<p>Is rice engg as good as UIUC, Purdue or Wisconsin???</p>
<p>Should I send my son to Rice or one of the 3 or anyother uni for computer engg???</p>
<p>Thx</p>
<p>Yes, Rice has a very strong engineering program.</p>
<p>Rice is excellent. I can’t speak to the other schools but I know others can. I live in the Houston area and know that Rice is outstanding. One of my classmates from high school (not in Texas) got his degree in engineering there and has done very well with the experience.</p>
<p>D is a junior at Rice. They offer lots of scholarship and need-based reductions of tuition. Rice is considered by US News & World Report the best college value in the country. From my perspective, it is. The education standard is quite high, I hear it when my D comes home and compares notes with friends.The kids have a great rapport with the professors, they know the ones in their majors and they are very comfortable learning on a personal and professional level. Finally, it is very intimate. There are around 2500 Fresh (approx) and they expect to up that to 3000 soon. That still compares with some of the larger regional schools. But the facilities are that of a significantly larger school, like Vanderbilt or Emory. It has a huge campus and faculty for its student size. And if your child enjoys science, rampant opportunity for undergrad research, which can be hard to find in schools with lots of grad students. They tend to dump the younger kids for the older ones.</p>
<p>Rice is a great college (and not so easy to get into). It will have a very different atmosphere from the other colleges you mentioned; also, based on how closely grouped they are, I surmise Rice will be a lot farther away from where you live. Rice may have good financial aid, but it is unlikely to be less expensive than Purdue, UIUC or Wisconsin if you are in-state at any of them. All three of the other colleges you mentioned have great engineering programs, too, albeit in an environment that is less nurturing and cushy than Rice. I don’t know that much about engineering programs, but I know that UIUC has a great reputation for that, especially computer engineering.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, Rice has 3,000 undergraduates total, not 3,000 freshmen. Its undergraduate program is the same size as many liberal arts colleges. The other colleges have roughly 10 times the number of undergraduates, and many more grad students, too.</p>
<p>My Rice grad daughter is finding her Rice education to be a real asset in graduate school. She feels she got a better education than most of her peers (and she is at another top private university).</p>
<p>Rice is excellent.</p>
<p>CC poster aibarr is an alum of Rice’s undergrad engineering (though in civil eng, not computer). You may want to PM her to find out more about the school.</p>
<p>Rice is excellent. My nephew is having a wonderful time there. He’s really blossomed and been challenged. He’s in biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>My next door neighbor goes to Rice. During hurricane Ike, while classes of course were cancelled, the kids stayed at school because it is built ot withstand a force five storm. The electricity (and air conditioning!) stayed on throughout the storm and its aftermath. I thought this was really interesting.</p>
<p>When teaching outside of Houston at a new school, the counselors were concerned that no one had been accepted to Rice the first year we had a senior class. It took two more years, but now have some acceptances (a couple) each year. I guess they wanted to see how strong the school was first. It is VERY hard to get into Rice. It is a great school. Out val went to Rice where he is a senior, and he has had to work VERY hard!!!</p>
<p>hotshott - you don’t have to be a parent to post on this board. ;)</p>
<p>Rice is amazing. It was one of my final choices, either between Rice, CMU, or Cornell for computer engineering. Probably would have gone if my parents weren’t uncomfortable with me going far away.</p>
<p>By the way, hotshot, apologies for my brief response in post #2. My s has an engineering degree from Rice (mech E) and had 4 job offers within the first few weeks of his senior year last year!! Academics are challenging but excellent at Rice!! Good luck!</p>
<p>Out of the schools you mentioned, I’d probably consider Rice the best for computer engineering / electrical engineering. One of my friends is a EE at Rice (I’m a EE at Caltech).</p>
<p>How is it for foreign languages and/or psychology? D got mail from them and is now looking into it. Right now her top choices are UT Austin, UCLA, and Miami but we’re still working on the list…</p>
<p>my kids have had GREAT language instruction at Rice, although it is not actually a major. Both my kids hated Spanish in high school and really, really enjoy(ed) it at Rice. Add in some time in several other countries through Rice’s extensive study abroad opportunities, (including Engineers without borders), and my oldest is fluent, and has branched out to two other, much more obscure languages. She had very talented and motivated language profs at Rice (and very small class sizes - I think she only had 8 kids in her first spanish class!)</p>
<p>I’d appreciate any comments on Rice vs. UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>In what sense, Professor? They are very different schools… even if you’re looking to compare solely academics, it depends on the specialty. I can really only speak for applied physics / electrical engineering / computer engineering.</p>
<p>
Thanks. What do you think about the applied physics / electrical engineering / computer engineering between Rice and Berkely? The USN&WR ranks UCB higher than Rice in engineering, but that may be due to the strong graduate programs at UCB. I also heard that UCB is pretty cut-throat. I wonder how Rice is as far as the undergraduate experience is concerned. What percent of the science/engineering students go on to graduate schools?</p>
<p>Yes, particularly with giblet gravy.</p>