<p>May 1 is here and we've all made our decisions. What schools that are seen as "better" than the school whose offer you are accepting, based on rankings, public opinion, difficulty of getting in, ivy vs. non-ivy, etc, are you turning down? Also, why did you choose your school over these "better" schools?</p>
<p>I am turning down Columbia, Olin College of Engineering, Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, and Johns Hopkins: BME to go to RICE!</p>
<p>I chose Rice over these other schools based on my visits. Rice and I just seemed to "click" so well, plus they gave me a very substantial merit scholarship that will make college as a whole about $100,000 less expensive for me than if I attended any of the others, with the exception of Olin. Olin I loved, but it is too small for my tastes.</p>
<p>i would never be able to go to rice. i don't like the weather=( and i find ppl tend to be a bit more prejudiced there, lol. plus it's in houston, the "fattest city" in america.</p>
<p>and ESPECIALLY if i had gotten into all those other schools...are you for reals??</p>
<p>ashran - I think you seem to have some misconceptions yourself. Rice is a liberal(not so prejudiced) school in a beautiful part of town with very very good engineering among other things. I don't see why you would pay the extra $100,000 to go to one of the other schools. All else being equal? You might get a crooked eyebrow, but still not out of the realm of possibility.</p>
<p>good choice flyingoctopi. u of m is very overrated. i feel the rankings hide a lot of the truth about the caliber of students that go there. you'll have a much better time at msu, anyway.</p>
<p>i would never be able to go to rice. i don't like the weather=( and i find ppl tend to be a bit more prejudiced there, lol. plus it's in houston, the "fattest city" in america.</p>
<p>and ESPECIALLY if i had gotten into all those other schools...are you for reals??
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow, as if you're oh-so-not-prejudiced yourself! How hypocritical. You're going to find people prejudiced everywhere, and don't think you're so perfect yourself. Though Houston may have its share of overweight people, your condescending manner of "fattest" city juxtaposed next to your distaste at finding people at Rice "prejudiced" is quite paradoxical. </p>
<p>You may not like Houston because of the humid weather, which I understand because I absolutely hate cold weather, but don't put forth such stupid things like "oh it's the fattest city omg who wants to go there?" Apparently ten billionaires like it enough to live there. In 2008, Houston had 51 Fortune 500 companies. A year ago it was the #2 in city with most Fortune 500 companies behind NYC, but this year it may be #1.</p>
<p>As for Rice itself, the people I've met at Rice are some of the most amazing and friendly people. The research opportunities here are endless and everyone is just so accomodating. I love it! I'm not going to complain about wearing flip flops year round and summer clothes; that's a helluva better than getting frostbite from cold northern colleges like Cornell.</p>
<p>Ever since I've visited Rice and felt its incredible atmosphere, I wouldn't dream of giving it up to go anywhere else, except to Stanford, where in Cali there is no such thing as bad weather :) </p>
<p>Sorry for the long post, I just hate it when people bash cities based on very superficial things. I don't love ALL of Houston, but the part where Rice is at in Houston simply rocks.</p>
<p>Turned down Carnegie Mellon and University of Florida for University of Miami. Everyone tells me I'm crazy, but money is a huge factor when you have 0 EFC.</p>
<p>metaldragon- Since you're (probably) in Florida, and you had the stats to get into Carnegie Mellon, couldn't you have gotten a Bright Futures Scholarship to pay for tuition etc. at UF? Rankings-wise, UMiami and UF are pretty close, but I personally think that with BF, you would have been better off at UF. Any reason why that's not the case?</p>
<p>Oh yeah- and hotasice- I completely agree. Right now, Stanford and Rice are right up there at the top of my list, maybe, just maybe, separated by Princeton, which, although it doesn't have the weather thing going for it, seems like a really really awesome school as well.</p>
<p>Well, by rankings Oberlin and Claremont McKenna are better than Barnard, which is where I'm going, but I think that's all kind of ridiculous, anyway. :-P</p>