<p>No, I was not saying that Duke has the same name recognition as Harvard or Stanford. I was just listing schools that have better name recognition than Rice, and nationally I think Duke does have that. But I'm not commenting on the quality of Rice, which I don't really know about.</p>
<p>No my "biggest point" was not that Duke has a medical school on campus and Rice does not. I just found it annoying that you pretended to know all about the Duke campus when you don't. It's that simple.</p>
<p>I'm actually not as emotional as you seem to think I am. Your opinion of Duke makes no difference to me. You find it overrated, and that's fine. The only thing I have a problem with is your unsubstantiated attacks on Duke and WUStl, etc. There's no basis for your comments on them being "prestige whores". I find it kind of silly that since YOU don't see the reason why they're highly ranked/regarded, suddenly the are prostituting themselves for the sake of rankings. It's just an unfair argument. Also, I don't understand why in the world you care about ranking-whoring if you don't even pay attention to rankings. Why do you suddenly take it as an offense against Rice that other schools get attention?</p>
<p>I don't see why you can't argue for Rice based on its merits instead of making assertions you can't prove about schools you really don't understand.</p>
<p>OK, everyone is right, this isn't the most underrated/overrated college thread and I apologize for calling Duke/WUSTL "rankings whores". This is not the same thing as a "prestige whore", ay_caramba, because Rice is equally prestigious to Duke and probably moreso than WUSTL. Rice and Duke and everyone else I'm sure have their share of "prestige whores", and that is unfortunate, but I doubt that most people at any of these schools are there for only that reason.</p>
<p>No more comparisons to a particular school, again everyone is right and this briefly turned into an overrated/underrated thread. The merits of Rice, without comparing it to any institution in particular, are that it is as small and intimate as a liberal arts college (5:1 student/faculty ratio), but has incredible science and engineering programs to boot. The endowment-per-student is in the top 5 worldwide, ahead of such names as MIT and Stanford. The tuition is relatively reasonable to the three with higher endowment ratios (Princeton, Harvard, Yale). Houston's Museum District looks like a lot of fun. There are 13 hospitals and 2 medical schools across the street, and a bunch of specialized, prestigious science and technology institutes to get involved with.</p>
<p>That's basically the story in a nutshell. I doubt the thread will last long now, as one can repeat these strengths only so many times.</p>
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Please, this is not the "overrated-underrated" thread. I am all for educating people about the benefits of a school, and the purpose of CC is to share this kind of information, but please, lets be careful not to alienate people in the process. I don't think that was your original intent.
And FWIW, my son spent 2 summers at Duke. His only complaint was that the dorms weren't air-conditioned which, in the summer, was not fun.
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<p>Thank you. You're so right, sorry for that. Largely, I leave the rest of this thread now to you and Jen, if there is anything left to be explored about Rice and the ways in which it is unique or different from Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>Breeze-
Thank you for your last 2 notes. Before you sign off this thread, you have yet to tell us what you are majoring in, or what you plan to pursue in grad school. And, in your last salute to Rice, don't forget the wonderful opportunities with Rice's collaboration with NASA/Johnson Space Center. I believe some of the current nanotechnology research at Rice is in collaboration with NASA.</p>
<p>Just wondering, since I applied to Rice ID, are the girls really not as good looking as other schools? I have heard that this is true from various places. (I don't remember where, but I have heard this) Are there really not very many good looking girls at Rice? </p>
<p>Just to let you know, I am just curious. This will not affect my decision of going to Rice at all. I still really want to go to Rice, regardless of these factors. This question is just pretty much to quench my curiosity.</p>