Rice vs. UT Austin Chem or Mech Engineering Undergrad.

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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<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>

2

<p>Here are my points, for what they’re worth. My son is an engineering freshman. My dad is an engineering prof. I got my BS and MS in engineering from UT. So I’m biased, but I think rightly so, lol.</p>

<p>Yes, UT’s engineering program is highly ranked for a reason. Their professors, facilities, and research are all world-class. Just compare the number of professors each school has who are in the National Academy of Engineering. There’s no comparison.</p>

<p>The professors DO care about the students. That’s why my dad is still teaching at age 73. He has mentored thousands of students, and helped get them jobs all over Texas. He’s a NAE member himself. He started researching polymer concrete in the mid-60s and is known worldwide. He lectures all over the world and was the first American inducted into the Russian Academy of Engineering. But he takes time to talk to students whenever he’s needed. Just last spring, I told him about a young woman whose mom I “met” on College Confidential. The girl, a HS junior from out of state, was interested in UT engineering, and he said he would be glad to talk to her. He spent about an hour with her when she visited campus, going over the program and answering her questions. Her mom said she will attend UT if the money works out. I relate all this just to point out what UT profs are like. My engineering peers in the northeast can’t believe some of the profs I had - experts in the field who are household names to structural engineers (like Joe Yura).</p>

<p>You will have some large classes your first couple of years, but when you get into upper-level ones, they will be much smaller. My favorite class at UT (seriously) was US History with George Forgie. There were 300 students in the class. But Dr. Forgie was such an amazing story-teller that I couldn’t wait to go to his class. I would go talk to him during his office hours. He tried to get me to switch majors to history, lol! He is still teaching at UT. Profs are always happy to see students during office hours, because most kids don’t ever show up! Again, you have to be proactive. Nobody is going to knock on your door and say, “How are you doing, sweetie? Is everything going OK? What can we do for you?” YOU have to pursue opportunities. But if you do, you’ll be well-rewarded.</p>

<p>There were about 48,000 students at UT when I was there, not much smaller than it is now. But it never felt that big to me. It’s not like you see all those people at once, except at football games, which are incredible. I was in Cockrell Hall most of the time, and hung out with the same group of Arch. E. Students.</p>

<p>As far as research goes, my son is already doing some in the BME lab as a freshman! If you’re proactive and let people know you’re interested, you can find a place. My son isn’t being paid right now, but he’s learning a lot.</p>

<p>I was in the honors program. To be honest (I’ve posted this before), there’s not much advantage to it, except for the honors housing! You get to take a couple of honors classes, but I think it’s still only two - physics and calculus. The classes were big and it wasn’t like I made any connections with brilliant people or something, lol! I didn’t even put it on my resume.</p>

<p>Finally, the cost difference. Wow, Rice would be at least $112,000 more??? Gosh, you could put down a lot on a house when you’re older with that money! You will get excellent job offers - most profs are glad to write recommendations. Employers often call my dad to ask him for good prospects. You will also get into any grad school you want IF you work hard and make good grades.</p>

<p>OK, that’s it for now! And no, I’m not paid by UT! I’m a practicing structural engineer who is very proud of her alma mater. :)</p>

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<p>Wow! Those are some excellent points! I am still just worried about student to faculty ratios and being weeded out personally. I have become a bit afraid of UT after a friend of mine got weeded out of engineering due to low grades. I also heard bad stories about signing up for classes (as in you have to be at your computer at the exact time class choices come out). If you miss that and get bad proffs, you are doomed. This is according to him and apparently the reason he failed. :S</p>

<p>What if there is a personal project I really want to pursue like designing something and then making a mock up? Rice has this special lab called the “kitchen” I think for things like that.</p>

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<p>If you’re a strong student, you won’t get weeded out. Yes, if you don’t study hard and you screw around, you’re not going to make it. Period. But you seem like a bright student. “This is according to him and apparently the reason he failed. :S” I’m sure that’s what he wants to believe. You really have to take responsibility for yourself when you become an adult, though. There are sure a TON of kids who make it through UT engineering just fine, right??</p>

<p>When you go to orientation this summer, they show you how to register for classes. You probably WON’T get your ideal schedule on your first try. However, after that week, you can go online every Friday morning for most of the summer to try again. My son did that and got a great schedule. I think it took him a total of three tries. </p>

<p>I pointed my dad to this thread, and he said he would be happy to set up appointments with faculty members if you’d like to come for a visit. So the ball is in your court. If you believe Rice is the place for you, great! Go for it. But if you’re honestly interested in coming to Texas, send me a PM and I’ll get you in touch with him. Then you could ask directly about possibilities for projects you want to do.</p>

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<p>Thank you so very much! Depending on how things play out, I will definitely consider that very generous offer! I currently live overseas though so it will be hard to meet right now, but I will definitely remember for the future. :D</p>

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<p>Oh, that’s cool! Well, if you’d like, I could see if we could set up a phone “interview” with you (you’d be interviewing the prof). Seriously, my dad loves doing this kind of stuff! He helps out with recruiting for the athletic teams - he’s a good recruiter, ha!</p>

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<p>Your friend is right about needing to be at the computer when your registration window opens at UT, and not getting the classes you want when you want them CAN have a serious effect on your grades. If you don’t get into a two-semester (Fall/Spring) sequence, you have to take it Spring/Fall, with the summer in between. In sciences these classes often have associated labs (which are separate courses that have to be signed up for separately). Having a two-semester course broken up with the summer in between, or having to take a lab course after you have completed the corresponding classroom course, can make absorbing the material that much more difficult and time-consuming.</p>

<p>That said, the overwhelming majority of students at UT have horrible study habits, don’t read the textbook, and don’t go to professors’ or TAs’ office hours with questions. Then they complain that “He gave me a B,” or “She gave me a C,” as if grades are dispensed at the whim of the professor and not based on student performance. If you go to UT to learn as much as you can, and if you make every effort to do so, your teachers will love you no matter how big the class is.</p>

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<p>I was going to suggest that you post the question on the Rice board, but I see that you did, five minutes before you posted here. There have been 40 views but no answers, and there has been more recent activity on the forum.</p>

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<p>“That said, the overwhelming majority of students at UT have horrible study habits, don’t read the textbook, and don’t go to professors’ or TAs’ office hours with questions. Then they complain that “He gave me a B,” or “She gave me a C,” as if grades are dispensed at the whim of the professor and not based on student performance.”</p>

<p>lol can’t echo enough how true this is. I realize this happens at every school, but it’s just so pathetic.</p>

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<p>In addition to all the good points that MaineLonghorn made, UT also has the second largest alumni network among U.S. universities. That will be a plus when you are looking for a job. </p>

<p>Save the difference in cost between UT and Rice and apply it toward your grad school.</p>

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<p>My sister’s boyfriend is a chemical engineering senior at Rice, and when he applied for jobs, one oil company went flat out and told him Rice is our second choice, as opposed to UT. I’m guessing this is becaucse UT’s program is ranked so much higher and oil companies typically see Rice as more of an arts/humanities school, not as much engineering, as UT is highly known for. He managed to get a job at Exxon, but a lot of his friends doing chemical engineering at UT got the same job. I know this is different since you’re thinking about going to grad school, but really, you’re probably better off going to UT for chemical engineering(that’s what I’m doing! lol). And a lot of my sister’s friends doing engineering at Rice are suuupper smart and had a’s all throughout high school, but are now failing at Rice and are having to switch majors. So with either school, it’s going to be tough, whether with weed out classes or just really difficult classes. And UT has awesome opportunities for research with all of its resources and well known faculty members.</p>

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<p>That’s interesting, cliving! It will be interesting to see what SchoolAdvice decides to do.</p>

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<p>I can totally see how that would be true Cliving. This is an incredibly hard decision :S. Judging by the views on this post, I am probably not the only one making tough calls. I am still a bit worried about not getting into the EHP because I am worried that A) My dorm room will be far from my classes and thus I will lose time and productivity and B) I might get a roommate who doesn’t care about academics and interfere with my education. What scares me most is still the lottery of picking classes. I really don’t want to get dumped into a terrible semester simply because I pressed submit on my course schedule at 12:01 rather than 12:00. Can anybody tell me just how fast desired classes fill up and do the honors students get early registration privileges like at some universities?</p>

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<p>Remember what I posted before. They open up new classes every Friday during the summer. So after you attend orientation, you can go online every Friday morning (I forget the exact time, 7 or 8 am, maybe?). You have LOTS of tries to get a good schedule! And one advantage of a big school are that there are lots of sections of popular classes. I thought you said you didn’t make UT Honors? I don’t know how registration works for honors students, anyway.</p>

<p>My son did have a hard time with his roommate first semester. He was an EE major, but he loved to play noisy video games through half the night (literally). We solved the problem by getting a private room for his second semester. It was about $1,800 extra, but well worth the money. Most kids do fine with their roommates, though.</p>

<p>He got a bike to get him to classes that are farther away. Just don’t end up on crutches like he did in October! Now THAT was a problem, but it would have been on any campus, because he couldn’t even get through the cafeteria lines by himself.</p>

<p>A I wrote you in the PM, I’m putting you in touch with my dad, and he will see to it that you can talk or meet with whichever professors you like. Good luck!</p>

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<p>No, I didn’t make honors. They sent me an email about how I might get in next year if I get over a 3.5 gpa, get top 10% of my class and department, and some other things as well.</p>

<p>I understand about signing up for classes during the summer, but how about course registration over the Winter months for the second semester of the year? I am pretty concerned with that one since the time frame seems smaller and I am not sure whether they open new classes at that time. Also, do they open up new classes or do people simply move around, opening up slots?</p>

<p>Thanks again :).</p>

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<p>Another student can tell you about signing up for second semester. I just know that my son didn’t have any problems signing up for it. He got everything that he needed, and was happy with the spacing of his classes. I know there was a pretty good window of time for signing up, and classes did open up, but I’m not sure of the reason.</p>

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<p>I am a Rice alum, and proud of it. Sadly, however, Rice’s rankings in engineering (with the exception of biomedical engineering) have fallen quite a bit since I attended. Texas now outranks Rice in every engineering category but BME.</p>

<p>Unless your parents are quite wealthy and can afford to pay the $45K+ price tag for a year at Rice–times four–the relatively low cost of Texas should seal the deal. There is very little merit aid at Rice (true at Texas, too, but it costs some $20K less per year.). No four-year degree in the world is worth going into $100k–$150k–$200K of debt, because no four-year degree (and precious few advanced degrees) will qualify you for any job that would allow you to pay back that level of debt and still live comfortably and independently.</p>

<p>Yes, Texas is a big place, but Cockrell–not so much. Both Cockrell and the University have a lot of organizations aimed at helping new students find their niche. I loved Rice and it was a good fit for me, but even so it was a little claustrophobic at times. Everybody knows everybody’s else’s business, as it were. That’s the downside of a small school.</p>

<p>Well, that’s my two cents’ worth. Good luck wherever you end up.</p>

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<p>Thank you all so very much for all of your tremendous advice and commitment to help me. I am very sorry that I will be upsetting a lot of you on this forum to say that I chose Rice over UT in the end, but the decision was the hardest I have ever had to make thus far in my life and ended up coming down to very personal reasons of fit.</p>

<p>I decided on Rice because after years of travel around the world, I really want to go back home. Houston is as close to my home town as I have ever gotten and I have multiple great friends who I have known years attending Rice with me next year. I also chose Rice because it is smaller and will help me transition into the college atmosphere better than UT (I come from a private school in another country with approx 700 kids in K-12)!</p>

<p>I thank you all once again for all your amazing advice and your time. I know I am giving up some excellent opportunities and will be taking on debt, but I still hope I made a good choice for myself personally for the two reasons above. I hope some other lucky person will be able to use them to their full potential as I would have.</p>

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<p>Good luck, SchoolAdvice! I have to say I’m not surprised - it was pretty obvious you wanted to go to Rice. I hope you get a great education there! Maybe you’ll wind up at grad school at UT! :)</p>

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<p>Considering your circumstances it sounds like a pretty good choice. Just remember that a longhorn could easily run over or eat an owl if it wanted to, haha.</p>