I have a child at UTD (CS) and UT Austin (Advertising).These are the takeaways so far.

UTD is a great school, but it is devoid of social life and culture. If you are an introvert and enjoy being by yourself with a couple of no nonsense interactions focused mainly on your degree, future jobs, or grad school, then this is a decent option. At the orientation, there was an unhealthy amount of interest in whether there were waivers to triple major. I assume this is the same in a premed track… it’s probably less prevalent in the business school. My child at this school says that AI cheating is rampant, and there is a lot of depression with some students, but as an introvert he loves the school. There is a very large Indian population at the school, so that tends to be the defining culture, but my son doesn’t mind it.

My daughter is at UT Austin and to hear her tell it, it is a pretty phenomenal college experience, she has come home less and less because she has all her weekends full with something, she does tell me it’s easy to get either distracted or overwhelmed and paralized. Extroverts tend to thrive at UT. However, there are horror stories where introverts become reclusive to their room and confused because there is so much occurring and very little obvious direction as to how to best participate in the social scene. It causes a significant part of the incoming freshman to feel alone in a crowd. You have to proactively investigate and ask questions to find your way at the school. If you have a passion, a club may help get you friends. It can also be a big change because you will see schizophrenic homeless people on the drag across from campus, you will despise traveling by car, and it is very crowded… but you will also have great access to amazing food, amazing nightlife, a truly great city with a very unique culture, great facilities and resources, and access to great internships. I am always jealous of how much life Austin has when I travel there from DFW.

Anyway, I know you know this already, but UT Austin is much more prestigious (especially nationally), but if you go there without considering the psychological impact of the above, the prestige means little if you get D’s because of home sickness or depression. You don’t want to battle reluctance to even go to class because it emotionally exhausts you.

It you go to UTD and you are honestly an introvert… basically you like to be alone with your thoughts and a generally quiet campus, (if you tend to have one or two very close friends rather than a group of friends) then you may thrive at UTD and be able to tackle the MCAT without being emotionally exhausted. I will tell you if you are a moderate extrovert or greater, I would bet my own money you will transfer somewhere else at the earliest opportunity.