<p>This sure complicates things. >.< Duke used to be my dream school, but after being waitlisted, I started looking closer at my other options. And as fate would have it, while I didn't even really look into Rice that much when I applied (only applied 'cause my cousin likes it, and it's "cheap" for a good school), I fell in love with everything about it, the campus, location, smart/funny/friendly people, interesting classes/professors, college housing system (temperature wasn't really to my liking though haha). And that wouldn't have happened if I'd gotten into Duke, obviously. So now I'm stuck in a limbo...the parents are pressuring me to accept Duke's offer (Duke's giving me 2 weeks to decide) because the biomedical engineering program is better, and the location is closer to home. But to me, the extra cost might not be worth it anymore. The recent scandal highlighted some subtle racial tensions there, freshmen live off main campus, campus isn't in the middle of a city like how I like it, Greek life seems to dominate social life...but I don't know if these are good enough reasons to reject Duke.</p>
<p>So anyways, I was wondering if someone could give me more information of Rice's BME program, and how current students are doing grade-wise. Also, I'm somewhat interested in pre-med as well, but I know that Rice and Duke both have extremely high med school acceptance percentages, as well as having hospitals right next to campus. Thank you for your help!</p>
<p>Yeah Rice's med school acceptance rate is 90%+, though I wouldn't doubt Duke's is also fairly high. I don't know a lot about the bioe program except that is an extremely popular major and can be fairly difficult(though I'm sure Duke is no different).</p>
<p>I chose Rice over Duke for some of the reasons you listed. Based on talking to students race/class relations seemed to be better at Rice and I really LOVED the residential college system. Also like you mentioned I didn't like that the Duke social scene was so dominated by Frats.</p>
<p>I don't regret the decision and would do so again in a heartbeat but it just depends on personal preference.</p>
<p>WOW! your situation is just like mine. rice was my #1, decided to take a closer look @ usc, fell in love with it, and then was off the wl at Rice and now i just CANNOT decide! pick where you see yourself in four years... not just this Fall. sorry i don't know enough about the bio/pre-med programs to help!</p>
<p>I had almost exactly equal money from Rice and Duke, they had the same straight cost as well as self-help dollars. I chose Rice for several reasons that you listed as well as dimnar's. Obviously, the residential college system is awesome as each college gets its own funds to spend and gets to bring in professors to teach unique classes. (I heard one college brought in a professor to teach something on gambling/poker, which interested me, seeing that this year I started to take up Hold'em.) And btw, Rice has strong connections with the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world.</p>
<p>Just some things to consider... good luck with a tough decision!</p>
<p>ritzy, your situation is exactly mine. duke was my dream school too, i got off waitlist, but now i don't know if I like it more than rice. only difference is that i plan to major in psychology. for biomed, i can't say much, except i think that rice has a higher med school acceptance rate b/c the courses are not as competitive (ie. i know people who major in biology at duke and study constantly...just to keep up).</p>
<p>My son chose Rice bioengineering over Duke BME although 4 family members are Duke grads-1 BME. Do not be mislead by rankings, which reflect primarily the reputation of graduate programs. The quality of teaching in Rice's undergraduate bioengineering program is at least as good as Duke's, and Rice offers broader research opportunities for undergrads. The residential college system at Rice provides as near to ideal living conditions as you will find in an academic environment. Houston offers countless advantages over the Triangle area.</p>
<p>I think Rice is the better choice for the reasons already mentioned, AND the tensions at Duke right now. Duke is an excellent school, but Houston is an awesome city and the area around Rice is beautiful.</p>
<p>The "tension" at Duke is really not an issue to most of the students who attend. It has been completely sensationalized by the media. The so called scandal will be completely blown over when school starts in August.</p>
<p>Yes, it has been sensationalized by the media, but there's no way this is going to "blow over" by August -- 3 people have been indicted, and their trials are not expected to take place until next spring.</p>
<p>i picked Rice over Duke because of several reasons:
(1) i wanted small classes, and i'm certainly experiencing that here. imagine, your senior BME labs will be 4-5 ppl big. that's a lot of personal attention.
(2) the introductory profs are designed to be weed-out profs, but once you get past that, the upper-lvl profs are truly smart, top-of-their field people who are passionate abt what they do. plus, Rice's emphasis on undergrad education makes it special overall.
(3) undergrad experience-wise, you want to go to a place where you can have a lot of fun while still studying with the best of the best. that's what i'm getting here, and i mean, i'll probably apply Duke for grad school anyway.
(4) residential college system: makes you feel so connected. in Duke, the freshmen live in a separate place on their own. good thing is class identity, there are bad things i wont mention because of the idea that i've never experienced it for myself. at Rice, you hav a week (Oweek) to plug in with your class, then the upperclassmen move in, and they live with you, so you definitely wont have a limited circle of friends. the fact that i had all these upperclassmen around me (i'll be a junior in the fall) helped a lot in terms of getting academic advising, 'mentoring' and stuff like that going on. in fact, there are actually lots of perks that come w/ the college system... like academic mentors... and so on and so forth.
(5) i can say from personal experience that there is no such thing as competition here at Rice. if you want to be in a community where you're guaranteed to be studying with the smartest ppl like yourself, and nobody sabotages another person's stuff just to do better than he/she did on an exam, then Rice is an awesome place for that.</p>
<p>my list goes on... nothing against Duke overall because i did love my visit to Duke and i absolutely loved the campus and all. Rice j ust seemed like the better choice for me at the time.</p>
<p>feel free to email me if you have more questions: <a href="mailto:shannyu@rice.edu">shannyu@rice.edu</a> . and furthermore, i AM a BIOE major here, and that enables me to give you nice insider info =D</p>