I’m Jake and I just got of the wait list at Rice and I have to decide whether I want to go to Rice by May 1 or Brandeis, where I already submitted by deposit.
I want to be Pre-med, and I know both universities have a lot of research opportunities and excellent med school acceptance rates. What I’m concerned about is how difficult it is to maintain a good GPA (3.7+) at Rice? Is there deflation or inflation there? I don’t want to kill myself at Rice and ruin chances at med schools because even though I am a hard worker, I know everyone else there is, too.
I am not sure what I want to major in, but I was thinking Comp Sci or maybe neuroscience (only a minor at Rice, but a major at Brandeis) or something not humanities. Ik Rice has a great engineering school so it will be more difficult to maintain a good GPA there with comp sci and pre med but I love the campus.
I live in Connecticut so Rice is far, but Brandeis is only 1.5 hrs by car. I am wondering if it is worth traveling so far for Rice when I can do better at Brandeis.
Socially both places are good for me. I like being near a city and even though Brandeis is 15 min from Boston I’m perfectly okay with that because it’s super easy to get there from Brandeis. Both are actually very similar in size too so I’m okay with the size of rice and brandeis because i do want a smaller school.
Have you ever been to Houston?
It’s pretty awful (IMHO).
Rice and Brandeis are comparable in quality. Brandeis has the edge in smallness and being in a much better location. If you’re even thinking about Neuroscience then definitely go to Brandeis as it’s one of the top programs in the field.
Are finances important? The Rice campus is fabulous. The surrounding area in Houston is very nice with shops, museums and restaurants. The med center is across the street from Rice’s main gates. I would think it would be tough to commit to a school without visiting.
Have you compared the admit rates of each school to med schools? As well as MCAT scores?
Rice is a better school and has a gorgeous campus and the schools have basically the same number of students. I suspect Boston is more fun than Houston, but Houston isn’t bad. I think txstella has good advice. But consider this (from Wikipedia):
“The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world with one of the highest densities of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research.[12] Located in Houston, the center contains 50 medicine-related institutions, including 21 hospitals and two specialty institutions, two medical schools, six nursing schools, and schools of dentistry, public health, pharmacy, and other health-related practices.”
I don’t know how many students get to work/intern there, but it might be valuable (more research).