Rice vs Columbia

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
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<p>Hello world,</p>

<p>I have an extremely difficult decision to make between these two schools. Columbia would cost me $100K more than Rice. I plan on becoming an Electrical Engineering. How do their engineering programs stack up? To sum things up is Columbia worth the extra money?</p>

<p>Thanks!!!</p>

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<p>I will take Rice that cost $100K less over Columbia any day.</p>

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<p>Electrical engineering? I would choose Rice even WITHOUT the cost difference. If or a difference of $100k I would choose Rice without a thought</p>

1 Like
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<p>operaluvr is right about EE. rice is nearly unbeatable in that field.</p>

<p>i am also facing a similar dilemma (Rice v. Stanford, Stanford being $100K more) and am probably going to Rice. save your money and go to an amazing school. best of both worlds. ^_^</p>

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<p>I chose Rice over Columbia 4 years ago with a similar dilemma (Columbia would’ve been 10k more, but that was still impractical for me). Looking back, Columbia is the only school out of the 10 I was accepted to that I debated attending instead of Rice, and I’ve occasionally played the what-if game, but I’m happy with my decision. Main reasons I went with Rice include:

  • Cost. I pay for all my own stuff and I got a full merit scholarship here; I can’t imagine what it would be like to take on debt to go to college, especially since I want to go to grad school. Cost of living in Houston is also lower than that in New York.
  • Smaller size; big-fish-in-small-pond-full-of-big-fish feeling, rather than big fish in large pond full of big fish. More leadership opportunities per capita, and it seemed easier to start new things at Rice. After talking with friends at Columbia over the past for years, this has been validated over and over. As a senior, I absolutely feel like I can do anything I want here: I can land lunch with whatever speaker the Baker Institute brings in, I make big decisions about my college, I plan events hosting 500+ people regularly - and I’m nowhere near the only Rice student who does this. All of this took work, of course, but it’s great to have the option.
  • WEATHER. This depends on where you’re from and what you’re used to, but I’m still blissfully convinced that snow is some sort of devious trick northerners play on us and I like wearing flip flops in February.
  • THE RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE SYSTEM. Best community system I could ever imagine, and it appealed to me more than Columbia’s system.
  • Both schools had great bioengineering departments and were located in cities with great food, events, and activities. Rice was a better fit for me as a student who was also hoping to pursue some interdisciplinary work (Rice’s focus on the Middle East was something that attracted me, just barely beating out Columbia’s international development courses).
  • I came back from my visit to Columbia respecting the university. I came back from my visit to Rice in love with it. This is a personal decision, but it’s what it came down to for me.</p>

<p>I actually just went to an engineering competition that had 3 teams from Columbia. The Columbia teams were all typically very slick: they always have visually pleasing powerpoint presentations, their design teams are required to do some basic business planning and to make a website, etc. Rice is more design-focused early on, very think-on-your feet. We also have a strong focus on presentation skills, which is nice. Both schools produce some very good engineering students. For the record, our Rice team beat all the Ivy teams :)</p>

<p>As for Rice’s electrical engineering department: it’s a difficult major, and you’ll put in a lot of work, but I have to say that I LOVE some of the professors in that department. My capstone design mentor has to be the most friendly, earnest, dedicated professor I’ve had at Rice - he stayed in the design kitchen helping us with our prototype until 1 am last week (which I found incredible) and still manages to remain engaging and down-to-earth (if you bring beer to class on the last day, well…). Most profs in the department are at least kind of like that: lots of them come from industry, so they know their stuff and subsequently tend to be charmingly irreverent while they mark off your problem sets.</p>

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<p>I’m Elec and loving the curriculum. The program here is really strong. The faculty are constantly engaged to make the program the best it can be and frequently asks students for feedback to achieve this. I think Rice’s undergrad elec program is ranked higher than Columbia’s but undergrad rankings are extremely subjective. There’s a lot of flexibility so you can get what you want out of the program. If you come in with some AP credit you’ll have plenty of room to pick another major or minor. I picked up a computational and applied mathematics minor and a neuroscience minor. I chose Rice over a similarly ranked school to save $60K or so and haven’t regretted it.</p>

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<p>Ditto Christian2, hands down!</p>

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<p>100k plus " the core" – why suffer on two counts. go owls!</p>

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<p>OP - I have to say this is a no-brainer. Save your money for graduate school (if interested) and go to Rice. Both are top schools and definitely not worth 100k for one over the other.</p>

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<p>Rice is fantastic for engineering!</p>

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<p>Wow thank you all for your responses. Wow silent sailor I felt the same way when I visited Columbia and rice. But in the end it is best to go where you will be happiest and rice is where I will be happiest plus still have some cash. I got one more question. Is it difficult to get a research opportunity? Or are they pretty abundant at rice?</p>

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<p>They are abundant. I would recommend emailing a professor or talking to one who is teaching your class. </p>

<p>You can do research for credit or pay, depending on the position, department and professor.</p>