Bro rice is no where ranked near Cornell. Check rankings. Go for Cornell
Rice ranked nowhere near Cornell? Really?
Start with the most well known ranking, US News:
#16 - Rice
#18 - Cornell
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i meant for CS. general rankings dont tell what the program is like. On the same note, cornell is ranked 5 in cs whilst rice is 20. UCSD CS is ranked higher than rice CS for example so its a huge difference
So, you’re saying that both are T20 schools in CS.
5 vs 20 is a “huge difference. Why? When you get to that level, we’re talking about both being elite schools in their field. Finding differences is splitting hairs unless there is something concrete that stands out. The difference in rankings is meaningless unless you can point out why there was a difference and how that will make a difference for this student.
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The rankings are significant, but at this point for the OP it may be more about fit than anything. Cornell is a very high stress environment, especially lately. Their decision not to hold Spring Break was done with good intentions but I think ultimately that may have caused other issues and stressors for students. If someone cannot handle a high stress environment, has unrealistic expectations set on them, is not ok if their grades are not perfect (or has family that isn’t),and is unable or unwilling to seek or ask for help then Cornell is not the place for them. Sometimes I wonder how much of the stress on these kids is a function of parental pressure based on the amount of loans some of these kids have and then the kids can’t admit to the parents that they’re doing poorly or need help or whatever.
Here’s just one example: A month or so ago there was a parent who said he was still waiting for his daughter’s report card because some professors (according to his daughter) had still not put the grades in. I wondered how by the end of February when Deans list was already announced that someone’s grades were not already in and thought it odd. This was also the only parent saying grades weren’t in. Ultimately it was pointed out to me that it most likely wasn’t the case that grades weren’t in, but that the student did poorly and didn’t have the nerve to tell the parent. After thinking about it, it made total sense. There is no way that 3 months after the semester ended that grades would still show as incomplete and that no other parent would have the same issue with their kid. I don’t want to comment on additional info about what is known about the kid from the parent page but it is most likely based on that knowledge exactly what happened. Kids should not feel shame to tell their parents they’re struggling. But, everyone struggles at some point. So, having said that, people need to put aside rankings sometime, and the prestige of a school, and look at where they would be happiest and fit for them. My daughter loves Cornell, but she wasn’t a perfect student before she got there. So maybe that’s helped her. Maybe it was not putting that expectation on her or her having it upon herself. I don’t know. I can’t expect my kids to do anything but try their best. I was far from a perfect student, or even close to a great student. To @GhostPhoenix10 find your happy place for you, not others and make the decision that is calling you. You cannot go wrong here.
Going back 40 years since I was a high school student thinking about college and living in the Northeast, I definitely knew Cornell was a prestigious school (though not quite Harvard). I had never heard of Rice. More recently (30 years ago as a grad student) I knew Rice existed but wasn’t entirely sure how good it was. My perception of Rice has gone up over that time period and Cornell is pretty stable, but I would still see Cornell as having more name recognition. I also think (and I wrote earlier) they have a better CS theory group, or did when I last knew about such things.
Your choice is an enviable one to have, and you are going to need to weigh in personal factors, including what you think you want out of a college degree. That may change and probably should as you learn more about your interests. For grad school, you will get more out of excelling in hard courses and getting recommendations from specific professors than school name recognition. For industry jobs, internships probably matter a lot more, and I don’t honestly have enough context to compare the two.
Have you heard of HMC? Olin?
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“they both seem to have great reputations in SV”
Cornell has stronger reputation in SV, it’s a larger school so more alums out here and it’s possible there are many more grad school alums of Cornell, so you have to take those two into account.
“The difference in rankings is meaningless unless you can point out why there was a difference and how that will make a difference for this student.”
The OP has brought up reputation as factor in the decision, which is correlated with ranking, since the grad survey for USN is just based on reputation surveys filled by grad school depts. I’m assuming this is the US News grad ranking where Cornell is 6th and Rice 20th. One way to look at this is that Rice is rated a 3.7, Cornell a 4.5. The top schools, MIT et al are at 5.0, Harvard, the aforementioned UCSD are at 4.0 and UMN is at 3.5. There may not be a huge difference between UCSD and UMN, but there’s a big difference between Stanford and UCSD.
rice doesnt even have a big cs department. if youre interested in research go cornell
“Rice doesn’t even have a big CS department. If you’re interested in research go to Cornell.”
I don’t see how this follows. Here are the facts:
Undergrads in CS: Rice = 300, Cornell = 1000
Grad students in CS: Rice = 260, Cornell = 340
Full Time CS Faculty: Rice = 35, Cornell = 60
Where is an undergrad going to have a better shot at doing research? Do the math.
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You have to look deeper and check the background of people in their respective CS departments. Numbers are sometimes misleading. Rice includes in its CS department almost anyone who peripherally has anything to do with CS.
Yep. Most rankings are based on the research quality of the cs department. Given that Cornell is 15 spots ahead of rice, Cornell publishes more research
One of the things that was a turn off to my D when we toured Cornell was that the students we talked to said it was super competitive to get a position doing undergrad research. That wasn’t the case at all back when I was student so that took me by surprise.
For OP, if research is important to your student, I’d ask more in depth questions at each institution about the selection process for undergraduate research, the numbers that apply vs are accepted, etc… And ask specifically what the student’s are doing. The chem e that did our tour at Cornell was technically doing research but it was outside her major and she grumpily told us that all she was doing was feeding rats and keeping them alive for experiments. Not quite what our D was hoping to hear from a CoE student.
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Meaningful research isn’t guaranteed for every student even at schools where there’re plenty of opportunities. My S has been doing research at his school since his freshman year. He needed to talk to his professors to find out what projects they had available and then he would select one that interested him. There’re always requirements (courses to take, papers to read, etc.) he had to meet. He would then write a detailed proposal (after having read all the papers and completed the courses) describing what he would do within a certain time frame and what he hoped to accomplish within the same time frame. If the research leads to a publishable paper, then it would likely be extended. He’s currently doing an undergraduate thesis. It takes a full year but the process is similar.
Between Cornell and Rice, I’d think Cornell offers more meaningful research opportunities in more interesting areas but they may be more competitive.
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Bottom line- these are both excellent choices. If you plan to go to grad school it wont really matter which of these great schools you attended for undergrad. Would still like to hear the COA for each school.
No, Rice doesn’t list anyone “peripherally associated with CS” as part of the CS faculty. Where do you get that? Do you work there?
I can only go by what they say on their website which is that the number they list for their CS faculty are only those who’s primary assignment is CS.
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I don’t work there but I’ve looked up the background and areas of their interest of all members in its CS department. I’m sure Rice, like many other schools, would love to hire more CS faculty in areas where there’re currently lots of interest, but in Rice’s defense, it’s a nearly impossible task at the moment.
Yes, Cornell publishes more research than Rice. It should, it’s 3 times the size of Rice. Does bigger men better?
But how is sheer volume relevant? If a student wants to go to a big college, it’s Cornell. If s/he prefers smaller, then it’s Rice. But anyone who looks beyond that is focusing on other things.
One of the important things to look at if someone wants research opportunities is student faculty ratio, which is 6:1 at Rice and 50% higher at Cornell (9:1). And this is born out for CS by the numbers I posted earlier.
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faculty ratio is not indicative of quality of research
No one said it is. But it is an indicator of more likely access to research, which is clearly going to be more of a challenge at Cornell.
At any research university, the highest priority for research is professors and second is doctoral students. Undergrads come somewhere down the pecking order. How high level research do you think undergrads are involved in anywhere?
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