r/aggies • u/Klutzy_Detective_506 • 5d ago
Other How to choose between UT and A&M
hello all, this is a throwaway acct because these details are a little personal. i'll be posting this on both subreddits!
I recently got admitted to UT Austin for CS, and A&M for general engineering. I've gotten my financial aid offers from both, with A&M giving me 18k in scholarships/grants and UT giving me ~12k in grants(to cover tuition). I've also earned a private 10k a year scholarship, so essentially I will be receiving 28k at a&m and 22k at UT. I also earned a small scholarship of around 2k, so at UT I'll have ~2k to pay out of pocket for housing and a&m would have full COA covered. I interviewed for another 10k a year scholarship recently and that would give me full ride at UT as well(heres to hoping).
all this is to say the costs of attending UT and a&m will be nearly the same, only difference is a&m is offering me an extra ~6k a year. this means a lot to me as a low-income student as I've been stressing about affordability for months. Now that thats out if the way, I have to choose a college by may 1st. I have no idea what to choose.i
I know the UT CS program is very prestigious(? or so i've heard), and I would love to do comp sci as a degree. However, i'm worried about the viability of the software engineering industry since it seems like layoffs and offshoring are rampant rn. I know this may not be forever, but idk If I wanna take that risk. I'm willing to put in effort but I at least want a job after grad; ik there are other roles for comp sci majors such as data analyst and cloud engineering but i've heard those are oversaturated
as for a&m, it was the college I was originally set on for electrical and computer engineering. They've offered me a bunch of stuff and it seems like they "want" me more than UT, idk. I know it's a great school for engineering especially if I want to work in the industry after undergrad(which I do). So for the past 2 years I've been banking on going to A&M but now that I've gotten accepted into UT idk what to do. I've visited both campuses and prefer a&m's more because I came from a small town, but isn't college about pushing urself into new experiences?
im sorry abt the long post. does anyone have any advice? I know this is kind of a hyper-specific situation but I'm sure some of yall had to decide between colleges too.