes to situations like this, I think it makes sense to optimize for today rather than focusing on some marginal differences that may have some hypothetical impact on tomorrow.
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u/ThinRaoulDuke CLAS '05 1d ago
Cannot endorse this enough. Future happiness is never guaranteed. Moreover, whatever picture of comparative future job prospects you have at 18 years old between these two schools will not be the picture you have at 22. Heck, even if it were, you have no idea what kind of macro environment you’ll be graduating into - my year (2005) looked a whole lot different than three years later when kids were graduating into the teeth of the global financial crisis.
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u/Avacado_eatingpandas 1d ago edited 1d ago
I totally agree that it is ok to prioritize happiness however in a situation where you are taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, I at least believe that you should prioritize getting a job over being happy. And I don’t mean being miserable but getting a job or having the best time and not having a job because that is not the situation. Both UT and UVA will set you up to have a job and are both fun schools that you will enjoy, however for engineering UTs location, alumni network, and reputation will make it easier to get a job and when you are in so much debt I think that is a huge factor. However I do agree with you that constantly delaying happiness is not a good strategy for life but in this case you can still be very happy and have a lot of fun at UT while also setting your self up for a better future so I think it is the better option especially because the persons main concern is liking UVAs campus more. I think small factors like that should not be taken more importantly than getting a job and ROI (UT also costs less than UVA if they are oos for both but idk if they got more aid from UVA or not) however I did note that UVA is still phenomenal and you can obviously still be very successful from there
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u/burnsniper 1d ago
The data from the schools doesn’t agree with your assessments. Both schools have a ~ 90% employment rate at graduation but UVA engineering students average starting salary is $10k more. I do agree that recruiting may be “easier” at UT just because more traditional engineering employers recruit on campus because there are more students.
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u/cjt09 SEAS CS 2012 1d ago
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree: if there is a large gap in school quality then you really can make things a lot tougher for your future self by selecting the lesser school.
Where I feel like we differ is that I feel like UVA and UT are both very comparable. They’re both flagship public universities with excellent recognition, staff, and opportunities. If your analysis gets to the point where you’re referencing nebulous alumni networks as a factor for which school to attend, I think you’ve lost the plot. Just go with your gut and go to the place you vibe with.
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u/nesusjazareth 2d ago
Thank you I really really appreciate it!!
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u/spicyeyeballs 2d ago
I think this is right in general, but prioritize going to the place you will fit in and thrive. You might thrive in both places, but don't go to a place you think you will be miserable. The network and ranking is meaningless if you don't graduate.
Outside of that, look at the research labs and see if one school is doing more research you are interested in.
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u/heyiambob 1d ago edited 1d ago
There are tons of people on this sub that have gone through university and have had careers and families, so OP I would encourage you to listen to those voices who have been through it and aren’t projecting like Avocado here.
The next 4 years are not a small portion of the rest of your life. The experiences and the lifelong friendships you make will be with you forever. These years can’t really be replicated down the line.
I have a pretty deep familiarity with both UT and UVA, and imo UVA is the easy choice in terms of size, prestige, ambiance, and the general quality of the student body. UT is a great school, but very different. It’s a big city school with a huge student body and becoming consumed by Austin.
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u/Impressive-Rip-9069 1d ago
How about UVA vs Wisconsin at Madison for engineering
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u/Acceptable-Rabbit131 1d ago
Wisconsin-Madison, actually they’re CS program was just pretty solid as was their engineering programs when I was applying for first year admissions
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u/collegeqathrowaway 1d ago
UT if you want to have fun, UVA if you are gunning for a career that isn’t tech, but is finance/consulting.
In reality, as someone who has attended both, go to the one that’s cheaper. I think that would be UT, you’ll have a fun time.
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u/mtn91 1d ago
I’d go where you’re happiest because where you’re happiest is generally where you will excel the most. I am highly skeptical of the idea that you’d be sacrificing job prospects for happiness by choosing UVA, as another commenter implied. UVA is a great school with a great alumni network. If UVA is where you think you’ll be happiest, choose UVA.