Which program is better and why? What would you go for if you had both choices?
@tx1707 - congrats on acceptance to both!
First, they are different schools with regard to size & atmosphere- small private school in Houston vs. large state school in Austin- although being a part of the Dean’s community can minimize the ‘size’ difference.
Austin also seems to have a more popular reputation (recently voted #1 place to live).
Traffic in both stinks.
Have you visited both? Hopefully you will be able to judge where you might feel the most comfortable.
Other things to consider:
~ Both will offer you a quality education. UT CS department is generally ranked higher than Rice.
~Remember it is up to you to make the most out of your college education- not necessarily the school you choose.
~ $- Rice can be very expensive compared to UT. Take into consideration any scholarships you could receive and what that will mean to you and possible debt.
(FWIW- we had the same decision last year. DS chose UT & he has been very happy with the classes & connects he has made with Dean’s)
Good Luck to you!
@bookmom7 - Thank you very much for taking time to explain. This is very helpful and I greatly appreciate it. Due to our financial situation, cost wise there may not be huge difference but it helps to know that UT CS is a top rated program.
@bookmom7 In my opinion UT Austin has surpassed Rice as the premier institution of higher learning in Texas. Not only does UT Austin has more higher ranked programs but name recognition is better with UT Austin. Rice is a prestigious institution but there are many prestigious institutions today … UT Austin is one.
You can’t go wrong with either … both are great. It comes down to personal taste (if money isn’t a factor of course) … location, school synergy, on-campus orgs, on-campus activities, curriculum, etc
Both schools have excellent programs and their specific specialties. Rice has more prestige, especially in academic circles, but UT Austin undoubtedly has more “presence” due to their insanely large undergraduate population.
However, for computer science, I don’t think there is any reason to pay $140k more for Rice. If you were deciding between Berkeley or the top 3 (MIT, Stanford, CMU), then this would be a much different discussion, but I would gladly take UT’s superior program and decreased cost for your undergraduate comp sci education.
For reference, I will likely be going to UT and not Hopkins or Georgia Tech for computational biology.