<p>Hello,</p>
<p>-interested in pre med
-want a small to mid sized university
-research opportunity
-Which would be the best choice for a dedicated student who is a sociable person?</p>
<p>Please compare the schools in prestige, reputation, academics, social life etc. Please help!</p>
<p>It should come down between Rice and Emory… and I would go with Emory… Rice seems to be mostly Texans. Emory has more of a national appeal.</p>
<p>I was actually down to Rice, Duke, and Emory last year. I chose Rice, and here’s why:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Residential college system –> very unique and allows for an inclusive atmosphere, and you also get to meet a very diverse group of people (every single residential college has athletes, music majors, science students, humanities students, etc.) –> reduces cliquey behavior that I observed at Duke and Emory</p></li>
<li><p>While Rice doesn’t have a medical school, the world’s largest medical center is next door.</p></li>
<li><p>Rice is a small university… 3300 undergrads. Emory is much larger (about 6000 undergrads).</p></li>
<li><p>PLENTY of research opportunities, especially in the biosciences (Rice recently built a new 8 story bioscience research center in the Texas Medical Center). However, Emory has a lot too, especially with the CDC close to campus.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are interested in doing engineering major, choose Rice. Emory doesn’t offer engineering degrees –> if you want an engineering degree, you have to do the dual-degree program with GA Tech.</p></li>
<li><p>Rice is known for happy students. We ranked #1 in Best Quality of Life and #8 in happiest students. </p></li>
<li><p>Hopefully you can visit all three schools. Only you can decide which school is best for you.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You can’t go wrong with either. However, I disagree with alam1’s argument that you should go to Emory because it has more of a national appeal. Just because Rice has more Texans (and keep in mind Rice is very prestigious in Texas and Texas is the nation’s 2nd largest state) does not make it inferior to Rice. Rice is consistently often ranked just as high, if not higher, than Emory on most college rankings. Personally, I think the academics at Rice are slightly better, but the differences are minute since they are both top 20 universities.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision! Can’t go wrong with either choice.</p>
<p>IMO Rice unless Emory is significantly cheaper. Personal preferences though.</p>
<p>Academics and medical/science research opportunities will be very good and similar at Rice and Emory, weaker at Colgate.</p>
<p>Personally prefer Rice: more tight knit community - think students happier there as a group - social scene probably more inclusive than Emory or Colgate. But, yeah, a lot of Texans (less geographic diversity) and I don’t particularly like Houston (don’t like Atlanta much either, come to think of it).</p>
<p>With more Texans, is Rice more conservative?</p>
<p>sliknik please back up your claim that Rice is academically superior to Emory. I dislike going simply by rankings, but Emory has top 10 undergraduate business, is amazing for pre med, top 10 for psycology, top 10 for other programs such as religion, french etc. It has a top 20 law AND medical school for grad… lets not even get into the Rollins school of public health which I think is the best in the nation (Yes, Rice is primarily an undergrad institution) but just showing you that, if anything, Emory has the edge in academics. However, Rice would be more appealing for Engineering students although Emory does have a 3-2 combined program with Georgia Tech that is ranked 2nd in the nation. </p>
<p>To address the diversity question, Emory has an incoming International student percentage of about 13% and about 40 percent or either asain, african american, hispanic or native american. The diversity is incredible.</p>
<p>According to this ranking, Emory is 2nd in the nation in terms of diversity… Rice is 12 spots back)
<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/features/36_leading_universities.html[/url]”>http://www.jbhe.com/features/36_leading_universities.html</a></p>
<p>To answer the above question, I believe Rice is left leaning.</p>
<p>Rice is NOT conservative and is in an area of Houston that is also not conservative.<br>
I would choose Rice over Emory. It is an excellent college experience and is D1, if you care about having somewhat of an athletic scene sometimes.</p>
<p>I’m only a junior, but I recently visited both Emory and Rice. My impressions:</p>
<p>Rice: beautiful! I sat in maybe about a 100 person Intro Bio class, and the teacher was funny, engaging, and really seemed to know his stuff. Class participation was encouraged, and everybody was paying attention and knew answers to the questions he asked.</p>
<p>Emory: I loved the people there, however, I did think that there was a contingent of their student body that wasn’t as focused on academics as that of Rice. I sat in on a Freshman Seminar dealing with Economics in the European Union, and almost the entire class (13ish people?) hadn’t done any of their homework and were unprepared for class. When the teacher asked questions, the whole awkward-silence-while-everyone-looks-at-each-other ensued. Nobody seemed willing to contribute.</p>
<p>Just my impressions. I realize that these were two very different classes with two groups of students that may or may not be representative of the two schools. Just my observations.</p>
<p>I also didn’t mean to exclude Colgate. I love, love, LOVE Colgate from the people I have met and the research I’ve done (we’re officially visitng in the summer). The Colgate 13 came to our school and I had some time with them–they were all very open, very warm, very friendly, and didn’t look/act like we were insane, despite my friend and I (a sophomore and junior respectively) tracking them down in a senior boys’ dorm at ten at night. :)</p>
<p>I would choose Colgate over Emory, but Rice over both of them! Rice is academically the strongest of the three, and in the best location. The residential system is amazing and there are a number of amazing division one sports programs at Rice for you to watch.</p>
<p>Thanks MomofWildChild for the info. My kids are pretty liberal thinking and tend to stick to the coasts when looking at schools (just as conservative families we know avoid the schools we look at). I think Rice may be a good option for my youngest DD. My son simply rejected it because it was in Texas - later conceded that maybe he should have applied to the combined med pgm. My DD is a 3 sport athlete and I think she will appreciate a school with decent sports.</p>
<p>Yes, Rice and Houston are more liberal than many think. In fact, Houston just elected an openly gay woman as its mayor (who happens to be a Rice alum).</p>
<p>collegepadawan, proof?</p>
<p>Once again, Rice supporters are making blank assertions about the superiority of their academics compared to the other two. Proof? If you take simply undergrad, I would say Rice=Emory>Colgate… if you take undergrad + grad, it would be Emory>Rice> Colgate… I outlined my reasons in the previous post. Rice supporters are yet to say why the academic quality of Rice is the “strongest”.</p>
<p>What are some of the differences/similarities among these 3 schools? or put another way, would you recommend certain schools for certain types of students? (like Emory/Rice are in cities (warm/hot) and Colgate is definitely remote (cold, snowy winters but with 4 seasons, amazing autumn).</p>
<p>I’m somewhat familiar with the sciences, but how do they compare regarding languages & linguistics, anthropology and/or international studies?</p>
<p>Emory is extremely strong in the languages… top 10 for French and top 25 or so for English… it probably excels in other languages as well but I do not have specific rankings.</p>
<p>Thanks alam1. Where did you find those rankings? Are those undergrad rankings or graduate level?</p>
<p>I am familiar with all 3 schools, as I have a son at Rice, a niece at Emory and a nephew at Colgate. Rice and Emory are the most similar and Colgate is pretty different. Colgate has a huge drinking and Greek scene. My nephew was glad when he finished his freshman year since the pressure to drink wasn’t as pronounced. In the end, though, he loved Colgate (he’s a senior) and what it had to offer. It’s pretty preppy and east-coast centric. Emory and Rice attract generally similar students, but Emory is somewhat more pre-professional and with a student body that has a little more east coast vibe than a down-to-earth midwest vibe (at Rice). Yes, I know Houston is not midwest, but that’s the best way I can describe the laid back down-to-earth friendliness for most people. (It’s not Southern and it’s not what most people infer to be Texan.) I have also found Rice’s social environment to be much more inclusive than both Emory and Colgate as a result of its residential college system. At Emory students tend to self-segregate – Asians hanging with Asians, etc. You can’t go wrong with any of these schools. They’re all great, so if all things are otherwise equal, see which has the best fit.</p>
<p>For a pre-med student, I would recommend considering either Rice or Emory, as this a strength of both schools.</p>
<p>@alam1: I only stated Rice is better than Emory academically IN MY OPINION. I’m not generalizing that Rice is better than Emory in academics overall. And here’s my reason, most of which are anecdotal:
– I visited Rice once and Emory three times. Rice definitely had a more intellectual feel than Emory did. Rice students seemed to be more interested in learning the material for the sake of learning, whereas Emory students seemed more pre-professional.
– If you look at the metrics (graduation rate, average SAT scores, acceptance rate, etc.), Rice usually comes out SLIGHTLY higher than Emory.
– I talked to many people when making my decision. Most people I talked to describe Rice as being the 2nd best school in the South (behind Duke, obviously). 4 out of the 5 people, adults who were familiar with both schools, explained that Rice is slightly stronger than Emory academically.</p>
<p>By the way, Rice is very diverse as well. We come out #10 in the country for “lots of race/class interaction,” which is due to the sense of diversity and cohesion brought upon by the residential colleges. Every day, I always see a lot of people from different races/backgrounds mixing and I have observed very few cliques. Rice also has a strong international population (11% of our freshman class was international). When I visited Emory, I observed more cliques, but I’m sure you can have a very diverse group of friends as well.</p>
<p>Again, Emory is an excellent school and a “hidden gem.” I’m not denigrating it in any way. These are my reasons why I THINK that Rice is slightly stronger than Emory… I’m not claiming they are right or wrong. There is no need for this thread to get into another argument between Rice and Emory academics. </p>
<p>To the OP, can’t go wrong with either of the 3 schools.</p>
<p>^ Fair enough…as long as you claim its your opinion, I have no problems with that.</p>
<p>EDIT: you visited three times? Too bad you didn’t come to Emory lol.</p>
<p>@ alam1: Emory was my top choice for the longest time, even up until the past April. However, Rice gave me more merit money than Emory (through Emory Scholars… got $15,000/yr Liberal Arts Scholarship). I tried appealing it to the Emory admissions office, and they refused to match… so this is partly why I’m at Rice than Emory. I actually had some posts over the summer where I explained my second thoughts about choosing Rice over Emory and Duke, which shows how attached I was to Emory. Nevertheless, I’m now very happy I’m at Rice and am very grateful for Rice’s merit offer… Rice was probably a better fit for me anyway. Anyway, I hope you really enjoy Emory next year… very beautiful campus, nice facilities, Atlanta is close by, and great profs.</p>