Rice vs Ut pre med

So I’m having to decide between rice and ut pre med, and I’m not sure which one to choose. At the moment I made electrical engineering for both schools, wierd I know, but my parents are both engineers, and said that engineering would be a good fall back if I didn’t go into pre med. At the moment rice is 44k and ut 25k, however due to our financial situation, rice would go down to 31k after freshmen year. The main issue I have with rice is the environment. The campus is nice, the people are friendly and the professors are as well. However, many of thr people seemed a bit wierd, and not really up my alley. Also, the biggest thing is that I really want to open my horizons socially, and I don’t feel that rice would have that. Ut to me felt great, I love the city atmosphere and the people were nice. I plan on trying to transfer into the ut honors program next year for engineering. My main concern against ut however is the research and the title. I know rice is incredibly easy to do research, and I haven’t heard very much about ut research, while at rice that’s all that’s going on. To me thats the most inportant thing, becausse med schools care for what you do in college, gpa, research, interships, and im willing to work as hard as needed to do whats sought after. For the title I’m not sure whether it matters so much as I am an undergraduate , but rice does seem very highly regarded. Please let meknow what you think, i know it’s a weird situation, and has a lot of points but I would like to have others input. Thanks

It sounds like you want to go to UT. There’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of on that front; it’s a great school. Med schools in TX mainly care about your GPA, MCAT scores, and interview results. Med schools don’t care too much what you major in (within reason; no folkloric dance). Research opportunities are more important for STEM students who are not planning to go on to a professional field like medicine or nursing. If you feel more home at UT and UT offers the major you want then go to UT. You may want to rethink EE, however, as prep for med school since that’s not a major known for inflated GPAs. Your GPA will matter a great deal when applying to med schools in TX.