JHU is the top Biomedical engineering school in the nation with a #1 ranking on U.S. News
Rice also has a substantial ranking of #4
- what would be the advantage of studying at JHU versus Rice and vice versa?
Rice is known to have one of the happiest students, a collaborative environment and a high return on investment (Payscale, Princeton Review)
JHU has a reputation of having cutthroat competitive students and a cutthroat grading curve
- Does Rice have a cutthroat curve similar to JHU?
Both have access to top research facilities and hospitals
- does one trump the other?
Should I decide not to major in biomedical eng and switch to another type of engineering, (i.e. chem, mech etc.)
- Which school has the best overall engineering department?
- Would one help me get into graduate school (PhD) more than the other?
Thank you in advance
Can’t speak to the CHBE (at Rice) department in particular. I think asking about the “engineering” department is kind of misguided. What other subjects are you interested in? That makes a big difference. The rule of thumb for Rice is while it can be really hard, it’s not cutthroat or internally competitive.
Yes, are you aware that JHU has a cutthroat/highly competitive culture vs Rice being highly collaborative?
These universities are equal so just pick whichever one fits you the best. Which one makes you the happiest.
My D friend chose JHU for one reason - prestige. He had no idea he would dislike it culturally. He hated the highly competitive atmosphere. It was very hard to make friends. He transferred out and went to Rutgers. It was the wrong fit. If you are unhappy you won’t succeed. If you are happy you will be very successful.
Good luck!!
While this is the Rice forum, I have to again disagree with the Hopkins sentiments. One person having a bad time does not make the school universally competitive or unhappy. Perhaps there was something external impacting him or he had significant introversion that prevented him from having friends? Again, most people at Hopkins do not transfer out. I graduated with an engineering degree (top 10% in my class at Hopkins) and graduated with a Ph.D. in engineering from Stanford AND had an absolute blast in college and graduate school. I don’t see myself as a genius either as I studied hard and worked on tough homework assignments with my classmates - some of which became close friends from all the times we collaborated. It was these same friends and others that encouraged me (and vice versa) to go out to clubs/bars/parties to let loose and enjoy college life.
This is not to toot my own horn but to show that you can in fact do well, make friends, and have fun. I’m about to attend multiple weddings in the coming months with my close college friends. This was the status quo at Hopkins for me and many others. The majority of Hopkins students stay and graduate. They do not in fact transfer out.
They also donate back in the highest percentages relative to other top private schools. There’s overwhelming participation by alumni in admissions recruiting events as well. These all contradict the notion that Hopkins is a highly competitive environment. It’s hard, but people are friendly and work together.
I would pick JHU on the virtue of how its engineering programs are superb relative to Rice. JHU’s engineering program shines as a whole - Rice’s other programs have a higher disparity compared to JHU when viewed outside the BME continuum.