Princeton vs Rice... again

College Search & Selection
1

Hey guys,
I posted a similar thread earlier in the summer, where the responses I received were mostly mixed. Back then I considered it to be a 50% chance I would go into medicine, and a 50% chance I would go into math-cs. Now, it seems like I have a 70% chance of math-cs, 20% chance of medicine, and 10% chance of engineering.

Here are my stats:
Race: Asian
Gender: Male
SAT: 1590
SAT Subject: 800 Math, 800 Physics, 800 Biology, 780 US History
AP Exams: AP Calculus BC (5), AP Physics C Mech (5), AP Physics 2 (5), AP Physics 1 (4, oops), WHAP(5), APUSH(5), AP Biology (5), English III AP (5), AP European History (5)
GPA: 4.5/5.0
Rank: Top 7.5% at very competitive high school
Extracurricular: Awards: USAMO Qualifier, 13 on the AIME. Math is what I have spent most of my time on.
Officer Positions: Hold a position in three clubs currently.
Jobs: Work/research at a local hospital for 50 hours a week over this current summer.
Sports: Have won trophies (local level) in tennis, ultimate frisbee, and soccer.
Performs magic at retirement homes during free time. Edit: This summer I performed at numerous other venues as well, such as charity events and stuff.
Founded a STEM club dedicated to teaching the young; has been pretty successful so far and have extended to online classes and helping the underprivileged schools out.

For further information, about 16-18 kids from my school got into Rice last year while 1 got into Princeton. About 10-30 kids get into the Ivy League and Stanford/MIT every year. I don’t know how much the Rice RD/ED rates are at my school.

So my question is: should I SCEA Princeton or ED Rice? I understand that there is no “correct” answer per se. Princeton has been my dream school for forever and I loved it every time I visited, and I don’t mind the cold despite living in Texas; in fact I prefer the cold to the heat, having lived in Michigan previously for seven years. In either case, however, I don’t really care about weather one way or another. I will not receive financial aid for certain as well.

Personally, I am sort of an introvert; I am not bad at socializing or anything but I am not a party person at all and prefer to either be alone or be with a small group of close friends. I am very much “intellectual” (not trying to brag…) in that I enjoy talking and thinking about scientific research and topics, etc. I enjoy being around people just as smart and smarter than me, as long as they are willing to converse about such topics. I expect these needs will be fulfilled at both schools.

I understand that Princeton is a longshot, and Rice is also quite tough, but EDing Rice will give me a higher shot at getting into either. On the other hand, it will remove any chance of me potentially going to Austin,UMich, Stanford, MIT, Harvard etc. later (the former two being the likeliest; I received a letter from UMich about my AIME score encouraging me to apply but I understand that this is far from a guarantee), all of which have “better” (according to rankings?) math departments. On the other hand, Rice is my second choice after Princeton, also because it (based on this website) has a down-to-earth community and has a strong undergraduate focus (like Pton).

Rice is somewhat close to home (same state), but I don’t really don’t mind that too much as I do love my parents a lot and feel no need to be far away from them (nor do I feel a need to stay close to them, either).

More specifically, will there be a perceptible difference between Rice and Princeton in math or computer science? The rankings, to me, seem to be rather ridiculous in the sense that there is no reason to distinguish between Princeton and Harvard, per se, as both are equally great schools. Rice is also very good, probably in the top 5 undergraduate institutions in the country, but in math/cs in particular, will it be that different from Princeton?

Once again, sorry if this question irritates you guys. I just have no idea what to do, and everyone I have asked including my counselor have said something on the lines of “flip a coin” and the number of people taking one side or the other seem to be equal.

2

Students with your outstanding profile are going to be posting about this very dilemma. That’s the issue with ED when it is used as strategy rather than as it was intended. You have a favorite school, you let the school know and you commit to it in exchange for early and extra consideration. All is well except when you want that consideration for another school too! There is no answer that is completely satisfactory.

Here is my personal take on this: when accepted to a school ED, you are locked into a commitment. If you aren’t thoroughly joyful when you get that accept letter, because you are also mourning the loss of opportunity to have given another school a chance. “Would I have been accepted to Princeton?” would be a right there in the mind.

If you don’t get into Princeton early, you still likely have a chance of acceptance to it in the RD round, with still a chance to get into Rice. If you don’t get into either, well, it you have the 2 schools , 3 chances for entry. But that is just me.

A friend of mine’s son found himself in the same quandary even without the SCEA restriction. Basically, even though MIT doesn’t care if you apply to Rice or Penn or whatever school that doesn’t have restrictions (eliminates HPYS) , it didn’t make a whit of difference. The possibility of being accepted to both Penn and MIT and having to go with Penn because it is ED binding was too painful for him to do. Gave up legacy as well as ED boost for basically no admissions advantage applying early at MIT. Pretty clear where his heart was.

3

Apply to Princeton SCEA as that is where you really want to go. Let the chips fall where they may after that.

4

If Princeton is your favorite school, that seems to be the answer.

5

But should I “waste” that early card for perceived prestige? I mean, quite frankly I don’t expect to get into Princeton, and is it worth it to waste what could be a huge advantage?

6

You also have to ask yourself if you don’t get into Princeton or Rice, will you beat yourself up for not applying to Rice ED? If not, then go for it and apply to Princeton. Please consider though that while you have excellent credentials, the students from our local school specializing in math who got into princeton went on to USAMO itself.

7

@above I did go on to USAMO itself; I took it last year and performed slightly above the median I believe. Not as great as I wanted because I was aiming for MOP but not bad.

8

Are you likely to be the Valedictorian? Are you an athlete? Was the 1 person that got into Princeton from your school the valedictorian, an athlete or a legacy? Princeton tends to only take the top student from a school. If your school has Naviance, what do the statistics show for admission to Rice ED and RD the past few years. This should be instructive for your Rice chances. If your heart is set on Princeton, SCEA there. You can always RD at Rice, but the competition will be more intense than for ED. My daughter had her heart set on a school and applied SCEA. She was deferred. She applied to Rice RD and got in. Many of her fiends at Rice did the same. Rice has been a great fit for her, and she hasn’t looked back. She wanted to have choices of schools and she did.

9

Among your listed schools–Rice ED, Michigan, Texas at Austin, Harvard, Stanford, MIT & Princeton–your realistic options seem to be Rice ED, Michigan & Texas–although you certainly have the numbers for the remaining schools.

If your ED app to Rice is unsuccessful, how would you feel about attending Texas or Michigan ?

If your heart is set on Princeton, then apply SCEA. More important than the fact that only one student from your high school was admitted to Princeton last year is the number and qualifications of those who applied to Princeton from your school and were not admitted. And what were the qualifications of the student who did get admitted to Princeton.

10

Do some digging beyond the admit numbers, though. The raw admit numbers are only a small part of the story. My sons’ HS generally graduates a few less than 200 kids per year, with 25-30 going to USNWR top 20 colleges. For example, this last year the school sent 3 to Harvard, 3 to Yale, 2 to MIT, 3 to UPenn etc. None to Princeton, though and that’s not unusual. Certain schools are “feeders” and others aren’t. Apparently this school isn’t for whatever reason. When we first looked at Naviance we saw that most years one student was admitted to Princeton, so that seemed promising. But when we dug into the details, we quickly discovered that for the five years we reviewed not one of the Princeton admits was an unhooked kid. They were all national level athletes, legacies or URMs.

When you’re looking at your school’s history of admission, maybe one kid a year goes to Princeton. But is that kid a legacy, athlete or URM? If so, that essentially means 0 kids like you are admitted to Princeton from your school each year. Big difference and something to consider when you weigh your chances.

Edited to add: someone above noted that Princeton only takes the top student from each school. For my sons’ school, this is not the case. The kids admitted to Princeton are top 10% - 30%, but again, they have a big. huge. hook. We see something similar with Harvard and Yale. They’re not usually taking the top stats kids, they’re taking the reasonable stats kids with big. huge. hooks. It’s a magnet school (similar to Stuyvesant) so it’s not like the top 30% kids are dummies, but looking at Naviance for our school makes it very, very obvious that the Ivies at least are much more focused on the hooks than the stats. Which is not helpful for most of the high stat unhooked kids hopefully looking for advice on CC.

11

I’m a little surprised at your Princeton/Rice comparison. They seem to me to be two totally different schools. I’m very familiar with Rice and visited Princeton last year. Rice is down to earth, as you suspect, with lots of true individuals. The atmosphere is laid back and a bit quirky (not off-putting). Rice is very welcoming and “nerds” rule.
Rice is blend of southern and Texan in style. Princeton is really truly the ivy league - very formal and “old”; I’m sorry to offend any Princeton fans but my impression was that it was very very high brow and stuffy with a significant emphasis on writing, writing, writing. Observed lots of east coasters; felt very traditional to me. The schools feel very very different to me.

12

As a case example with respect to the absence of firm limits, Lawrenceville has sent 31 students to Princeton over the last three years.

https://www.lawrenceville.org/academics/college-counseling

13

Unless you are a recruitable athlete, URM, legacy, celebrity, prince, women engineer from urban or rural schools, donor or something similar, don’t count on Princeton, neither SCEA or RD. You are an upper middle class Asian male from a non Ivy feeder yet highly competitive suburban public school from Texas with lots of Ivy dreamers, your odds are practically close to zero at HYPSM. Unless you want to attend UT or have a guaranteed admission at Rice as RD, it makes zero sense to apply SCEA to Princeton or any other Ivy League. This is top 20 college buffet, no public school Asian-American can have his cake and it eat too. Ivy early admission has no benefit for a unhooked applicant.

It’s hard to understand why you can’t make up your mind, it’s not some sort of complex mythical situation. If you love Princeton and want to gamble, do it but if you want to maximize your chances to attend one of the two colleges you love then accept reality.

14

In math, especially pure math, Princeton is not really comparable to Rice, it has one of the very top math departments in the world. In fact, UMich is probably stronger in math than Rice. I think Rice is more engineering-oriented. Have you considered Harvey Mudd? Caltech?

15

when I say one kid gets into each of HYPSM roughly each year, I do not mean URMs or anything. In fact I don’t know of a single person who has gotten into HYPSM from my school who was not an Asian STEM applicant (and non-athlete/non-legacy).

the people I know who got in were roughly at and in one case well above my level, but mostly they were roughly at my level, excluding essays because we obviously do not know how good their essays are

16

OK, that’s a good start that your school gets unhooked kids into HYPSM. But which ones? They don’t admit as a group as the example from my kids’ school shows. Unhooked kids from my sons’ school get into HYM but only hooked kids get into PS. Important to know how that works for your school.

Not that any of this is set in stone, but if you have a 5 year history that shows only hooked kids get into school X, Y, Z yet unhooked kids get into A, B then that’s a strong clue as to what is likely.

So… you know what happens for HYPSM. But you are asking about SCEA to Princeton. What is the history for unhooked kids from your school with Princeton?

17

This.
Also: note that your possible paths have evolved in just the last 2 months: more change is likely over the next academic year- and again after you actually start taking college classes.

You are in a super-fortunate position: you can afford whatever school you want to go to, you have the package to be a serious candidate for any school, and you have a range of schools that will more than meet your academic and professional goals. None of those schools will hold you back from your loftiest ambitions.

There is also an unknowable piece: you don’t - and can’t - know how your application will look in the context of this year’s applications. There is no way to make a ‘perfect’ decision. You can only do what feels closest to true for you.

And, there’s this, from poker champ Annie Duke
There’s this word that we use in poker: “resulting.” It’s a really important word. You can think about it as creating too tight a relationship between the quality of the outcome and the quality of the decision. You can’t use outcome quality as a perfect signal of decision quality,

18

Unhooked students seem to be able to get into all of HYPSM. I know of several incidents of this. My school is quite popular and known for its academic rigor. I will not say what it is to protect my identity. Like I said, I personally know about 8-10 people in the last two years at my school who got into HYPSM, all of whom are Asian STEM majors. I know 4 people who got into Pton over the last four years from my school (there might be more- just my friends) all of whom are unhooked asian STEM people.

I will reply to other comments as well; I am very busy with schoolwork as of now.

19

@merc81 re: post #11 above.
While Lawrenceville sent 31 grads to Princeton over 3 years, I suspect that many of the 10 per year are sons or daughters of Princeton faculty & administrators in addition to PG athletic recruits.

20

Just checked naviance. Princeton was (#accepted from school-#applied in school) 1-40 last year, 2-38 and 2-37 2 years before. Each of the other HYSM share very similar numbers. About 15 get into Rice, Berkeley, and UMich each year.