Two terrific universities which are reputationally relatively similar! Go where you feel the fit is best.
For premed rice seems like a no brainer. A lax and collaborative environment with grade inflation and a 90 plus percent acceptance rate into med schools. Northwestern is great but for premed rice seems so much better.
And not realizing that the notion of “feeder colleges” is logically flawed shouldn’t happen among educated people - but unfortunately it does…
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/profile/StanfordGSB00. Actually I am a graduate of Penn. Don’t know if that makes me educated or not. Sometimes I wonder. With a philosophy degree none the less. Maybe I am just paying back all the Penn Penn state I’ve run into.
Northwestern is a great school by all account, just I knew nothing of it when I applied to college and my daughter knew nothing about it when she applied and even though her high school has students in all the ivies I know of none that applied to northwestern or to have ever mentioned it.
I am not claiming that northwestern is not a great school, as i said I know little of it. I just maintain that Rice is not a more regional and less nationally known school then northwestern.
Northwestern is a larger school so it would be quite plausible that it has a larger alumni network. Both are great schools. Hopefully the original poster will find one to be a better fit. Climate, size, location hopefully will help.
I think Northwestern is more well-known since it (1) has been an elite university for a longer period of time, and (2) has bigger-time sports. Having said that, grad schools and well-educated people likely would hold both schools in similar regard. And I think the prestige gap between the two is small and is closing. I personally would prefer Rice due to smaller size and lack of Greek life. As a lesser factor, I also would prefer the whether at Rice during most of the school year (though not the summer). For pre-med, I have heard Rice is outstanding.
Rice has a much lower global ranking than northwestern which means in a broader frame of comparison the undergrad/grad at rice is probably not as prestigious. You will have an advantage applying to Texas med schools from rice tho.
Both schools have really high med school success rate, but that’s skewed by the fact that a large amount of people who enter as premed do not stick with premed, meaning that the population represented by these proportions is already the hardest working portion of the students there, making such statistics less predictive of your own success than they may seem.
The point is, I think that you should value flexibility over the minor differences in prestige or outcome stats. Being a premed now doesn’t mean you’ll be a premed in a year or two and backup majors are essential. The quarter system at northwestern offers you more opportunities to explore your interests and take more classes, allowing you to double major or or get a minor in one of the many areas of study offered at NU.
Toss up. Which city do you like better, albeit NU is well north of Chicago in Evanston. Rice is definitely in Houston.
Their selectivity, ranking and academics are at pretty much same level. You can’t go wrong with either. NU’s tuition is slightly higher but its better known. NU’s undergrad population is 8,500, while Rice has less than 3,800 undergrads so it depends if you prefer close knit community or a bigger one. Rice is warm and NU is cold so depends upon your personal preference. Do you want to wear shorts in December or jacket in April? NU has great sports scene. Rice has residential colleges. NU has graduate schools, Rice is across the street from tons of places to do internships. Did you get merit or aid at either college? That may make one a better value than other.
@CupCakeMuffins it’s cheaper for me to go to Northwestern actually which is surprising
Northwestern less expensive is rare combination. Run with it.
Northwestern no-brainer
@college1114 Awesome!! You can decide without a care for money. Good for you. Is it merit or financial aid?
My kid’s GC sent something you may want to read. “Rice is the only university in the world that combines the best aspects of a small, intimate liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams with those of a major research university like Harvard or Stanford. Dartmouth College is much bigger than Rice, yet puts out only a tiny fraction of the research that Rice does. Princeton University has fewer National Merit Scholars than Rice (even in absolute numbers), yet is overrun with nearly 2000 more students overall. Because Rice is so small but the faculty conducts such large amounts of research and development, undergraduate research is available to a greater percentage of students at Rice than at any other major university. Rice University has a higher endowment-per-student than any schools save HYPS.”
@CupCakeMuffins I think Princeton, UChicago, and Yale also provide the best aspects of an LAC and a research university. But Rice is great.
Also, your facts on endowment are not correct. The next schools after HYPS in endowment per student are Amherst, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore and MIT. Rice is 13th overall.
I stand corrected. Thanks @ThankYouforHelp
These are both outstanding universities. Please visit both before deciding.
Not much time left to visit
Just go with your gut! I think you can succeed anywhere, and both schools have good premed opportunities. Northwestern might have better sports if thats your gig.
Rice does have the reputation of “Happiest Students” which is crucial for your success! (I would have gone to Rice of NU if only I didn’t get rejected lol)
Rice also may have more inflation than NU, which can benefit you for premed. And if you want to go to Texas for med school (if your parents move or you get residency there) it is really cheap.
Anyways, it is great to have such good options, and both schools have marginal differences. Hopefully you visited but if you didn’t just try to choose by:
cost, weather, location (since the academics are pretty much the same), semester vs quarter, residential colleges vs frats, etc…
Good luck!!!
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Another vote for going with your gut! Both are outstanding schools for undergraduates. It won’t make much difference for med school admission. If it’s true that Rice has more grade inflation, it may be better to be a premed there.
@robotrainbow
I understand that NU is not known to you and it’s easy to generalize based on your own experience. However, people with experience with law schools (T-14 law schools), business schools (consistently top-5), economics programs (consistently top-10 with 4.9 out of 5.0 in PA score), performing arts or journalism would likely know Northwestern. That’s covering a lot of people already even at the undergrad level since econ is usually the most popular major. You mentioned science with Rice; NU actually outranks Rice in most science disciplines and has one of the best chemistry departments in the world. Like it or not, reputation is closely related to graduate programs; when two schools are of the same type (mid-sized private research in this case), the one with better graduate programs by a good margin is going to have more national reputation. There are exceptions such as being an Ivy or an elite Catholic but neither applies to Rice.
I don’t know much about Northwestern (other than its high level reputation), as I have never visited and neither of my kids applied. I know quite a bit about Rice; I am an alum and my daughter was accepted into the Rice Class of 2022 and will be attending.
Here is some info on Rice, if you want to assess whether it is a fit:
- research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education; about 50% STEM, 50% humanities/social sciences
- just under 4000 undergraduates
- happily nerdy student body
- very community focused, and many systems in place that support students and tight knit community - residential college system in particular
- diversity is part of the Rice experience and mission; Rice seeks students who come from many different backgrounds and students who are comfortable with people from all different backgrounds
- collaborative, supportive environment
- A philosophy that “we are all in this together”; Rice is known for its “culture of care”. This is so important to Rice because Rice wants its students to continue care strongly about other people as they go into the world
- Rice students and graduates are committed to making the world a better place
As mentioned in this thread, the location across from the Texas Medical Center is ideal for pre-meds. Undergraduate research is big at Rice. I just read an article about the three 2018 Goldwater Scholars at Rice this year. Lots of incredible things going on at Rice!
Another thing going on at Rice that many don’t know about is the focus on leadership skills for undergraduates. The Doerr Institute for New Leaders is available to any undergraduate who wants to develop their leadership skills. Take a look at the video: https://doerr.rice.edu
Good luck to you as you make your decision!