<p>Sorry if this topic has already been covered in the past; I looked for answers in past threads but couldn't find any that helped. </p>
<p>This is indeed a question about prestige. Yes, I realize that they're both great schools, so please don't give that as your answer. Which school is "better"? Everything else being equal (cost, etc), which one would you attend? Which one looks better to outsiders? Would they be more impressed with a Wellesley grad or a Rice grad? (BTW, if I were to go to Rice, I would probably study science/math and nothing else; however, at Wellesley, I might double major in international relations and math.)</p>
<p>This is a hard comparison to make because they're traditionally on different lists (liberal arts/national universities). But the argument my parents make is that Wellesley is the <em>best</em> women's college, while Rice is just "near the top" of national universities; therefore, Wellesley is probably going to look better. </p>
<p>What are your opinions?</p>
<p>It depends on the person and how knowledgeable they are. Are you interested in impressing the bum hanging outside the corner store, your HS friends, your parents friends, employers or grad schools? Employers and grad schools will be equally impressed. they will be more interested in what you did while you were in college. Wellesley has a national reputation too and it is very likely that someone may have heard of it over Rice. But Rice is a university and some will be more impressed with that. Your parents logic doesn’t make any sense to me either way. Are you really going to pick a college on whether a stranger happens to have heard of it? There simply is no absolute best. There is only best for you.</p>
<p>@BrownParent
Thank you! I see what you’re saying. Yeah, I’m not going to make my decision based on which would impress strangers more. That’s only one factor in my decisions, but I wanted to get a straight answer for this question that I’ve had for some time. I think my parents mean that Wellesley is “the best” in its own category, while Rice is in the top 20, so some people may intuitively be more impressed with Wellesley based on that. Practically, I realize that they’re going to do similar things for me.</p>
<p>Your parents’ priorities are misplaced, as BP said more kindly than I will. Four years from now it will make no difference to anyone but you and your parents which school you attended. Let’s hope it is a school that has allowed you to flourish intellectually and emotionally, to create a network of friends upon which you can depend, to garner relps with professors that will last decades, to introduce you to ideas and experiences most humans will not be so privileged as to have had the introduction. Can a woman’s college do that better for you than a coed one? Can an LAC do that better than a uni? Can a NE college do that better than a TX college? Can Wellesley do that better than Rice? Only you can answer these questions about yourself, and that’s why people encourage students to find the right fit, cliché as that seems. I’ve been very impressed by Wellesley but don’t know Rice at all, so I really cannot help you choose one.</p>
<p>I’m going to agree with jkeil911 here.</p>
<p>To answer your question, neither is particularly more prestigious than the other. Wellesley is a well-recognized name and people will be sufficiently impressed when you say that you went there. Rice is perhaps less well-known, but as was already mentioned, employers and graduate schools will be familiar with both and know that the quality of education at both is good. You say that you don’t want people to say that they are both great schools, but the problem is that you want people to give an answer that doesn’t exist - “better” is inherently subjective, and neither school is necessarily more prestigious than the other.</p>
<p>But more importantly, when you’re 25 years old and working (much less 35 or 45), you won’t CARE about the prestige of your undergraduate school. I think a lot of HS seniors imagine that they’re going to get the thrill of telling people what college they went to well into their adulthood when really the novelty of that wears off early into the freshman year. What will be far more important to you is the experiences you had there - the classes you took, the events you attended, the friends you made, the activities you did. And the older you get, the less impressed people are with your college. After your first job, it doesn’t really help you get a job on face (not talking about alumni connections). Your experience does. And people stop asking where you went to undergrad unless you’re having a conversation about college memories.</p>
<p>So where do you want to go? Do you want to go to a small coeducational research university in Texas? While Rice is small and undergrad-focused, they do have graduate programs and significant research going on there. Or do you want to go to an even smaller women’s college outside Boston? Is international relations appealing to you - do you WANT to double major? Which college has other kinds of programs that appeal to you (study abroad, exchange, activities, internships)?</p>
<p>My person opinion doesn’t matter; what matters is your desires. But everything else being equal, I’d probably go to Wellesley - but that’s because I went to a women’s college and I loved it, and would love to go again.</p>
<p>You still can, juillet. I’d bet Spelman would have you back in a heartbeat. But could they match your NYC salary? 
</p>
<p>Wellesley is much more prestigious and much higher regarded than Rice, which is a great school but lacks the name recognition of a Wellesley. These aren’t really comparable school either, as Wellesley is for the northeast elite power families and Rice is more of a school for smart upstarts in Texas. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine prestige taking a front seat in this decision, given the glaring differences between the two schools. One only has to read up on the recent Naked Sleepwalking Man Statue at Wellesley to get an idea of how very different they are. Regardless of how one feels about that issue, Wellesley is Wellesley and Rice is Rice, and the two don’t generally compete. Decide on anything other than prestige, because making the wrong decision is only going to lead to four years of misery.</p>
<p>I disagree that Wellesley is much more prestigious. They’re very different schools.</p>
<p>I’m actually not considering Rice anymore - not because of prestige, but just because it’s too close to home. </p>
<p>However, since creating this thread, I’ve looked into more national rankings (not just USNWR). Most of them rank Wellesley higher, but a few rank Rice higher. I think it’s personal preference. Rice is perfect - just too close to home for me! I want to get out of Texas so bad haha. </p>
<p>Congratulations, OP. Wellesley is a great school, too, and you’ll get a fine education there and get to see one of America’s really great cities and its diverse and, um, different people. Wellesley is a special place, and so too is Boston. I hope they both get to know you.</p>
<p>@absentions where are you off to? I was between UPenn, Rice, and UCLA for the longest time. Off to UPenn!</p>
<p>@noel597 Congrats! (UPenn -.- rejected me ED.) I’m still trying to decide between Dartmouth and Wellesley!</p>
<p>Sometimes the college you choose will say things about you that are unintended. Wellesley has a reputation, but I would not want my daughters to go there. I understand the desire to get ‘away’ from home. Rice is a better school for science and math. It also does not carry a stigma about the type of student they matriculate.</p>
<p>If you are still between Dartmouth and Wellesley…all else being equal, Dartmouth would be my recommendation. </p>
<p>Torveaux, what kinds of unintended things will a Wellesley degree say about our daughters? And you’d have us instead send them into the student body that is Dartmouth right now? My, a Wellesley degree must be a foul-mouthed voice that we should prefer it to the kinds of obscenity being practiced to some degree on Dartmouth’s campus. I can think of only the good things that attending Wellesley would say about our daughters. What did you have in mind?</p>
<p>Yeah actually the stuff happening at Dartmouth is holding me back a bit but I’m not the type to participate in alcoholism or fraternize with the wild Greek people so maybe its not too big of an issue.</p>
<p>And I do feel like its a bit demeaning that Wellesley girls take an hourlong bus ride just to party with MIT frat boys.</p>
<p>I agree with what others have said. Wellesley is much more prestigious, but they are very different schools. Visit each and see what you are looking for in a university. A simple visit will likely show you how different the schools are and you’ll be able to tell which is right for you.</p>
<p>@informative Do you mean W is much more prestigious than Dartmouth or Rice?</p>
<p>It depends in which circles.
Wellesley certainly is more prestigious in certain circles (think elite east coast/economic&political power), Dartmouth in Wall Street/whiteshoe firms, Rice in science/tech. </p>
<p>@abstentions: really, they’re all quite different so surely one has to “feel like home” more than the other?</p>
<p>Until Torveaux said such a thing, I wasn’t aware of a “bad rep” for Wellesley, except that as a women’s college some people may assume some students are gay, but this type of reputation doesn’t affect Wellesley much in comparison to, say, Smith, and in this day and age, well, I’d assume we’re talking very old and conservative people who still can’t wrap their minds about the concept of women in power and gays existing (I’m taking a wild guess here because I know such rumors exist but I’ve never actually heard them in person, to the point I wonder whether they may be remnants of another era, “phantom rumors”, kind of like phantom pain).
This is all the “bad stuff” I’ve heard directly:
There’s a person I know who had a problem because Hillary Clinton was a student there 40 years ago. Another person thought it wasn’t socio-economically diverse enough. An obnoxious jerk thought Wellesley was out of bounds because it taught its students to feel confident, to speak in class, and to ask questions (that jerk also had a very limited view of what female students were “good for”, so that discredited any further opinion of his). That’s the whole extent of “bad” stuff I’ve heard about Wellesley.</p>
<p>Torveaux, I’m astounded that you’d prefer sending your daughter to Dartmouth rather than Wellesley after everything that’s come to light in the past 3 years and in particular with the refusal of some in that community to address the very real problems in their midst. Apparently, some students think racism is funny. There have been more than 30 sexual assaults <em>officially declared</em> last year, some including objects, and pledge abuse is considered sort of a rite of passage. What is especially troubling is the refusal to admit that a culture of rape and torture is a problem, with financial threats from alumni if any attempt at curbing the excess was made.
Whatever’s wrong with Wellesley in your opinion can’t be as bad as that.</p>
<p>The college’s president has decided to change this culture. He is to be applauded. Let us hope he’ll succeed.
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prepared-remarks-by-philip-j-hanlon-president-of-dartmouth-college/2014/04/16/149e56b2-c5ad-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prepared-remarks-by-philip-j-hanlon-president-of-dartmouth-college/2014/04/16/149e56b2-c5ad-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html</a></p>