<p>I got accepted to both Rice and Duke. And the only thing stopping me from making a decision is the fact even though academically they are both strong Duke has a much stronger reputation. However i am a little inclined towards Rice. Any opinion?</p>
<p>What specific attributes of rice appeal to you? It would be imprudent to advise you without being aware of your particular circumstances.</p>
<p>Things that appeal to me about rice:-
1)Strong Eng Program
2)Great facilities and research
3) Smaller Size
4) Residential college system</p>
<p>Commit day was yesteday, so what did you do?</p>
<p>Duke has a high number of students who are just ivy rejects. It also has a more pre-professional feeling. People choose Rice because they really wanted to go there. Even on this forum there have been many students this year with the same dilema and they all chose Rice. I do not have a beef in this for either school, btw. I think Rice has more space to go up in the rankings as they only now started to engage in marketing to expand their geographical outreach and improve the stats used in rankings, eg internationals went from 4% to the typical 10%. Rice is a very wealthy school and mind you that its reputation is without even having all thse grad schools that are an important component on why people know schools. Houston is the most diverse city in the USA, according to the most recent US Census, and according to the academic world rankings, Rice is fourth in scientific impact! Houston is the second US city with most Fortune 400 headquarters, and the largest medical complex in the USA is across the street. The school is located in a wealthy suburb, at the museum district, next to NASA, has the Baker Institute that is among the 25 best think tanks. As an engineer you will have many opportunities to do internships even during the year at companies in the Houston area. Great weather, near the sea.</p>
<p>I already accepted Rice a week ago. But on the 28 i was informed i was selected from the Duke waitlist. I have 1 week to reply to their offer. so i got confused</p>
<p>Arpit, there were many Rice students that have selected it over Duke this year. Rice is only a 100 year old school, compared with all the others and it is on an upward trend, with a lot of space to grow and improve on the stats that define high rankings. Do not forget, UChicago only recently jumped 10 spaces, when they started their smart marketing. I think that the “Leiden Ranking, which measures the performance of 500 major research universities worldwide, using metrics designed to measure research impact ranked Rice 4th Globally, for effectiveness and contribution of research,” is an important indicator of the strength of the school. People also underestimate the importance of Houston in close proximity. Not only it enhances the quality of life, but offer top internship opportunities.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t know where Ana1 is getting all of this information, but she seems very biased against Duke. As a Rice student, I would love to encourage everyone to come to Rice, but I really think your college decision needs to come from where you would feel more comfortable. Among the people who matter (med schools, people hiring for jobs) Rice and Duke are about the same reputation wise (may not be true in all areas, but I’m pretty certain it is for engineering). I don’t know where these facts like Duke only has ivy rejects while everyone at Rice had Rice as their first choice came from. At Rice, I know plenty of people who came here after being rejected from an Ivy, plenty who Rice was their first choice, plenty who chose Rice over an Ivy. From the people I know who go to Duke, I would say it is the same there. It just seems that for some reason she has something against Duke (to the point where she feels the need to claim she doesn’t). Anyway, I don’t think that the decision should be made based on the current rankings or where Rice could move to within them. Both are top 20 universities, and honestly that’s good enough. Your success will be what you make it. Both schools offer amazing opportunities and you can be a great success with either one. You should focus more on where you want to spend the next 4 years of your life (I assume you visited both), and if money is an issue take that into account. Just my $.02</p>
<p>That’s funny, I commented on a thread that people were claiming that for someone who would live overseas, Duke will be better than Wharton, and on another that compared Duke V Rice where I was the only one presenting data about the two schools, instead of cherry picking only Duke favorable data and now I have something against Duke. I have commented for dozens of schools trying to present the other side. If you noticed, I even encouraged the Duke WLs and gave them information on how many admitted students were going so they will know the school would be moving to accept of the WL, which was confirmed later as many commented that they had been informed before the May 1st deadline.</p>
<p>I think the Duke alum in the thread put it very nicely:
“medman 04-26-2012 09:18 PM
^I agree wholeheartedly–Duke is as good as the LOWER Ivies–but, as I said, it is not HPYSM, and it kills people from Duke that it is not. Just be Duke, and stop trying to convince others that it is “as good” as HPYSM–it’s not. And Duke is not in a location that enhances academic, cultural, and social life. And Duke does have a strong Greek system that segregates the student body. And Duke is in NC. And Duke has a great basketball tradition (despite playing the most pathetic game of basketball in the NCAA tournament in recent memory). And Duke has a beautiful campus. And Duke has a great medical center. And Duke has a race-relations problem and longstanding town-gown problem. And that problem is improving. And Duke is preprofessional more than intellectual. These are facts, along with the fact that Duke cannot compete with HPYSM in terms of academic quality and prestige.”</p>
<p>I have no idea what you have said on other threads, I am saying that in this thread you seem biased against Duke by providing statements like many Duke students are Ivy rejects without backing it up or considering that Rice might be the same way. </p>
<p>What I am saying is that both Duke and Rice are good schools, reputation-wise they are about equal, and that the OP should choose a school where he/she feels most comfortable. Also, I think that you can say, as the Duke alum said, that reputation-wise, Rice is not as good as HPYSM either (and this is coming from someone who turned down an Ivy to come here). And while Duke may have negative factors, I am sure one alum could list some for Rice as well (just look through this forum to find some posts like that).</p>
<p>This is not to say that OP shouldn’t pick Rice, I love Rice and wouldn’t want to go anywhere else, but I think that in threads like this people want the perspective of people who know the schools intimately (i.e. students, former students, or parents of students) so it concerns me that you have advised on “dozens of schools”. </p>
<p>So, OP my pitch for Rice (while admitting that I know substantially less about Duke): Rice has an extremely strong engineering program and many senior engineers this year have received amazing job and grad school offers. The ability to participate in research is unbelievable here due to the small size and the faculty involvement, and there is so much cutting edge engineering research happening here. I think the residential college system has been talked about enough on this forum but I love it and am glad I didn’t have a Greek system to deal with during college. I recommend you find some people who actually go or went to Duke to address any concerns you may have about possibly accepting that offer. And finally congratulations! I know it’s stressful but it’s a great position to be in.</p>
<p>sffhoalie, I researched extensively and visited the schools when my child applied and as a parent have different perspective of what other areas are important. Having been accepted by both, he was going to choose Rice over Duke, without hesitation as the pros really tipped towards Rice. As I do not have a beef for either school, I can present a more neutral info than the one sided info primarily people at the Duke forum like to show. Even on your pitch, you do not mention Houston which is an important component of Rice and its personality. As the president said, if one moved Rice to take it in any place in the world, would still put it back in the same position at Houston.</p>
<p>Houston’s awesome and I’ve had some great off-campus experiences and internships because of it. I’m a city girl and probably wouldn’t have been happy somewhere like Duke. My pitch was mostly based off the list provided by the OP for why he liked Rice, so I was trying to emphasize those things.<br>
I do appreciate your perspective and don’t want to start a fight, I was just a little thrown by some of the comments generalizing Duke students as Ivy-league rejects. I think this is where a student’s perspective can be helpful as we are the only ones who get the full picture of the student body, which really can’t be understood from a weekend visit (and as I mentioned before there are definitely people here who would’ve gone to an Ivy had they been accepted, which is not to say they aren’t happy here).
OP if you haven’t come to a decision yet, sometimes I think it is helpful to post your concerns about Rice here and see if they can be figured out by the students, former students, and parents here. If it is solely an issue of reputation, go with Rice if you are inclined towards it, as the reputation with the people who matter is just as good as Duke’s.</p>
<p>Rice and Duke are peers for Engineering but Duke is the stronger research university overall and it has, as you noted, a much stronger reputation than Rice domestically and internationally (though Rice is a hidden gem IMHO).</p>
<p>Duke is in the process of copying Rice’s and Yale’s residential college system by the way.
[Duke</a> copies Yale | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/08/duke-copies-yale/]Duke”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/08/duke-copies-yale/)</p>
<p>Ana you are a woeful excuse for a human being. You will go to any extent to make your lousy alma mater seem appealing. What right do you have to call Duke students ivy rejects? How can someone be so insecure of their own credentials that they resort to stereotyping an entire university? Duke is one of the best universities in the world. It wins cross admit battles against a number of ivies. So please keep your misconceptions to yourself, and get a life.</p>