<p>I've been accepted into both schools. I've already visited Rice and will visit UChicago soon.</p>
<p>I applied to rice for engineering, and to UChicago as a physics major, but I'm hardly committed to either of these. I've narrowed down my career possibilities a little bit (something involving math and science), but I'm undecided beyond that. I'm not even sure if I want to go into academia or the professional world.</p>
<p>All that indecision would probably make it seem like UChicago would be a good place to go, but I'm concerned that, should I eventually discover that engineering is truly my thing, I'll be stuck. From what I've heard, it is much easier to go from engineering to another field than to go from another field to engineering. </p>
<p>But I'm similarly worried that, if I attend Rice, I'll lose the chance to be exposed to a variety of fields and inevitably end up at least doing something very close to engineering - something that UChicago might have been better for.</p>
<p>Also, I don't drink (I'm not religious about it or anything, but I'm generally wild about people getting drunk/parties). This would seem to tip things in UChicago's favor. Also, when I visited Rice, it seemed like the students were a little nerdy, but didn't really like "learning for learning's sake", and I'm someone who finds something to love in most every discipline, and wants to be around similar (but not identical) people.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Rice is about $20k cheaper a year; although my parents are willing and able to pay for either school...that number's difficult to ignore. And as far as I can tell, Rice is almost as good/as good as Chicago for most of the sciences.</p>
<p>They are both great schools. At Rice, it is very easy to change majors - and in actual fact, you don’t have to declare a major until end of sophomore year. You should have no problem “being exposed to a variety of fields.” At Chicago, they have a common core of classes, which some kids like and some don’t. My DD attended Rice and is the kind of kid who loves to learn for learning sake; she drank pretty deep from the fountain (but not much alcohol ;))and immersed herself in all sorts of areas - was a humanities fellow, did some research, traveled with Engineers without Borders, helped run a campus organization, attended lots of guest lectures, musical events at the music school, participated in res college musical, went to the symphony and ballet and all that with Passport to Houston, formed deep connections with profs/mentors… DS is less interested in “learning for Learning’s sake”, but also loves Rice and the dedicated, motivated and interesting people he has met there, and loves co-captaining his club sport and working with his prof/mentor. Neither of my kids could be considered the least bit nerdy. (And I would love them just as much if they were!) Go and visit Univ. of Chicago, and then decide - I don’t think there is a bad choice here and you will have great opportunities at either place.
P.S. Rice is excellent for the sciences - all of them. The whole almost as good / as good is meaningless distinction caused by the stupid ranking of programs in USNWR. Given a (significant) amount of effort on your part, either university will provide you excellent opportunities for graduate school and beyond.</p>
<p>At rice, NOONE will force you to drink or come to a party. It is entirely your choice and whether you choose to drink or not to, noone will think any differently of you.</p>
<p>I’m not under the impression that I would be ostracized for not drinking at Rice, but I am under the impression that social drinking is more bound up in what Rice’s students like about Rice than what Chicago students like about Chicago.</p>
<p>I know many students that don’t drink who still love Rice. Most Rice students love Rice because of its residential college system, its close-knit community (I feel like a person here, not just a number), the dedication to teaching, the plethora of research opportunities, and its balance between work/fun. People love Rice for these reasons, not because of “social drinking.”</p>
<p>Rice seems less pre-professional than schools like Emory, Duke, WashU, Penn, ND, Vandy, Yale, Northwestern, etc. I will agree that Rice is more pre-professional than Chicago, but there are plenty of students who who “love learning for learning’s sake.”</p>
<p>I was curious to see if I could find anything about alcohol at Chicago and found this link – though I couldn’t find a date. Drinking is everywhere – for some students –
and comfortably turned down, by many others. It shouldn’t weigh in as a factor.</p>
<p>Way down on the bottom it says 2009.
Both schools have their strengths and their flaws.
The intellect is alive and well at Rice – in and out of class.</p>
<p>It may be the case for some students, but that’s definitely not true for all of them. I know plenty of people who drink and many others who don’t and I enjoy my time with all of them, not because I have a cup in my hand but because I’m with those people. I like the fact that we have a wet campus because it means Rice gives us a measure of responsibility, not because it means I can easily get wasted every night.</p>
<p>With this and the Uchicago forum thread, it seems that alcohol may not be quite as big a deal as I imagined. Could we focus more on the academic side of things now? I have a feeling that’s what will end up being more important.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about being limited at Rice. Your freshman year will mostly consist of you taking basic classes like calculus and chemistry (unless you AP’ed out) and distribution courses, so you can take classes in any area of study you want to get a feel for it. I know a few people who came in wanting to be engineers who are now in the social sciences, and some aspiring doctors who switched from biochemistry to bioengineering. It’s definitely not uncommon for people to explore and change their majors accordingly.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you do find out exactly what you like early on, you can jump right in to those higher level classes. I came in intending to do civil engineering and nothing else, but realized how much I love math. I decided I wanted to take an upper level math class each semester, which will put me one class away from a math major, so as of now I’m planning a double major.</p>
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<p>That will obviously vary from student to student, but I can recall several instances where my friends and I have turned to each other and remarked on how nerdy or dorky the conversation is. People are ultimately here to learn and we all have a lot of work, so maybe a big reason you got that vibe from your visit is because we like to relax and not think about school for a while.</p>
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<p>20k a year is a lot. And yes, Chicago and Rice and both pretty damn good. But I don’t think Chicago is 20k/yr better.</p>
<p>I would also consider the weather factor, since you live in TX you probably know what Houston’s weather is like. Have you visited Chicago in the winter?</p>
<p>I’m a Texan and I didn’t apply to any Chicago schools because of the weather. It might seem like a silly reason, but I’d rather be humid in Houston than freezing in Chicago (plus, I get sick with very cold temps).</p>
<p>I’ve visited Chicago in late December, but only for a day. But I do think I’d prefer cold over humid, since the cycle of go outside to humidity/sweat/go inside to air-conditioned cool/dry sweat/go outside… sounds awful. And I can always put on more layers in cold, although I’m betting that’s a naive thing to say.</p>
<p>In addition to what others have said, I’m going to have to recommend Rice just because of the financial difference. $20,000/year is a LOT of money. I think it would be very, very difficult to justify spending an extra $20,000/year just to go to Chicago instead of Rice, especially when you don’t even know what you want to major in and hence don’t even know if you’ll benefit from the areas where Chicago pulls slightly ahead of Rice.</p>
<p>But I’m starting to feel that Chicago’s core + its strength in a wider variety of disciplines than Rice would be better for making me a well-rounded person who’s competent in a wide variety of subjects. I don’t doubt that I would be exposed to a wide variety of subjects at Rice, but it seems like omnivores are more common at UChicago than Rice, in intellectual sense.</p>
<p>You can really be as well-rounded or well-lopsided as you like at Rice.</p>
<p>If someone disagrees with me on this, feel free to chime in, but introductory courses are, in the end, introductory courses, and I seriously doubt there’s going to be any real difference between them at Rice and Chicago. </p>
<p>For instance, Chicago has a better mathematics department than Rice, but if all you’re going to do is take a few calculus courses, differential equations and linear algebra, this will be totally irrelevant–you’ll never get close to approaching the areas that actually make Chicago better for math than Rice. This is going to be true for most departments.</p>
<p>Now, the quality of introductory courses does vary from school to school–that is very true. But once you restrict your focus to schools in the top 20, my belief is that this variation ceases to exist for the most part.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, I have nothing against Chicago. It’s a fantastic school! I just don’t want to see you (or your parents) throw out $80,000 just because you think that you might get a slightly more well-rounded education at Chicago, especially when this claim is tenuous at best.</p>
I think you need to look much more at rice. Right now, it seems, and i might be wrong, like you have confirmation bias (you are pointing out what UChicago without looking much into Rice). Rice University has a distribution credit in which you are REQUIRED to take courses from three different distributions: [Distribution</a> Credit | Office of the Registrar | Rice University](<a href=“http://registrar.rice.edu/students/distribution_credit/]Distribution”>http://registrar.rice.edu/students/distribution_credit/)
That is just like the core at UChicago.
From a student who has also visited Chicago in the dead of winter, let me say that late December is nothing in coldness compared to mid winter. Late December isn’t that cold at all. Plus, this year was actually milder than the last few years for the midwest.
Let me say this. 80K for Chicago over Rice is 80K less for grad/professional school. Does that make a difference? Unless you don’t want to go to grad/med/law/professional schools, then it probably isn’t as significant as if you do.</p>
<p>I have to agree with you that I do have some confirmation bias for Chicago. However, I disagree that Rice’s distribution credit is just like UChicago’s core. I feel like UChicago’s core is representative of a different campus culture than Rice’s. When I visited Chicago, I heard students talking casually about academic things that didn’t have to do with their major/classes. I did not hear much of this at Rice (although it must be mentioned that the sample size of 10-20 students could easily be inaccurate, I don’t think I’m wrong for both campuses as a whole.)</p>
<p>Weather seems like a pretty frivolous thing for either university, so I’m trying to ignore both of them.</p>
<p>Re: grad school. I’ve heard that grad school for hard-science (which I think I’ll be doing) is much cheaper than med/law/professional (which I really think I won’t) due to various stipends, scholarships, etc…true?</p>
<p>I’m from Texas and I go to uchicago. The cold sucks sometimes, but it isn’t terrible. Rice is a fine school, but it isn’t really in the same league as Chicago.</p>