How good is Rice for engineering?

<p>I want to major in mechanical engineering and I was wondering how good Rice is for engineering. Also, between Harvard, Duke and Rice which school is the best for engineering and which school has the most employer recruitment?</p>

<p>i am interested in Rice Engineering too... well according to the USNews rankings, for engineering, rice is the best out of the three followed by duke and harvard. but i am told that the usnews is not too accurate, and should only be used as a rough guideline.
will be interested to see what other people think about this....</p>

<p>From what I know, Harvard doesn't have a mechanical engineering degree, so I wouldn't go there. ;) Harvard is not a place for engineering, especially any of the more practical fields of engineering. Harvard is good for the more theoretical physical sciences, but other than that, Harvard concentrates primarily on liberal arts. If your end goal is to be a practicing engineer, drawing up schematics and plans and stamping them with your state-issued PE license stamp, Harvard's not where you want to go.</p>

<p>Duke and Rice have comparable programs, from what I've seen. I attended Rice, and bottom-line: if you work hard at Rice, you will get into whatever graduate school you like. You will get recruited as heavily as your industry's saturation will allow (ie, if there's just not a market for computer science majors, <em>anybody</em> might have a difficult time finding a job, since there just aren't jobs there).</p>

<p>None of my civil/mechanical engineering friends had difficulty finding a job. They're all working for large firms, making staggering amounts of money (starting salaries of ~50K/year). I personally decided upon going to graduate school. With my 3.5 GPA and active extracurricular life, I applied to and got into 7 of the top 10 structural engineering programs. Funding was not an issue.</p>

<p>I don't know any specifics about Duke, but I know that it's strong enough that it will have comparable results.</p>

<p>I firmly believe that college is a time to learn who you are, what you like, and what you want to do. I'd choose an environment where you feel comfortable and where you feel you can thrive. The academic programs in either university are strong enough that you really ought to choose which school to attend based upon where you'd be happiest.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>Wow, I never thought I'd say this but maybe Harvard isn't the place for me after all. Thanks aibarr, this'll help alot.</p>

<p>anyone else?</p>

<p>Rice is known for its math, science, and engineering programs and it's one of the top 20 schools in the nation. You certainly couldn't go wrong.</p>

<p>Look on the engineering majors threads-- there a discussion about this-- also this has been discussed before here in teht Rice thread. My s. is a Mech E and physics major at Rice-- I've posted in several places about his experience-- he LOVES it!
Some of this is in the Rice- Ga Tech discussion. A comparison of Rice and Duke is in the Engineering Majors section. There is more-- I'll keep looking.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=48741%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=48741&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>There are lots more threads onthis topic. Just use the"search" option and type in "Rice Engineering"-- you'll get plenty</p>

<p>thanks jym626, could you send me information so that I can contact your son - aim screen name or e-mail adress - much appreciated.</p>

<p>any takers?</p>

<p>bump bump bump</p>