I have a sophomore at Rice so I thought I’d answer your questions based on my daughter’s experience.
As others have said all 3 are great options where your kid will get a great education have have good opportunities. Kids will be smart at all three. It’s hard to compare GT scores to the others because of their in-state acceptance situation. I think it really comes down to what type of environment she’s looking for.
Of the things you say are important to her:
Rice has an extremely collaborative environment. I constantly say the kids there are not competitive with themselves, they are more competitive with each other. My daughter says no one talks about grades or how they did on the last test - unless it’s to commiserate. Rice prides itself on it’s “Culture of Care” and the kids help each other out a lot. Older kids volunteer as “fellows” in various academic disciples in the residential colleges. As a freshman my daughter would sometimes reach out the the math or chem fellow when stuck on something. My daughter has really learned the power of study groups and gets together once or twice a week with a group in her major to go over homework, etc. Professors are typically very available to answer emails or help.
There are also lots of opportunities for research at Rice. My daughter has a friend who emailed a bunch of professors asking is anyone wanted research help. She thought she’s maybe hear back from one or two and instead they all invited her to come see what they were doing. Undergrads are very much encouraged to research. There are also a ton of opportunities for engineering students to get involved in design projects and competitions. My husband was an engineering major at a top school and he says the type of hands on experience my daughter is getting (and direct access to top professors) is heads and shoulders more than anything he experienced.
Rice makes it extremely easy to change majors. In fact, you don’t have to declare until after your sophomore year. You literally just fill out a form to declare or change. Kids do it all the time and add second majors or minors. It doesn’t matter if your moving from colleges (engineering to liberal arts) or anything.
As a previous poster said Rice has a lot of connections in the aerospace industry. My daughter has a friend who just came back after taking a year off to intern at NASA. The new commander of the International Space Station is a Rice alum as was the last NASA Administrator.
But, Rice is a smaller environment than the others. That can be seen as a positive or a negative. My daughter was worried that it would be too small but now feels it’s a good size. She LOVES the residential college system and all the quirky traditions at Rice. She likes the inclusiveness of the residential college system - sort of like a co-ed greek system but since the kids are randomly assigned, there is no real sense of one being “better” than the other.
It’s hard to compare internship and job placement numbers. Rice publishes where their students end up working and where they go to grad school. I can get you links to that info if you want, but I’m not sure it’s really easily comparable to data the other schools might publish.
Good luck on making your decisions! They are all great choices!
I didn’t know that about a bachelor’s degree being all you need to work in aerospace engineering. Thanks for educating me. Increasing demand for grad school for engineers in general has been my experience. I don’t have experience with aerospace, so I was making an assumption, which always leads to trouble. Thanks again.
Both my kids visited CMU as well, and neither one applied. CMU seems to be good place to be from, as opposed to be a good place to be. Nobody we saw on the tour, either time, looked happy to be there. I actually wrote about this a couple of years back:
In contrast, the Rice visit was a joy for both my kids. It’s easy to see why they routinely get the “Happiest students award”.
Among these three schools, there are very marginal differences in terms of quality of engineering education. Find the place where your child will be happiest.
Since we are talking about collaborative environments, I will offer some commentary about Georgia Tech. We continue to be amazed about so many things when it comes to this school, but probably the one that pleases us the most and surprised us the most is the collaborative nature of the students. It is a pressure cooker, for sure, and you would think this would lead to a cutthroat and aggressive environment. But it does not. Students at Georgia Tech are incredibly helpful and supportive of each other. Whether it is providing a shoulder to cry on or a favor like the offer of a car for an errand, there is never any shortage of genuinely helpful and concerned people around my child. You have no idea how comforting this is. They are all immersed in the incredible rigor of the school, and they want to help each other get through it. Just recently, my child was interviewing for a top, top-tiers internship, and was contacted by another student interviewing for the same internship. They traded tips and strategies and got each other through it. They established a new friendship. It was wonderful. I hear things like this all the time. Collaborative study groups are extremely popular at Georgia Tech.
Congrats! You will be well pleased with this decision. The hardest part will be figuring out which of the wonderful opportunities the student can’t participate in because there are so many — there just isn’t enough time for all of them. Your student will be amazed by all the crazy smart, accomplished, interesting people who will come into their life. And do not hesitate to attend Family Weekend in October! It’s great fun. The whole campus welcomes parents from all over and there is a very lively atmosphere. Staying at the Georgia Tech hotel only contributes to the spirit of the weekend. Make reservations early, though.
For most engineering disciplines and CS, GT has Cornell beat in terms of networking, facilities and things like coops and employment placements at elite businesses and agencies (such as NASA and major companies in Silicon Valley). It is also ranked higher in these disciplines, If that matters to you. Its location in Atlanta, a rapidly emerging tech hub, also gives it a tremendous advantage. Atlanta also has very easy access to pretty much any other place in the world, as GT is only 20 minutes away from the busiest airport in the world. Cornell is of course a fantastic institution, but Ithaca leaves a lot to be desired (unless you are a hard-core four-season outdoor enthusiast). Both schools are extremely rigorous and stressful so they are pretty even in that regard, but again, GT’s location helps soothe these anxieties because of its warm, vibrant location and proximity to places and activities of all kinds. Go to Cornell if not seeking a STEM education, but otherwise Tech is the stronger choice.
Georgia Tech fares much better than Cornell in the salary game (GT is #3 while Cornell is down at #17 in this chart, featuring universities whose tech graduates earn the most money).
I can’t take credit for finding the chart, as I just pulled it from another thread. Look at the second chart in the article.
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