<p>I am have a VERY hard time deciding where I should go for university. I am stuck between UT and Rice for chemical engineering or mechanical engineering and I need some help deciding.</p>
<p>Breakdown:</p>
<p>Rice will cost 48K (housing included) per year and UT will cost 20K per year (housing included). I don't really like UT due to size and I feel I won't get any personal attention there but I will have to take out 40-50K worth of loans to go to Rice. Also, UT's engineering program is ranked MUCH better than Rice but I am not sure if that actually means anything. I am also a bit concerned due to UT's huge budget cuts since I REALLY want to do research during undergrad, get a great deal of well-paid job offers, and then get into a great graduate school (tall order, I know). Sadly I didn't get into UT's Engineering Honors program which makes me even more stumped. </p>
<p>Please help!</p>
<p>Anybody who can help from Rice?</p>
<p>I would recommend going to Rice based on the criteria listed. Rice is well known for undergraduate focus and research. The degree carries more weight as well. Regarding the program rankings, they matter a lot more at the graduate level. </p>
<p>Regarding graduate school - do you have any plans at all of an MBA, law school or med school?</p>
<p>I plan on going to graduate school after a few years in the field. I am hoping to work for an oil company first with my degree and then I hope I can get into Stanford or MIT for grad school.</p>
<p>Ok. If you do a PhD afterwards, they will likely pay for your expenses and give you a stipend. If you were planning on professional school (business school etc.) I would recommend UT because it is cheaper and professional schools are expensive.</p>
<p>If you are willing to take the loans for Rice and handle them, then Rice is where you should go. From your post, **I don’t really like UT due to size and I feel I won’t get any personal attention there **. If you don’t like UT, then don’t go there.</p>
<p>I may be making a big deal about something I am just not too knowledgeable about. I am not sure if those things are true. They are just concerns I am bringing up as to what I don’t like about UT. I don’t like how Rice’s rank is smaller and it costs 2.5 times more than UT. I plan to go get a masters degree or MBA a few years after undergrad.</p>
<p>You need to consider that most students change their major, even those who think they are “certain”. While 50K loans (or larger because tuition keeps going up) might be reasonable for an Engineering degree, maybe it is not as reasonable for Physics or Chemistry or whatever.</p>
<p>Dealing with a similar dilemma. My daughter wants to study Environmental or Biomedical engineering. She loves the size and feel of Rice, but according to financial aid, we will be paying sticker price, plus she will need to borrow $10k a year. She has a full ride to University of Pittsburgh and sizable scholarships to 7 other schools. Rice is her favorite by far and I think it would be a good fit, but is all the extra cost worth an undergraduate degree?</p>
<p>Will she need to borrow the Rice capped loan amount (Total of $10,000; $2500 per year in student loans.) Or $10,000 per year on top of the $2500 per year? If your daughter has to take out a total of $50,000 of student loans for undergraduate, I would not recommend that option. $10,000 - no brainer. Go for it. My kids LOVED Rice, and gave up (well, we as parents gave up :eek:) full-ride offers from well-respected Public universities. We have NO regrets, and felt that they had a fantastic education. But it was affordable for us, and there are minimal loans for my son…</p>
<p>For Rice and UT , how hard is it to get a solid GPA in engineering at both these schools for mech or chem engineering? Is it harder to maintain over a 3.5 at either of these schools compared to the other? I heard Rice has a brutally hard system even compared to UT? I am willing to work a lot, but I also want sleep and don’t want to work into the late hours of the night every night :S. Is either easier in this sense at UT? I really want to graduate in 4 years with a good GPA so I get a good starting job.Though UT is by no means easy, is it easier than Rice? I come from the IB diploma program in high school and have take a few AP classes online alongside this as well and I have had to work to do well. Will it be equally tough at both or not?</p>
<p>Let us assume UT is easier at Rice. You put in x hours of work and get a 4.0 at UT and a 3.6 at Rice.</p>
<p>That simply means that a 4.0 at UT = 3.6 at Rice. Employers do not just blindly look at GPA and hire people. They put it into context. What we know about grading curves, they generally know. </p>
<p>If you do well, you will do well. And yes, it is very possible to do extremely well at Rice without killing yourself.</p>
<p>Antarius - How many engineering students are there? Also, do you happen to know what percentage of the senior class from last year found jobs? or went to graduate school? </p>
<p>Also, do you have the same information for architects?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>About 900 students are engineering in total. That is about 30% of the school. Architecture data is included in the link below as well. </p>
<p>[Rice</a> University | Enrollment-Declared Major](<a href=“http://stage.professor.rice.edu/professor/Enrollment-Declared_Major.asp?SnID=2043343610]Rice”>http://stage.professor.rice.edu/professor/Enrollment-Declared_Major.asp?SnID=2043343610)</p>
<p>I do not have any empirical data on jobs etc. but every single engineer I know from Rice is either in graduate school or has a job. If you put in effort to going to the career fair and apply for jobs, you will find one.</p>
<p>Anxiousmom, our daughter will have to borrow up to 30K total to attend Rice. We have a little financial aid this year, but expect nothing for the following years, so that is her borrowing money and us paying sticker price for 3 years. We hopefully won’t be taking on debt to do our part but it will be a HUGE stretch. She will probably not have a problem finding a job as an engineer and knows she loves math and science.</p>
<p>We all feel Rice will be a great fit, her first choice for sure, but are torn over spending that much money when we know she will do well wherever she goes. We are apparently just unlucky about merit scholarships at this school, or just pegged as being parents who can pay to play. </p>
<p>It is disheartining to have a kid who has consistently scored in the 99th percentile academically (ACT, SAT, class rank, etc) and who chooses areas of study that are traditionally less “female” , yet feel like maybe this school doesn’t really want you for some reason. (The mom in me coming out)</p>
<p>Anyway, still trying to decide whether to take the plunge or not, or just to tell her pick another school that is willing to pay part of your way…</p>
<p>Bronzeleaf - Rice has certain number of scholarships but a large number of applicants. It works out well for people admitted who meet Rice’s threshold for financial aid but there is a bigger pool of people who dont meet the aid requirements and will only have a small number of scholarships. I dont know if they give both FA and merit to the same student and I guessing not. If your aid goes away next year, I wonder if she would qualify for scholarship in the second year (you might want to ask). I have heard numbers of 15-25k for scholarships.</p>
<p>It is usually hard to get such large scholarships once you have joined Rice. Scholarships are a big part of yield and recruiting, leaving little incentive to hand out a huge scholarship in your junior year, for example. </p>
<p>Bronzeleaf - What does your D want to do after college? If she is considering Med School or an MBA, then go with the cheaper option. If work or a PhD is in the cards, then the loans may be manageable.</p>
<p>Although I love Rice, I do not feel that it is worth going into mountains of debt for a Rice degree. There is no guarantee that the job market will be expanding at the time of graduation.</p>
<p>It really comes down to what your D is considering after college (if she has decided yet). That would help a lot in giving a better assessment.</p>
<p>I have a friend who doesn’t pay anything to go to Rice because he gets both aid and scholarships to attend. He was a very amazing physics student who moved to the USA from Eastern Europe in 12th grade and had to adapt his entire life in 1 year. He deserves both the aid and merit in my opinion, but it is indeed disheartening for me as as well when I think about how hard I have worked and how I didn’t receive any aid either. :(</p>
<p>My daughter wants to study Environmental Engineering with an emphasis in water resources or Biomedical Engineering. She says she has no desire to be a doctor or go to medical school, although she thinks working in that field would be interesting. Her other dream is to help people in developing countries with water management. She’s done several mission trips over the past 4 years both in and out of the country. The more she goes, the farther afield she seems to want to go.</p>
<p>After school she will either go straight to work (assuming she can find a job) or possibly study for a PhD. The practical engineering solutions Rice comes up with really resonate with her. On the other hand, we’ve always encouraged her not to go into debt as an undergrad and we are all bummed this is the only school without merit aid for her.</p>
<p>So far, she’s always managed to rise to the top of whatever she’s tried while still remaining a “closet nerd” in her terms. I guess that will work either way. Rice is still her dream school but it may not be worth full price, any insight is appreciated!</p>
<p>I also got the impression after talking with FA that only smaller scholarships would be available after matriculating. Wish I had a crystal ball :)</p>