<p>I've been accepted to both Stanford and the Rice/Baylor program and now I'm trying to decide between them. I live in Houston and am pretty sure (85%?) I want to become a doctor. Rice also offered me merit scholarships and research money. However, I want to have the full college experience in undergrad and California/Stanford sounds like a wonderful place. Stanford is also more prestigious than Rice.
Does anyone have any suggestions/comments that can help? thanks</p>
<p>whats the full college experience? a few things to consider though. </p>
<p>stanford is a big place. there are way more research opportunities but if you are in rice/baylor and have research money then i dont see how that matters much. their pre-med is supposedly intense, as in, get ready to be mauled by a tiger intense. again if you are basically in med school and will learn everything there, i dont see why this would be a good thing. they have higher ranked programs in pretty much everything. they have more majors and many more classes (rice has very few majors). for example i would get a BS in symbolic systems there, whereas here the comparable major is a BA in cognitive science, which is little more than a psychology degree. </p>
<p>rice is a small place. it is in a really nice area. residential colleges rock. people are not intellectual and are really "normal." wet campus.</p>
<p>It's worth considering that if you are at Stanford, you may not be able to get the full college experience you imagine, since you will be desperately trying to get top grades in the pre-med classes, get involved in research, start or run medical-related extracurriculars, etc., so that you will be a competitive med school candidate. If you go to Rice as part of Rice/Baylor, you can just study whatever interests you, be in whatever clubs interest you, go abroad for a year, spend lots of time with friends, etc. </p>
<p>So depending on how you define "full college experience" Stanford might not be the place to get it....</p>
<p>Also, the money issue is worth considering. You won't want the amount of debt you are in to limit (or even just pressure) your specialty decision, how many hours you have to work, etc. Staying out of as much debt as you can is worth it. </p>
<p>And Rice/Baylor is not at all binding, so if you do well at Rice, you can certainly go on to Stanford med, or somewhere else. (Although that too will likely be more expensive - Baylor is in the top ten med schools in the country, and is the cheapest of the privates).</p>
<p>"If you go to Rice as part of Rice/Baylor, you can just study whatever interests you, be in whatever clubs interest you, go abroad for a year, spend lots of time with friends, etc."</p>
<p>Yes basically you can be a bum for the next four years. Look at jenskate she considers CC as one of her classes.</p>
<p>(sorry jenskate couldn't resist a swipe)</p>
<p>No seriously, she is correct. If you want to be a doctor, why keep extra pressure - enjoy and if you do well, you can always go to other med schools. Also, you are getting almost half ride.</p>
<p>dude, im in the waitlist...ill take ur spot to r/b lol but just giving salutary adice here: take r/b you will get the full time to trully explore your interests.</p>