@YER42U If you go through the Rice Common Data Set submissions, or those for any other school for that matter, you can get authoritative info on this. Just Google “Rice (or other college) Common Data Set”. Tons of info is all laid out in a federally mandated format that is identical for each school. You can go back over such data for the last decade.
@wandlmink I know about data set but that just gives you % of degrees conferred which doesn’t say # of people. Most students in a mid range college (my sister is a senior at 7000 person school) know off the top of their head there are 26 people or 76 in my major for my grade. Yes, I can do % but those stats can be manipulated also by the school especially when there is computer science, computer engineering, etc.
@YER42U so it’s hard to say because the department only puts out actual numbers when they want to and I’m too lazy to look at their blog posts or whatever. I would estimate that this year they’ll graduate between 75 and 100 students with a CS degree. The department has grown a lot though since that class matriculated, at least if you’re counting by enrollment in the intro CS classes.
A little background, you can take COMP 140 or 160 for your first semester. 140 is bigger and in my opinion a better class. My friend who used to TA for 140 told me that last semester 140 had 3 sections of 70 students each and COMP 160 had an additional 70. He thinks by the end of the semester the COMP 140 enrollment had dropped to maybe like 180 students total. So that’s a ton of students. However, a lot of those students aren’t intending to major in CS. The massive growth in intro enrollment is partially a result of more cross-disciplinary interest in CS. The fact stands that by some measurements CS is now the biggest engineering major at Rice.
I’m not sure what numbers you were hoping for, but I’ll add that I think Rice really punches above its weight when it comes to job placement for CS. Some big companies (Apple is the one that comes to mind) don’t recruit at Rice at all, but others (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) do a lot of recruiting and I know a lot of people going to work at those places. Plus some cool places operating in Houston or Austin (TwoSigma, HomeAway) love Rice students, and that’s not getting into any cool startups. The career fair is basically the CS career fair at this point.
@soccerboy10, what would you say is the unique culture at Rice and how does that differ from the culture at Duke or Georgetown, for example?
Well quite frankly I think he stated it 
@sarangooL – ???
Did you not read the wall of text? (Post #18) that post answers your question!
I did read the wall of text which is why I asked. It says that Rice has a unique culture, but doesn’t say anything more about how it differs from other schools. The post mainly talked about the admissions process at competitive schools and wasn’t that Rice specific.
A few musings:
- These are all elite privates. I think that in terms of overall quality of undergrad education, though, if I'm being really picky,
Duke = Northwestern > Vanderbilt = Rice = Washington U
The “greater than” sign should have “barely” next to it though. It’s hard to say if it’s just prestige or if there is actually a quality difference – none of us has attended all five – but regardless of the validity of the >, it might make a very small difference in med school admissions. Not much, if any – just saying it’s possible that if all other variables on your app are equal, they might give Duke the nod over Rice or NU the nod over Vandy, as arbitrary as it may seem.
- What's far more important is how difficult it is to achieve a high GPA at these schools. Find out (if you haven't already) which among them offer inflation relative to the rest and give them extra points for it. That is a big advantage for med school acceptance, provided you actually do work your butt off and achieve those grades.
- To that end -- and you'll want to do this anyway, since there's no guarantee that you'll be admitted to any of these great schools -- you might consider your state flagship or other state schools. If GPA is a prime variable, you might find it easier to be in a (in some ways) less challenging environment for earning top marks.You want a low match/safety on your list anyway -- consider your flagship or another public in your state, or even a public below the flagship.
- Med school costs a ton of money. Financial aid and whether (and how much) you will be saddled with debt should be a major variable in your decision. If one of those five will cost $20k less than the rest of them over four years, and you like that school, that school gets extra points in your analysis.
Whichever you choose, stay focused… but don’t forget to breathe. Go out for half an hour on a Friday night even. College shouldn’t be all work…
Good luck!
@soccerboy10 What are the pros and cons of majoring in Bio while being in pre med? I’m taking AP bio next year and if i like it then i’ll major in that
I’m still so lost on where to visit
@marchmadness99 Well a good place to start is asking what you think you value the most in a school
Known for collaboration and more laid back study environment (despite academic challenge):
Vanderbilt and Rice.
Known for fairly happy student bodies and high quality of life on campus:
Rice, Vanderbilt, Washington University…maybe Duke (surveys and and stuff support this perception)
Intensity (based on some of the materials I’ve seen):
I feel liken WashU and Duke kill in natural sciences (seems WashU has an extra toughness in its “weeder” classes though, especially chemistry and biology. AP biology vs. their intro. biology classes? Sit down please. Vandy and Rice will give students a nice wake up call as well. Vanderbilt appears to overload in content and Rice is more similar to the other two in having instructors that ask for those higher level cognitive skills likely more so than AP). Rice and Duke fairly intensive when it comes to physical science courses (I’m basing this on course materials I’ve seen). The only thing is I feel like WashU has worse GPA penalties because of their courses. Like their gen. chem 1 course has a significant portion of “real” quantum chemistry and mathematical rigor which can be very painful if you aren’t a big chem person. The others have more traditional general chemistry sequences. With organic, WashU appears the roughest (I went to Emory and their 1 or 2 sections are very reminiscent of our 3 most difficult instructors who tend to give exams with research based questions and high level applications and lesser so memorization/pure pattern recognition. Duke’s instructors also kind of seemed like this but lesser so). WashU’s program seems to have a more noticeable trend of low GPA high MCAT students whereas the others are comparatively normal. They all still have excellent placement. Northwestern is also known for extremely brutal physical sciences and chemistry courses so brace yourself if you go there.
Social/intellectual Environment:
I’m sure the Rice student’s told you about theirs and it speaks for itself. The closest thing to it would probably be WUSTL and then I would say Duke and Vanderbilt have some similarities (sports fervor, strong Greek system, etc). You can figure these out yourself by reading up and of course when you visit some of them. There will be noticeable differences.