Harvey Mudd vs. Rice vs. Brandeis vs. ...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello all, I'm trying to make a very difficult last minute decision... I have to know by today or maybe tomorrow... O_O So thank you for your help!!
I think I've narrowed my choices down to 5 or 3 colleges-- I applied to way too many schools (25!) so it was already very hard to narrow it down to these!</p>

<p>Here they are:</p>

<p>The Top 5(?):
Harvey Mudd (HMC), Rice, Brandeis, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon</p>

<p>Top 3(??)
Harvey Mudd, Rice, Brandeis</p>

<p>About me:
--Female from Austin, TX
--I am a future math & linguistics double major (if I can).
Depending on where I go I could potentially end up studying computer science or engineering as well.
--I love math and am advanced/used to proof-based courses, but I am not naturally brilliant in the subject and would not like to be crushed or destroyed in college.
--Extracurricularly I'm also interested in theater, art, foreign language, live music, and boys.
--I would prefer a really nerdy environment.
--I don't do well in cold, though I don't want to let it affect my decision too much.
--I don't qualify for need-based financial aid.</p>

<p>Facts:
--HMC, then UChicago are probably my top two choices aside from money.
However, both would cost me about $200,000 total-4-years.
--I haven't heard from CMU, but it would probably be similar in cost.
Plus, the math classes there would probably destroy me and I bet I would be unable to study computer science because of the difficulty. (am I wrong?)
--Rice and Brandeis have both offered me very generous scholarships, so each would cost me under $30,000 total-4-years, (iirc).
Brandeis is a little cheaper.
--HMC has a really tough science core, which would be really good for me but might kill me, haha.
It might help me get a better job, eventually, so it might pay for itself...? (in contrast to Chicago?)
--HMC has the resources of the Claremont Colleges easily available, and is in sunny California.
--I know little about Brandeis, especially the culture. I am not Jewish.
--I love the nerdiness at Mudd and Chicago.
But I don't quite understand how their exactly their cultures differ though I am fairly sure it's a big difference. (can you enlighten me?)</p>

<p>I think my biggest question is whether or not it is worth it to pay something like $170,000 more to go to Harvey Mudd, over Brandeis or Rice.
This is a really tough question and decision-- I think I would be able to afford it, but it would not be easy and would be a big burden on my parents.</p>

<p>Thank you all for reading through all of this and any advice you may have.
I really appreciate it since this is such a big decision!</p>

<p>One last thing:
I've elminated Northwestern, UIllionis-UC, Johns Hopkins, and Case Western (the cheapest besides local UT-Austin) from my list, but I am uneasy about this!
Do you think I've made a mistake here? Thank you!</p>

<p>Thanks again!
-Neferjeane</p>

<p>P.S. This is my first post, please don't hate if I'm doing it wrong... but also please tell me, haha :)</p>

<hr>

2

<p>Of course, this is a decision that you need to make. However, based on what you posted, it sounds like Rice, UChicago, or Carnegie Mellon are the best options for you. Since you eliminated UChicago and Carnegie Mellon, it seems like Rice will be the best fit.</p>

<ul>
<li>No, Harvey Mudd is not worth $50,000 more than Rice. Personally, I feel Rice is a more well-rounded university and a more highly regarded school overall.</li>
<li>It seems you like HMC because it is very nerdy. Rice is also nerdy as well (not as nerdy compared to Carnegie, UChicago, or HMC), but definitely more nerdy than Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Stanford. There are plenty of stereotypical nerds and intellectual types at Rice, so you can definitely find your niche here.</li>
<li>Rice has a fairly decent linguistics and math program… Rice is strong in both fields.</li>
<li>Rice has a lot of theater opportunities (almost every residential college puts on at least one play a year). Not much live music on campus, BUT there are always plenty of concerts in Houston that are easily accessible via the MetroRail station right next to campus.</li>
<li>Although I’m a guy, I would say that Rice has the better looking student population of all your choices (however, take this with a grain of salt).</li>
<li>Rice has amazing weather throughout the year… you won’t be in Houston for the summer, so don’t worry about the humidity.
-You don’t seem like a good fit for Brandeis. You don’t know much about it. It’s also a very small university (smaller than Rice), and I feel its more LAC than science/engineering focused.</li>
<li>Rice has a very collaborative academic environment with professors that are quite accessible and students that are willing to help each other out.</li>
</ul>

<p>So, I would recommend Rice in your case. UChicago, at least to me, seems like the only other option that will be both an excellent academic and social fit for you. However, since you eliminated UChicago, it appears it would make more sense to go to Rice over HMC and definitely over Brandeis.</p>

<p>Take the Rice scholarship money (which I did as well) and save some money for grad school. However, if you are truly, madly, and deeply in love with HMC, than go there. I feel you will be quite happy at Rice as well though.</p>

3

<p>I read slik nik’s post (always worth reading) and agree with him that Rice would be a better choice for you than Mudd (my son’s going to Mudd). I think Mudd would be a better fit, but only just barely and not worth the price difference. Now if your parents are rolling in dough I’d suggest Mudd for you, but only if they think nothing of tossing away the cost of several new cars for a teeny weeny difference in fit.</p>

<p>Rice was actually my first choice for my son off and on when it wasn’t Mudd. I love the house system and the opportunity to be with non-geeks for a change. In any case, I don’t think Harvard’s rep combined with Mudd’s fit and Caltech’s beautiful campus is worth $100K more than Rice.</p>

<p>It’s obvious that you really want to go to Mudd. But frankly, I see the schools as incredibly similar! And because of Mudd’s science core, it would be hard to double-major, when your AP credits at Rice would make it much easier there.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>If I were you, the easy choice would be Brandeis–especially given the merit scholarship money. It’s extremely strong in math, linguistics and the sciences. Plus there are huge extracurricular opportunities in theater and music. Although it has no engineering school, you would have access to engineering courses at Olin plus the option for a joint degree with Columbia in engineering. </p>

<p>Brandeis is truly an amazing school. It’s a special combination of small liberal arts college and world-class research university-with the smallest student body I believe (around 800 in a class) of any top tier national research university matched with high-powered professors who actually teach in small classes. So, the research opportunities are tremendous. The Brandeis sciences faculty is excellent and committed to undergraduate education as well as cutting edge research and graduate education–and the new science facilites are first rate. </p>

<p>As you may know, in a recent Forbes national college rankings survey, Brandeis was ranked 15th among research universities and 30th overall among all private univerities and LAC’s–a testament to its focus on undergraduate education. Larger schools, including some Ivies, were ranked much lower.</p>

<p>If you haven’t seen it, you should watch the interview on the Brandeis website with Greg Petsko, Professor of Biochem, who left MIT to come to Brandeis. He discusses his reasons as to why he found Brandeis to be, in his words, “a better place” to teach and for his students to learn. Here’s a link to the “video tour” page which you may need to paste into your browser: [url=<a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/videotour/]Tour[/url”>http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/videotour/]Tour[/url</a>]. Then, you may need to click through to the 'Meet Brandeisians" faculty interviews to find Petsko. </p>

<p>Brandeis’s intellectual environment is comparable in many ways to its University Athletic Association sister school, U Chicago (perhaps no coincidence that the President of U Chicago is a Brandeis alum). Yet its students are down-to-earth, friendly and non-competitive with one another. With respect to success rates in admissions to the best graduate schools, including med school , it would be hard to beat Brandeis. Plus it’s located just outside of Boston, the world’s greatest college town, but on its own suburban campus–really the best of both worlds.</p>

<p>Despite its small size and relative youth, Brandeis alumni are very distinguished–to name just a few: Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Rod Mackinnon, Fields Medal winning physicist Edward Witten (often called “Einstein’s successor”), 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman of the NY Times, The Earth is Flat etc; Mitch Albom of Tuesday’s with Morrie (about his Brandeis professor), the Creators/Producers of Friends; actress Debra Messing; Robert FX Sillerman (billionaire businessman–currently owner of American Idol and Graceland), Jeff Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and Christy Hefner, former CEO of Playboy). I understand she may teach at IBS in the near future, just as Tom Friedman returned to teach undergrads. Also, if you’re into social justice, Brandeis is a very exciting place to be (Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, I could go on, are alums as well). </p>

<p>The kind of person who would feel comfortable at Brandeis is an intellectual and/or creative sort who is friendly and comfortable with himself or herself and not competitive or pretentious. Intellectual but down-to-earth and friendly I think is an apt description of the student body. Unlike some preppy place or frat-oriented environments where social interraction is based on the “exclusivity” of the frat system, Brandeis has a welcoming, relatively-nonjudgmental environment–yet there are some off-campus frats for those who like what they have to offer. There is no pressure to party, but parties are there if you want them. Often social interaction centers around the numerous clubs and other terrific extracuriculars like theater and music. </p>

<p>The school is very diverse both among undergraduate and graduate students,
with a strong international flavor (in fact the majority of The Brandeis International Business School is international students). Brandeis seeks to be accommodating of all cultures and has been very successful at that. </p>

<p>Brandeis is and always has been a secular school, although founded in the tradition of Harvard, Princeton etc by a religious-affiliated group. Currently its Jewish population is about 50% (or less when including grad students), and around 25% of the student body is minority and international students. The makeup of its student body is very similar to other schools with significant percentages of Jewish students that you might not single
out as “Jewish” because of their founding–e.g. Barnard, Columbia, NYU and Penn. These examples suggest that Brandeis is not unique among top schools in having a significant Jewish population. However, it is unique in providing a truly small and intellectually stimulating liberal arts college environment within a major research university.</p>

<p>Forgive my enthusiasm, but as an alum, I think Brandeis is great. Good luck with your decision!</p>

5

<ol>
<li><p>Mudd and Chicago are filled with tons of playful nerds you could relate to. The difference? Mudders smile a lot more. Chicago kids complain a lot more. Mudders tan. Chicago kids layer.</p></li>
<li><p>Math at CMU will be no more difficult than anywhere else you’re considering - possibly less rigorous, in fact, than some others. Don’t know which division there you were accepted to. CS is awesome - can’t be beat. Regardless, too cold, better choices for you elsewhere unless they come up with a lot of money.</p></li>
<li><p>Rice is less dominantly nerdy than Mudd and Chicago but there are quite a few nerdy players running around that campus. You’d fit in fine. Too close to Austin? Didn’t tell us what your hesitation is. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>For what it’s worth, I cast my vote with Geekmom and Sliknik - go to Rice. Even without the enormous cost savings, it might well be the best choice for you - less “crushing” than Mudd, a lot warmer than Chicago.</p>

6

<p>Tough decision. </p>

<p>I’d eliminate CMU since you prefer Chicago and Mudd. </p>

<p>I’d eliminate Brandeis (no disrespect to B77), since Brandeis linguistics department was decimated a few years ago when they tried to kill the department and Ray Jackendorf left for Tufts. You can read this article. </p>

<p>[World-renowned</a> linguist to leave Brandeis for Tufts - News](<a href=“http://media.www.thejusticeonline.com/media/storage/paper573/news/2005/04/19/News/WorldRenowned.Linguist.To.Leave.Brandeis.For.Tufts-929612.shtml]World-renowned”>http://media.www.thejusticeonline.com/media/storage/paper573/news/2005/04/19/News/WorldRenowned.Linguist.To.Leave.Brandeis.For.Tufts-929612.shtml)</p>

<p>So I would choose among Chicago, Mudd, and Rice. That’s quite an awesome choice. Congrats on the scholarship. I would discuss it carefully with your parents. They expected to be full pay parents (like I am). If they can handle it, then asking “Is 170K worth it?” is the wrong question to ask for something priceless. If it would really be a strain, then Rice is terrific.</p>

7

<p>Harvey Mudd has a very nurturing environment, don’t know where this “crushing” comes from. But it is not worth 170K more than Rice or Brandeis. I think Rice would be my choice.</p>

8

<p>Take money out of the picture, and everything else but academics (weather, etc.), then for a Math and Linguistics double major, we’d have a crushing case for the University of Chicago. In pure Math, Chicago is one of the nation’s top 3-5 universities. Chicago has the oldest Linguistics department in the country, with a broad range of Linguistics courses complemented by instruction in >40 foreign languages (although the department has lost some distinguished faculty in recent years.) Toss in the activities of the Chicago Linguistics Society ([the</a> chicago linguistic society](<a href=“http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/cls/conf.shtml]the”>http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/cls/conf.shtml)), and I don’t think any of the others come too close. CompLing nerd heaven on a stunningly beautiful campus.</p>

<p>But then, put money back in. And weather. And your interest in engineering. Finally, toss in the issue of who has “the better looking student population”, and one must bow before Slik Nik’s awesome reasoning powers. No brainer … or maybe a half-brainer … go with Rice. Mudd is great, too (probably stronger than Rice on the Math side; you could get the Linguistics at Pomona) but not $170K greater.</p>

9

<p>First–the money difference is significant and you have two good affordable choices in Rice and Brandeis.</p>

<p>Both a very good choices. Both are small research universities with strengths in the sciences. To me, the major difference is location, and their locations are very different. </p>

<p>I’m sure there will be some who will disagree with me, but to me, the choice between Boston and Houston is pretty easy. I think that Boston, together with San Francisco, are the two best cities in the US (sorry New York, but I just don’t find you to be a livable place).</p>

10

<p>Seems like you have a good handle on the tradeoffs, if I were you, based on what you wrote, I would pick Rice.</p>

11

<p>Just a clarification on the five-year-old article about the Brandeis linguistics department. The OP should check out the current department and make her own decision on the department and, more importantly, the school overall. See: [Language</a> and Linguistics Program | Brandeis University](<a href=“Linguistics and Computational Linguistics | Brandeis University”>Linguistics and Computational Linguistics | Brandeis University)</p>

12

<p>I agree with B77 that the OP should make her own decisions about Brandeis and linguistics except there is no longer a “department” to speak of. It is now a “program” spread out through multiple departments with only one tenured computer science professor, one untenured assistant professor in computer science, one untenured assistant professor of anthropology (though she is at least a linguist). Everybody else, including the visiting professor who is the undergraduate advisor seems to be on a contract position. </p>

<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>

13

<p>@tk: I never said or implied that the OP should pick Rice because of a better looking student population. When I was choosing among schools, the wasn’t a criterion for me. She did say she wanted a school where she could date boys… so I was just comments on student looks. I wanted to provide all the applicable information because some students (you’ll be suprised) do choose schools based on the looks of the student body.</p>

<p>I do agree it should be between Rice and UChicago though. UChicago seems like the ideal choice, but Rice would be the practical choice (taking money into account and engineering interests).</p>

14

<p>Thank you all so very much for your wonderful and detailed responses! I really appreciate the effort and input from each of you, thank you so much for your wonderful thoughts, y’all have been such a big help!</p>

<p>I finally decided on Harvey Mudd!
I am sad to be turning down the other schools, which I know would also be excellent places, but I am very excited about attending in the fall.</p>

<p>My reasons were many, but these are some:
–It felt right.
–I found myself constantly defending Mudd over other choices, but not nearly as much the other way around.
I didn’t even realize I favored it so much personally until the first few posters pointed it out-- this was such a big help for me!
–I found out that the price delta between Rice and Mudd was about $50K smaller than I thought… and that though it will be tricky, we can (sort of) afford it.
–My parents are both engineers and favor a school very strong/focused in engineering and the sciences, meaning that they would be happier about paying for Mudd than for, say, Chicago.
–I realized that more important to me than a degree in linguistics is knowing a lot of linguistics.
–It felt right.
–The gender ratio. (plus, I like my boys super nerdy)
–The size.
–The weather (compared to Chicago, Brandeis, etc…)
–It felt right…</p>

<p>For students in future years, and since Rice was so often advocated, most of my reasons to dislike it were cultural. The flavor of the nerdiness was not exactly what I was looking for. Too, the traditions at Rice, at least from what I have heard, do not really excite me and in fact really turn me off in some cases (Baker 13, Night of Decadence, Beer Bike…) And yes, I think a desire to get out of the state was subconsciously part of my decision (not to say I don’t love Texas!)</p>

<p>I guess the overarching reason was that I discovered I really am “truly, madly, deeply in love” with HMC, as slik nik said. I didn’t know this until so many of your good points directed me toward the other schools, and I still couldn’t stop leaning toward Mudd.</p>

<p>Thanks again so much for your thoughts and information!
~Neferjeane</p>

15

<p>Congrats, and good luck!</p>

16

<p>Congratulations on your decision and best of luck to you! Thanks for letting us know what you decided.</p>

17

<p>Congratulations on you decision! I’m glad you went with your gut feeling on where you would be most happy… the gut feeling is usually right :)</p>

18

<p>Thanks for telling us - it’s nice to know how the story ends! Good luck and have fun!</p>

19

<p>Nice job. Congrats to you (and those super nerdy boys)!</p>

20

<p>Congratulations, Neferjeane! </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You’ll have access to courses at Pomona, which has a strong linguistics program. Just in case your parents are skeptical about the practical applications, “computational linguistics” (or “natural language processing”) is an area where several of your interests intersect so it might be worth exploring. Career prospects in this niche should be quite good, for instance in work supporting next-generation Internet technologies (“semantic web”). </p>

<p>[Computational</a> linguistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_linguistics]Computational”>Computational linguistics - Wikipedia)</p>