Hello, I am a CS student who has the dilemma of choosing between two great universities for computer science (costs will be about the same for both). UIUC are both highly rated for computer science, but I feel as if UIUC certainly trumps Rice in terms of its research infrastructure, opportunities, and reputation.
That said, I am much more attracted to Rice due to personal preferences. Whereas UIUC is a huge state school, predominately Greek, and has mostly instate students, Rice is a smaller, more personal private schools from all around the world, However, I’ve heard Rice CS is overcrowded, which would cancel many of the benefits of a smaller school.
After undergrad, I want to go to grad school, so research opportunities and professor relationships are important to me. While UIUC seems to have higher quality research in general, I believe Rice would be more nurturing.
I’ve posted this on a CS career-centric board and the answer was almost unanimously UIUC. I thought get some more respectives by asking CC. It seems in a way that I’m trying to convince myself to go to Rice, but I don’t want to make a mistake, since this is a transfer and I’d be stuck at that school afterwards.
Go to UIUC. It is one of the top CS programs in the country. Rice is not.
You will find that the UIUC engineering program is much more diverse than you think, and since they restrict the size of the class, it is not that large.
You’ll get as good of education in CS at Rice as UIUC and enough research opportunities and preparation for grad school. It sounds like you would be a better fit at Rice and that’s important. And it would be a more nurturing environment which makes a difference in terms of eventual outcomes - remember, a university is not simply a trade school.
My daughter is a freshman at Rice. Though she is in the social sciences she has been able to do hard core research with the opportunity of getting her name published, and by the way getting paid too, as a Freshman. Her grandfather is a college professor. He has always said to go to a school as an undergrad that is focused on undergraduate education. Many highly rated schools are geared to their graduate school.
Even if UIUC is better if you want to go to grad school that school will matter more seriously go to Rice do well go to a great grad school and your prospects will be in no way diminished…also the Texas area has a booming tech sector and google loves Rice
and look at the value…at Rice you get quality housing quality food in a major city with a beautiful campus…UIUC you just get the short end of the deal to compensate for in state kids