TDLR: Can you enlighten me in anyway and show me a different perspective of the schools I’ve listed. Are Rice and JHU worth the extra ~ $10k investment? Is there an obvious place where I should go based on my background and career interests? Which has the best engineering program?
My priority in choosing an undergraduate education is that it propels me in graduate/professional school and in my career and help me pay off my debt. The quality of life , my feel for the campus and student body are secondary, but I recognize that wherever I go I will be spending 4 years of my life there.
I have been accepted to UT as an aerospace major and to Rice and JHU as a biomedical engineering major.
I intend to go on to graduate/professional school after undergraduate.
I am not 100% sure I want to be a biomedical engineer or an aerospace engineer or if I want to go to medical school to become a doctor.
Research opportunities are important to me.
My parents would prefer for me to stay in state (TX)
My parents have not given me constraint on tuition, however, we are a middle-class family of 5 and I am quite sure anything $40,000 - $35,000 would be too unbearable.
Austin would cost $20156 ($25,656.00 - federal loan unsubsidized)
Rice would cost $29,133 (59,133 - 24,500(trustees scholarship) - 5500(fed unsub loan))
JHU would cost $ 28,874.00 (67,174.00 - 32,300(grant) - 2,500(work study) - 3,500(fed unsub loan))
I have visited Rice about 4 times
- on paper the school makes sense
- small class size
- prestige
- high ranking biomedical engineering major (however the only engineering discipline that ranks)
- plenty of research opportunities on campus and at the medical center
- emphasis on diversity
- high ranking for quality of life
- high ranking for return on investment on Payscale and the Princeton review
- residence system is inclusive
- declare a major by sophomore year (flexible on switching majors)
- does not have an aerospace engineering
- Trustee scholarship guaranteed $98,000 scholarship
- However each time I visited I felt less and less appreciative, it felt too small, not diverse enough and stifling; plus the humidity is horrible. However, these factors are not quite significant. It just means that I don't "love" Rice no matter that it basically checks all the boxes
Now I’ve visited UT and JHU once
- my tour of UT was a very general and basic campus tour
- the JHU tour was very in-depth (campus tour, dorms, on-campus lunch, research facilities)
UT
- I instantly like UT’s campus and could see myself living on campus and in Austin.
- has several high ranking engineering programs
- one of the nation’s top engineering program
- I do not know how difficult it would be to switch engineering disciplines let alone majors, I believe I would have to apply to the other disciplines’ school to switch majors
- has an aerospace engineering
- Should I decide to be a different type of engineer I will have a selection of multiple nationally ranked top engineering programs
- the student body is extremely diverse in ethnicity and socioeconomic status
- several programs available to make learning more inclusive
- However UT is a huge school and I might lose creating a connection with professors to write rec letters and have the opportunity to conduct research with. I have some friends who attend UT who've said that it can be difficult to adjust to the environment and make friends since it's so large. Also, they've said that finding research is difficult and usually not offered to freshman and sometimes sophomores.
JHU
- similar to Rice
- #1 Biomedical program
- flexible class scheduling makes it easy to double major and explore courses
- more ‘prestigious’ than Rice
- has seasons and snow and I enjoy Baltimore (I have relatives in the area)
- JHU is extremely comparable to Rice on an academic level and 'prestige' level if not slightly higher ranking and more well known. However, JHU seems to rank low on quality of life, as well as return on investment. Generally, the students seemed to fit the snobbish rich kid stereotype more than any school I had visited.
So can you enlighten me in anyway and show me a different perspective of the schools I’ve listed. Are Rice and JHU worth the extra ~ $10k investment? Is there an obvious place where I should go based on my background and career interests?
My priority in choosing an undergraduate education is that it propels me in graduate/professional school and in my career and help me pay off my debt. The quality of life , my feel for the campus and student body are secondary, but I recognize that wherever I go I will be spending 4 years of my life there.