<p>Which one do you guys think is better? UT Austin has a higher ranked (7) in US Newsweek when compared to Rice(~11). But i want personal opinions from current students!</p>
<p>Don't worry about the quality of each school's program, because the odds are pretty good that you're not going to graduate with the major you start with. Which school is going to be a better experience for the four years you will be there?</p>
<p>UT Austin is ranked higher because of it's graduate programs, so it's undergrad will certainly benefit from the great reseach they do there. Rice obviously is a smaller and more undergraduate focused institution- access to profs better, research and group work opportunities are probably easier to find, etc. I'm vacillating between doing engineering vs. a math and math econ double major, but from the standpoint of a prospective engineering student, just go where you think you will be happiest, and where you will learn better. I had to make this same decision (UT Honors Eng. vs. Rice) last year and it wasn't too hard of a choice to make. Rice is a great and underrated institution, the people here are brilliant, and the social atmosphere is a lot friendlier and moe accepting than UT's. People legitimately want to learn here, certainly a much higher percentage than kids at UT, although UT is a great university as well. You'll learn the same stuff at all engineering schools- it's not like they teach MIT or Stanford kids some super cool tricks that other engineering schools don't teach.</p>
<p>As far as jobs go, the ability to double major is a somewhat common occurrance for Rice engineers (as you can see by going to careers.rice.edu and clicking on the careers surveys). Engineers get paid the same for entry level jobs pretty much no matter where they went to school (for instance, an MIT chemical engineer will get paid around the same as a chemical engineer from Podunk State, as far as average salaries go.) But lots of engineers from Rice (even the ones that don't double major) go on to take jobs in consulting, investment banking, or go to law or med school. Engineers from UT can get those jobs as well, but I think a higher percentage of Rice engineers go on to things like consulting and investment banking, just because the Rice name has a good deal of prestige, and the fact that employers know that ON AVERAGE (I personally know lots of smart students at UT) the Rice student is more intelligent than a UT student.</p>
<p>Didn't see NySkins1 post there, but he's right. I've come in as a mechanical engineer, and as I stated, I'm considering switching majors because of different career aspirations and realizing I'm not as interested in it as I thought I was. Not totally sure if this is correct for all colleges/schools at UT, but I know for the business school, and engineering school, internal transfers have to "apply" to switch into that school, and that change is effective only in the next semester or next year. At Rice, you can switch freely between engineering, social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. This was a big reason why I chose Rice; because I wasn't totally sure of what I wanted to do. But just one semester into my time here at Rice, I can already tell that I'm about to go through the some of the best years of my life.</p>
<p>The difference in ranking between 11 and 7 is not significant; both are terrific programs. UT gets the added visibility due to its huge size and huge grad programs, and that gives it a boost in the rankings. But even if that wasn't the case, there is no meaningful difference between the rankings. My son turned down scholarships and UT honors engineering program in Chem E for Rice. He hated the facilities at UT (thought the Engineering building was depressing and like a rabbit warren), he disliked the honors overnights and the rallies where he was told how exciting it would be to go to UT (the more times they said "exciting", the less enthusiastic he became), and he really didn't like being locked into a department. He loves Rice and the club sports and the close-knit residential system. Last year, I believe the department graduated 16 Chem E majors, and it is usually in the low 20's - you end up with lots of attention in those junior and senior years, and Houston has lots of big companies that are interested in having interns from Rice.</p>