<p>@ alam1: Rice is not overrated… if anything, it is vastly underrated. For undergraduate education, I personally think it is one of the best places to go (along with the LACs, Tufts, Emory, and Vanderbilt). Maybe it is overrated in Texas, but throughout the country, most people do not know about Rice. Plus, we are quite unique: residential college system (Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford are the only other universities that have it the same scale as Rice), excellent value w/great merit aid ($5,000/yr less sticker price than any of the other top schools… hence why we are always ranked in the top 5 for best value), excellent location in one of the fastest growing regions in the country (next to the world’s largest medical center, large museum district, and 3 miles from downtown), top science/engineering/music/architecture programs, 4000 trees on campus, decent campus food, excellent D1 baseball team, and a highly regarded public policy institute. It also has a lot of history since buckyballs (third form of carbon) was invented here and Rice also started the nation’s 1st space science department and was the location for Kennedy’s “send a man to the moon” speech, one of the most memorable speeches of the 21st century. Also, if you go to the Rice forum, there is a list called 101 reasons to choose Rice, and the list has far exceeded 200 reasons… so maybe you should check that out and then judge for yourself whether Rice is overrated.</p>
<p>Have you even visited Rice or went to a Rice information session? Please, do not make comments about a school being overrated if you have not attended or visited. I visited 16 schools, including many of the other top 20 schools, so I can place Rice in its proper context. Yes, it may not be HYPS material, but it is definitely in the top 20.</p>
<p>I also agree with you that Emory is underrated as well (especially with the CDC headquarters and Carter Center right next door, along with people like Carter and the Dalai Llama serving as professors), but please don’t put Emory on a pedestal by calling Rice overrated. Btw, you are getting our Dean of Undergraduates next year (Robin Forman)… great guy who will be missed!</p>
<p>PABank: Caltech focuses on science and engineering, they are not rated high in other areas as they do not offer anything in those areas. Everyone has to take 5 classes in math and physics, so no literature major would go there. Hence no one graduates with a literature or music or philosophy degree from Caltech. Also they have only 900 students total in undergraduate and and hence they concentrate on the sciences and do it very well. They are very highly rated by almost every study. </p>
<p>Hence your list is valid if you look at colleges with a liberal arts curriculum. I think OP asked for a list of top 20 colleges, not 20 colleges with a liberal arts curriculum. Merely because they do not offer breadth does not make it “not a top college”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t trying to say that they’re “owed” admission, Bearclub just claimed that it would be hard to find someone who got into a top ivy, who got WL’d/rejected at a WUSTL level school. I just don’t see why people think WUSTL is so awesome. They clearly play the game MUCH MUCH MUCH more than other schools…”</p>
<p>Well, I’m gonna take that as an opinion of a pure ignorant high school student who cant provide any source for what he/she claimed. =)</p>
<p>“btw - I love how WUSTL people get all agitated on this board when someone calls their school out. Soooo funny.”</p>
<p>And I love to see how ppl of your age still find something like this funny. This clearly shows your level of maturity. ~.^</p>
<p>sliknik, I agree that, on the national scale, Rice is vastly underrated, along with Tufts, Emory and some others. What I am saying is people on this forum seem to be absolutely in love with it, which I don’t think is a problem. But look at a couple of the posters on this thread… one placed Rice over U Chicago… honestly, I think U Chicago is better than both Rice and Emory (even though for “fit” reasons I am turning down U Chicago)… I have no personal dislike of Rice… my good friend, who btw is honestly a genius, was admitted to the direct med school program (Rice/Baylor) and he loved it. I agree Rice is top 20 but I think it, along with Emory, is a bit below Northwestern and U Chicago but some posters on this forum don’t agree with me. Again, its just a matter of opinion. We all know Rice is good… please don’t think I have some sort of personal dislike against Rice. Quite the contrary. In fact, I think Rice= Emory… whereas in your previous posts, you have said Rice is a bit better than Emory. So yea, I honestly am not trying to put Emory on a “pedestal”.</p>
<p>And yes, I heard about Robin Forman coming to Emory. Btw, you forgot Sir Salman Rushdie on your list of distinguished professors… just saying!</p>
<p>You’re the one who is immature in continuing this argument with me. If you didn’t care, you would have just took me for the “ignorant high schooler” I am, and left four posts ago. But, no. You had to continue to stand up for “ur” school!!!1!!!1!!1</p>
<p>Decades ago, Rice was among a number of schools that you applied to if you were incredible with the Math/Science stuff, along with MIT, CalTech, Harvey Mudd and Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>I see that Rice has now gotten into that “well-rounded” university mode…</p>
<p>by the way, in the 70’s Rice had one of the highest suicide rates due to students not realizing how tough it was at the school. By reading the comments on Rice in CC, it seems that this is no longer the case and students are, in fact, madly in love with this school.</p>
<p>Rice is not overrated just stop that. I applied and it was on the top of my list, but when I got in I finally visited, it just wasn’t for me, but there is no denying that it is a top school that deserves any praise it gets. Unfortunately it doesn’t get the praise it deserves. </p>
<p>Now I ask where is USC in this discussion. That is a school that is vastly underrated and a school I am considering.</p>
<p>@ alam1: Fair enough I do agree UChicago has stronger academics than Rice/Emory. Don’t know about Northwestern though… personally I think it is equally good as Rice/Emory (admission rate is actually higher than Rice’s and slightly lower than Emory’s). Yes, I did forget about Salman Rushdie.</p>
<p>@JohnAdams12: Yes, what you said is true. We did have one of the highest suicide rates in the country back in the 70s. We also did not charge tuition back in the 1960s, nor did we admit blacks until the 1960s (which is horrendous in my opinion). I don’t know how that is all relevant now… back in the 60s and 70s, schools like Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, UChicago, WashU, Emory, Northwestern, and Rice were not as prestigious as they are today. Most top universities today are totally different than they were back in the 60s-70s.</p>
<p>@pumpfake: I do agree USC is a rising star and one of the “hottest” colleges to go to right now. It, along with others discussed on this forum, is underrated, in my opinion.</p>
<p>pumpfake, you mean that school in downtown L.A. known for its great football teams?</p>
<p>on a serious note, it seems that USC’s engineering departement has made great strides and is now a top 20. Its film department could very well be the top, together with NYU and a few others - but overall the school is just not a top 20 yet…at the rate that it is improving academically, give it another 5-10 years or so and you will see it there though.</p>
<p>Don’t quote me on it, but isn’t USC’s engineering program in the top 10, comparable to Cornell, CM, and Caltech? </p>
<p>Also many people don’t know this, but statistically the students who get into Berkley and the students that get into USC have basically the same GPA and SAT, with I believe USC having students who have a slightly higher SAT score. Yet the school only has a big name in California. </p>
<p>All of this could be because recently the school has become extremely selective and before was easy to get into.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, I think the publics, according to USnews, were in the top 10 in the country… publics like Berkeley, Michigan… I think I also saw William and Mary higher. I doubt these colleges went down in academic quality. The probable explanation could be that USnews methodology drastically changed. If this is so, I wonder if they will change in enough in the coming years that, once again, favors large publics because, as it is currently, the top 20 schools are exclusively top privates. Just a thought.</p>
<p>About Stanford, this is the second time I’ve read that, back in the day, in was a good regional school. That amazes me. A school’s reputation, under the right circumstances and leadership, can take off in a relatively short about of time (still talking 20-30 years).</p>
I do agree UChicago has stronger academics than Rice/Emory. Don’t know about Northwestern though… personally I think it is equally good as Rice/Emory (admission rate is actually higher than Rice’s and slightly lower than Emory’s). Yes, I did forget about Salman Rushdie.</p>