<p>hi guys! so i have this decision that i need to make by april 20, because my parents are going away for a while and want me to make a choice by then. </p>
<p>in college i want to study psych/neuroscience/sociology while being free to also pursue a more liberal artsy education and learn about other things not related to my concentration or major (tl;dr i wanna do everything haha) </p>
<p>however, i might also do pre-med or apply to graduate studies in psychology/become a clinical psychologist. </p>
<p>which of these schools should i be considering over the others? i've read so many facts but they've all become jumbled up in my head. the factors that are important to me include student happiness, collaboration not competition, professor friendliness and accessibility, and quality of advising. </p>
<p>thanks guys! i'd really appreciate it if you could give me some advice :S i'm so lost. </p>
<p>and btw i also got into berkeley and wustl, don't know if i should think about those more seriously as well..</p>
<p>I personally also got into Berkeley, but quickly crossed it off my list for all of the reasons you listed and chose Rice (I felt Berkeley lacked all of these). WUSTL is a great school, but it is more cut-throat from what I hear from friends going there. As far as UChicago and Brown go, both are great schools, but in my opinion, you can’t beat Rice in any of the things that you listed as being important to you since Rice does them very well. Rice is fueled by student collaboration (even among pre-meds surprisingly) and the student life here is phenomenal. The campus really feels like a home rather than a place you stay to take classes and your residential college feels like a tightly-knit family. The social life is amazing (there is a reason some of our events and parties have their own wiki pages) and the flexibility Rice offers to double and even triple major makes this the perfect choice for somebody who wants to do everything. NEVER met a Rice student who was unhappy here! The only thing Brown and UChicago have over Rice seems to be this idea of prestige. Once you get to college, however, you quickly realize that it really doesn’t matter as much as people make out especially once you are so high on the list as it is (not to mention that Brown is basically on-par with Rice rank-wise anyway).</p>
<p>I personally feel you will get all of these things best out of Rice compared to any other school on your list (or anywhere for that matter). I suggest you also post this in the other forums to get more opinions (and join the facebook groups too to see what the students are like (some people in the Rice group have mentioned that they decided against UChicago because they visited UChicago’s fb group and didn’t like what they saw)), and I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO VISIT DURING OWL DAYS. It is REALLY WORTH IT to get a feeling of the campus first-hand before you decide to choose. </p>
<p>tl;dr: All these schools are great, Rice fits the things that are important to you much better imo. </p>
<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to ask here or PM me! Good luck!</p>