<p>I'd prefer to major in engineering, but i am not sure wheter engineering actually suits me.
Meanwhile, I also have a wide interest.</p>
<p>While WASH U has a higher overall ranking in overall, Student selectivity, and some other aspects, Rice certainly attracts me with its engagement in undergraduate teaching and its engineering program.</p>
<p>I really wish to hear more about the pros and cons about either of these two.
Any aspect will do me some good.
Very thankful to hear your advices!</p>
<p>maybe a little biased, but from what i’ve heard/seen</p>
<p>go with rice.</p>
<p>i’ve only heard good things about it. they have a wide range of things to study, including a great engineering program, great music, great premed, great humanities, and so forth.</p>
<p>wustl may be a good school, haven’t heard much about it. the one thing i DO hear about it is the way it handles admissions to (supposedly) manipulate the selectivity rating (which in turn drives up the us news ranking)</p>
<p>as far as other things go, like social aspects, you can check out any of the other “rice vs _____” threads</p>
<p>The more I look at Rice the more I find good about Rice. In comparison with many of the Ivies and most of the elite schools, it has as good or better academic rankings, selectivity, and quality of life. When researching student satisfaction, there are few rated higher. Then add Houston being ranked #1 Best City by Kiplinger, and St. Louis unfortunately being ranked negatively (my family is from St. Louis), and you have why I would choose Rice.</p>
<p>Higher overall ranking and student selectivity? Please. You’ve been conditioned to think that these things have anything to do with the quality of a school. Rankings can be useful, but only in determining the difference between, say, number five and number 60, not between 11 and 17. (I actually haven’t looked at the rankings in a few years, so I don’t know where WashU is.) And last time I checked, Rice is pretty darn selective.</p>
<p>What are “some other aspects?” If you can’t name them, then why are you even considering WashU? (or maybe you just would prefer not to share, which is fine.)</p>
<p>I feel like there are a lot of people in your situation every year. This gets a bit complicated, so I’m going to label the people. One of my best friends (A) transferred from WashU to Rice after his freshman year. He (A) really liked WashU, but the financial package they were offering him was no longer adequate. Anyways, last year, a good friend’s girlfriend (B) was transferring from Lawrence, and she was choosing between Rice and WashU. We told A to send B a quick message giving her advice. We were expecting A to write a paragraph or two; he ended up sitting down and writing a six-page single-spaced essay about why Rice is better than WashU. Mind you, this came from someone who really liked WashU.</p>
<p>I have not gone to WashU, so I cannot tell you exactly what he wrote in that essay. But the fact that he was able to come up with 3000 words on why Rice is better than WashU speaks for itself.</p>
<p>Wash U and Rice are both great schools and both have a similar laid-back, friendly, collaborative vibe. But if you’re seriously thinking about majoring in engineering – then Rice wins hands down. Rice’s engineering program is far superior to Wash U’s. Wash U’s engineering school is going through a lot of turmoil and restructuring and just got a new dean. I have a son who’s an EE major at Rice (and who considered an acceptance to Wash U) and another son who will be attending Wash U next year (not for engineering). I’d say it’s a toss-up if you were majoring in anything else, but for engineering – choose Rice.</p>
<p>Go to Rice. I’m a Rice student, and I really enjoy my time at Rice. I do not regret coming here. And I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about how great Rice engineering department is. As for the ranking, Wash U is definitely overrated – ask anyone in CC. Although I do agree that Wash U is a good school, I never thought it’s better than Rice. My friend once asked me whether she should go to Wash U or Tufts, and I told her to go to Tufts (which she did). I also don’t like the location of Wash U… St.Louis, it just doesn’t attract me. If you like urban setting and don’t mind hot/humid weather, then you’ll definitely like Houston. :)</p>
<p>WashU and Rice are like Harvard and Yale…they have so many cross admit. In here you can see many people who chose Rice over WashU. But if you go to WashU forum, you would prolly find similar number of ppl who chose WashU over rice. So, yeah…it really depends on what’s you’re gonna major in.
Btw, I think WashU and Rice are very identical to each other compared to the rest of their peer institutions.</p>
<p>Your username is very appropriate, confusedboy. Rice and WashU are “very identical”? Do you have any idea how ludicrous that statement is? Besides the fact that two things cannot be “very identical” (they either are or aren’t), overlap in admissions does not make two schools similar. Rice and WashU may have similar admissions stats, but beyond that there’s not much else. Rice’s student life is built around the residential college system; WashU’s is built around the Greek system. Rice has 3,000 undergrads; WashU has 6,000. Rice has NCAA D1 sports; WashU is in the UAA. Rice is in Houston (the best city in the US for recent college grads); WashU is in St. Louis (enough said?). And those are just the superficial differences. I haven’t been a student at WashU, so I can’t tell you how those superficial differences affect student life, but I can assure you that these two schools are not “identical.”</p>
<p>Please think before making a statement like that.</p>
<p>@NYSkins–This is the first time I have ever heard about WashU’s student life based upon the Greek system. lol. Can’t remember how I stumbled in here in the first place but thought I’d clarify this point. Yeah, there are frat parties that you can go to on the weekends but they make up a really small part of the overall school.</p>
<p>And yes, confusedboy is correct that there are a lot of cross admits between WashU and Rice. I have friends here (at WashU) who turned out Rice and I’m sure there are people at Rice who turned down WashU. :)</p>
<p>In looking for schools this past year, I decided it would come down to WashU and Rice because of their similarities. They may not be identical, but they have much more in common than Rice and other colleges of the same caliber. I visited both, and besides the weather, there weren’t too many HUGE differences. Yes, the engineering is better at Rice. It isn’t surprising then, that many of the applicants overlap between the two colleges. Similarly, when I go to sites like Princeton Review to check out college stats and characteristics, I’m not surprised to find WashU in the “Similar Schools” to Rice and vice versa.
My point is that Rice and WashU have many things in common, among them a great quality of life and the happiest students. While I will not claim either of the schools is better than the other, I will say that I did ultimately choose WashU over Rice, only because of financial opportunities (full scholarship at WashU v. 30k scholarship at Rice). If it weren’t because of the money difference, I’m not sure which I would’ve chosen.</p>
<p>If you’re dead set on BME, JHU is by far the best of the bunch. If you’re more ambivalent, Rice is better than all of these. (they’re still top 10 at BME too!)</p>
<p>“Even so, balancedhelium, can you not agree that the idea that Rice and WashU are “identical” is ludicrous?”</p>
<p>Could you be a little bit nicer in criticizing a person’s comment? English isnt my first language and that’s because I’m an international student. I’m sorry if the word that I used, “offended” the pride of a Rice student. But if I could edit my earlier post again, the word that I would use, is “similar”. Thanks.</p>