So I got accepted to UMich and UIUC (However I like UMich a lot more than UIUC so ill just refer to UMich) for engineering early action, and am an rd applicant to Rice (also for engineering). I’m leaning mechanical engineering, but not really sure. I have visited all the campuses, and definitely like the feel of Rice a lot more than Michigan (I still like Michigan, I just liked Rice a lot more due to climate, size, res college system)
However…when I look at all the rankings Michigan seems to be above Rice in pretty much every engineering field. I know Rice is very well regarded in fields like pre-med, but is it as well regarded in engineering or would my career prospectives be better attending Michigan? (I know I haven’t been accepted into Rice yet and so this may become a non-issue, but I was just wondering/pondering and would love to hear what you all think!)
I want to start off by saying once you’re in the top 100 schools or so (heck, maybe even more), the ranking really doesn’t matter. Each school has connections with their own set of companies that you’ll be able to network with and/or the recruiters at the places you want to work with start ignoring the school names and look at your experience.
Rice as a school in general is pretty highly regarded and those little differences between Rice’s rankings and UMich/UIUC aren’t going to make a big difference about where you work. Instead of purely looking at rankings, I would look at a few other factors: 1) what you want to do after graduating, 2) where you want to live after graduating, 3) the undergraduate experience holistically.
In regards to 1), if you want to go to grad school for engineering, Rice has really good placement into graduate schools. I’ve had peers go to Cal Tech, UMich, UCLA, Yale, etc. and the networking for mechanical engineering to graduate schools is extremely good. Plus, they’re revamping the department to try and provide more research opportunities to undergraduates. If you want to go to industry…it’s a little more complicated. A lot of the companies that Rice has connections with are in oil and gas or consulting. These are high paying jobs, but might have less work/life balance than typical engineering industries. There are very few companies in manufacturing and/or aerospace. In fact, if you really want to go into manufacturing or aerospace, I think you should go to UMich or UIUC because the recruiting in that area is so poor at Rice. But if you don’t mind potentially struggling a bit to wiggle your way into the industry or working in oil/gas or consulting, then you have less to worry about.
For 2), if you do want to go into industry, wherever you go to school, there’s a decent chance that’s where you will end up working simply because it’s easier for schools to hold connections with companies nearby. So regionally, would you prefer to live in the midwest or the south? Obviously it’s not a binding agreement, but it is something you should keep in mind because it’s a lot easier to end up close to where you went to school. And if you want to go to grad school, then this point is moot as well since you can end up anywhere in grad school after Rice.
For 3), Rice has a very different experience as compared with public schools and also other private schools. The small school atmosphere in addition with the residential college system results in an extremely tightknit community. You obviously are already taking this into account and probably don’t need a lecture about what to consider, so it’s a matter of if this is going to be more important to you than points 1) and 2).
Wow thank you so much for all that information! I hope i get in, Rice really seems to me more and more everyday like the school I want to go to!
Also you talked about oil/gas industry. Since they don’t have a petroleum engineering major do you know how this works?
I won’t be able to tell you the exact details, only from what I know based on my perspective.
I’m thinking those with a petroleum engineering background mainly work in the upstream (extracting crude oil) and the downstream (turning crude oil into usable products) sectors since they would be working directly with the oil. At Rice, chemical engineers can work in those same sectors even if they don’t have as specific of a background as petroleum engineers. I think petroleum engineering, in a way, is a more specific discipline within chemical engineering. I also think those with a physics or earth science background can also work in those sectors to some capacity. Additionally, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and material scientists can somewhat work in those sectors as well, though they would more likely be designing the associated equipment, or they would work in the midstream sector (transporting oil), again likely more with designing equipment. However, I have heard that Anadarko, one of the oil companies that Rice networks with, apparently has mechanical engineers and chemical engineers work on similar projects. And then obviously, those with a computer science background can work on projects related to software.
Even though Rice doesn’t have a petroleum engineering major available, pretty much all the big named oil/gas companies heavily recruit at Rice (e.g., BP, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Halliburton, Schlumberger, GE oil/gas, ConocoPhillips). That being said, the recruitment numbers are based on the economy, which fluctuates quite a bit. However, most of these companies still come to Rice regardless of how bad the industry is doing, just to maintain their relationship with the school.