Rice University vs. Brandeis University - Please help me decide!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
1

Hi everyone!

I’m Jake and I just got of the wait list at Rice and I have to decide whether I want to go to Rice by May 1 or Brandeis, where I already submitted by deposit.

I want to be Pre-med, and I know both universities have a lot of research opportunities and excellent med school acceptance rates. What I’m concerned about is how difficult it is to maintain a good GPA (3.7+) at Rice? Is there deflation or inflation there? I don’t want to kill myself at Rice and ruin chances at med schools because even though I am a hard worker, I know everyone else there is, too.

I am not sure what I want to major in, but I was thinking Comp Sci or maybe neuroscience (only a minor at Rice, but a major at Brandeis) or something not humanities. Ik Rice has a great engineering school so it will be more difficult to maintain a good GPA there with comp sci and pre med but I love the campus.

I live in Connecticut so Rice is far, but Brandeis is only 1.5 hrs by car. I am wondering if it is worth traveling so far for Rice when I can do better at Brandeis.

Socially both places are good for me. I like being near a city and even though Brandeis is 15 min from Boston I’m perfectly okay with that because it’s super easy to get there from Brandeis. Both are actually very similar in size too so I’m okay with the size of rice and brandeis because i do want a smaller school.

Also does anyone know if I’ll need a car after a couple years at Rice? Because I really don’t want to have to worry about that in college.

Thank you for your help!!

2

Rice is pretty challenging, but premeds do a good job with their grades and with med school placement. Rice is currently trying to figure out ways to combat grade inflation, but that doesn’t affect the premeds as much. Rice definitely doesn’t have a competitive atmosphere, just a hard-working collaborative one. CS at Rice would be way better than at Brandeis, but probably not the major you want to be in if you’re going to medical school. It’s totally fine to enter with no idea of what you want to do except “engineering” though. If you do want to do premed, then the Texas Medical Center makes a pretty convincing argument as well.

You don’t need a car at Rice. It’s nice sometimes, but you definitely don’t need it. Rice isn’t at all a commuter school. Boston and Houston are very different and at face value Boston looks cooler (and in some ways definitely is), but more often than not, especially during the winter, my girlfriend who goes to Northeastern is jealous of me for being in warm sunny Houston. Houston also has better food in our experience.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have!