USC or Rice?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1

<p>I know based on rankings (both in general and in engineering, which is what I'm planning on studying), Rice is the better school, and I also have to pay about $8,000 less at Rice, but during my visit there it just didn't 'feel' right... whereas my USC visits are always awesome. But I'm afraid that this feeling of 'belonging' at USC is there only because these events are designed to attract prospective students... I've never visited on a normal schoolday, or experienced a typical night at USC. Could someone tell me if the same atmosphere is prevalent throughout the whole year? If it 'feels' right for me now, will it still when I'm an actual student? I love how you can minor in things such as music recording or theatre while getting an engineering degree at USC, as well as all of the organizations for women (SWE, WISE), but my parents are really pushing for me to go to Rice because of the academics and finances. Can Viterbi match or beat the education I can get at Rice?</p>

<p>Also, this one bit worries me... a friend of mine visited USC three times, only to be detracted by it each time. She stayed overnight, and said many people are segregated by ethnicity. Is this true?</p>

2

<p>First off I warn you that my visit I’ll describe was an explore USC visit, but let me explain.</p>

<p>The staff and teachers were very open and warm, which of course, was expected as they want to attract students. That’s to be expected. My overnight stay, however, was awesome. Not awesome in the explosive, fun packed way, but awesome in the way that so many of the people I met were casually friendly and down to earth. </p>

<p>I stayed at Birnkrant, which has a good mix of being social/studious, and at during the evening, everyone kept their doors open, and a bunch of people popped in to chit chat with my hosts and the explore kids. It wasn’t a fake friendliness, there wasn’t any snottiness or segregation. I am Asian, my hosts and about 20 other people that came were mostly white. I seriously do not mean to generalize or comment on race, but that was the case. Other explore groups/floors had a mix of races, it just so happens that I met a lot of white people. I will comment that race segregation could happen (as it could happen at ANY campus), but I have the feeling that it is your choice whether you want to make friends exclusively with your own race or not. I don’t think you’d be ostracized if you tried to mix in with a group that’s predominantly a certain race.</p>

<p>But I digress. All of them were pretty cool. They weren’t the jocks that USC is stereotyped to be filled with, nor were they all nerds, to be frank. The entire floor was very outgoing, I visited 3 or 4 rooms without experiencing much awkwardness. The campus was also pretty social. At about 11 o’clock (don’t ask), there were still quite a few people outside hanging out, with some kids throwing around footballs. </p>

<p>All in all, the experience was very cool. Nothing was forced, no one I met was really superficial or snotty (although they definitely exist), and students I talked to were helpful. I can’t wait to be at USC during football games. Good luck with your choice and finally, I can say it, Fight On!</p>

3

<p>USC has a huge number/variety of clubs and activities which will allow everyone to find their group of friends. There are special interest housing (cinema, business, international, etc.). From what I heard, USC has very social, friendly students with a broad range of interests. In your case, finances may be an important consideration. Does the $8,000. X 4 years ($32,000 and maybe more if tuition goes up) make a significant difference to your family’s financial situation? Also, I suggest that you look more closely at the differences between Rice Engineering and Viterbi Engineering. Both are great schools.</p>

4

<p>I’m intimately familiar with both schools. They are as different as apples and pineapples. Both are highly-regarded privates with great engineering departments, great school spirit and excellent sports teams, but the similarities end there.</p>

<p>Being from Texas, I am allowed to be honest about the atrocious environment of Houston. The heat, bugs and humidity of Miami, but no beach or palm trees, and with the odor of benzene. Winters are nice. The weather is a feature you have to adapt to and endure. </p>

<p>This is a key consideration, as people most easily find jobs after graduation in the region where they went to college, and you will have good jobs to pick from in Houston and really have to work at it to get away from there if you still hate it after four years. Picking a college also picks a region where it will be easy to settle in afterwards, though it is possible to escape if you are willing to accept fewer options and the disruption of a move.</p>

<p>You might find it interesting to know that Houston companies do not recruit much in the Dallas and Austin areas, because they know it is hard to get anybody to move from there to Houston.</p>

<p>LA is nice year around. With only 10 rainy days a year, almost boringly-nice. Sunny and mild, day after day after day. But NorCal is only an hour away on Southwest if you want to see rain and fog. The mountains are a couple hours away by car if you want to see snow for awhile, while snow-boarding even. Palm Springs and the Mojave are close by if you want to be scorchingly-hot.</p>

<p>The other huge difference is size. Physically both campuses occupy about 300 acres and are easily walkable. Rice has wide-spaced, low buildings. USC is more dense and vertical. Where the size factor comes in is that USC has about 5 times the number of students, 15,000 vs. 3,000 undergraduates. With numbers comes every type of diversity and variety. Most people only have a handful of really close friends at any one time, and the small number of people at Rice will not effect your ability to know some nice, like-minded friends. You will have a bigger pond to fish in at USC, however.</p>

<p>One last thing, Rice has a kind of funny reputation in engineering circles, especially in Texas. Most engineers went to UT or Texas A&M, and have only met one or two people ever who went to Rice. Everybody knows Rice has a great reputation, but they usually say the Rice engineers they have met or worked with were bookish, socially-inept and ill-suited for the real world of engineering. The real world where engineering brilliance is important, but not called for day in and day out, and where toleration of the occasional mundane task and having reasonable social skills play a big role in success. Rice is excellent preparation for engineering graduate study, as is USC, but if a career in engineering after a bachelor’s degree is a possiblity for you, you might want to think about what I have written.</p>

5

<p>Thanks everyone for the informative answers! :slight_smile: So if I were to say I’m not quite sure if engineering is the field I want to go into for sure, USC would probably be my best bet, right? Since there are so many other fields within USC to go into… and if I did end up loving engineering, I could get my masters in 5 years. $32,000 of debt (plus interest) isn’t that bad… right? :(</p>

6

<p>Definitely doable. Anything under 40k is absolutely fine.</p>

7

<p>Right! The common wisdom regarding student loans is not to go into debt for more than what you can expect to earn your first year out of college. $32,000.00 is not an outrageous amount. If you can live with the debt, pick USC since you seem to like it better. And don’t forget, USC offers a lot of financial aid opportunities, including merit, for their students. Just because you do not get any merit aid your first year does not mean you will not get any merit aid during later years.</p>