<p>Hi everyone! This is my first post ever on CC, but I hear that this is the best way to hear a diversity of opinions! I want to be an engineer, my focus being mechanical, but only because it is the most general and will allow me a wide range of opportunities. These four are my top choices, but I'm leaning towards Rice and Northwestern for their stronger engineering programs. Rice is smaller, has the house system instead of the frats, and I hear the students there are very happy. Northwestern has a co-op program, an impressive recruiting reputation, and I was invited to become a Murphy Scholar, which includes a 4k budget for a research project plus the added resume line. Can anyone help out? Financial aid aside, that is.</p>
<p>And oh by the way, UMD (Gemstone) is gonna cost me only about 3k a year, after tuition remission and scholarships. I know that’s hard to pass up, but I’d really like to move away from DC and plus UMD is super big.</p>
<p>Have you visited/do you plan to visit Rice and Northwestern (along with any other of your options)? What is the cost difference between them? Can you family afford all of these schools?</p>
<p>I’m doing both Owl Days and Wildcat Days within the next week. I hope to get a better feel for the “vibe” at each school, but if that’s not a deciding factor then I hope CC can help. All three private universities are about 40k a year, but they’re pretty much affordable, and I should graduate without crushing debt. And then of course UMD is extremely cheap.</p>
<p>How did your visits go? I’m a parent of a junior who has all of the schools you mentioned on her list.</p>
<p>Well I LOVED Rice. They had a bunch of events for the prospective students and I noticed everyone was actually really happy, who knew the rankings were actually accurate? The weather was also great, be warned tho it did hit 80 in mid-April. At northwestern I had an okay time, the weather was pretty crappy to be honest (but I’m glad, I knew of Evanston’s reputation and didn’t want to feel cheated should I have chosen NU), and there wasn’t a whole bunch to do the first and third days. However, they had a really fun design project for the McCormick kids, showing the trust they place in the ability of their future students. Plus NU is CONSTANTLY spending money on the campus, for example they’re currently building a huge new swim complex just after finishing some work on the student center. I’m still undecided, but I learned a lot about each school. The pros of Rice are: the weather, the house system, and the semester schedule. For NU it’s the co-op program (Rice doesn’t have one), the national reputation (for recruiting, as many Rice grads end up working in Texas and I want to change states), and the Murphy Honors Program, although I was assured by students that while it’s a nice line on a resume, it mostly helps get on-campus research opportunities, something that Rice apparently is very good at getting for freshmen too. So that’s where I stand, I lean one way one day and the other way the next. Hope I could help!</p>