<p>Hello everyone. I have finally finished getting replies back from Unis but am feeling lost in the decision. I want to be a chemical engineer or mechanical engineer (leaning towards chem now).</p>
<p>My list is:
Rice
Berkeley
UCLA
UT (Not honors)
Georgia Tech Honors
A&M
Colorado School of Mines
Waitlisted at CMU and MIT</p>
<p>I have looked at rankings and such, but I really want to go to Rice from my list. I feel I will be most happy there. I am still totally open to ideas/opinions though. I really want to pick a place based on: ease of getting a job, acceptance rates to amazing grad schools (like MIT or Stanford), research opportunities, and overall best experience.</p>
<p>I am really worried about my current decision about Rice because it is ranked very low and I feel I won't have as big a chance to get a good job/be accepted to great grad schools. If my concerns are true please tell me! Additionally, I am in-state for Texas, but am willing to take a loan out if need be (I will need to for Rice, but feel it is worth it atm).</p>
<p>Please help!</p>
<p>first lets eliminate</p>
<p>SCM because it is the worse ranked ChE school by far and worse overall ranked school</p>
<p>UCLA because you already have a 1-3 ranked ChE school in UC Berkeley</p>
<p>Texas A&M because you already have a 5-10 ChE ranked school in state in UT</p>
<p>Georgia Tech because you already have two top 10 ChE ranked State schools</p>
<p>===========</p>
<p>you are left with </p>
<p>Rice
UT
UC Berkeley</p>
<p>generally ranked in ChE as follows</p>
<p>1-5 — UC Berkeley
5-10 – Texas
20-25 - Rice</p>
<p>Rice will probably give the overall better undergraduate environment</p>
<p>UCB will probably give the best ChE environment</p>
<p>UT is in between</p>
<p>If money doesn’t matter, then UT should be eliminated</p>
<p>then it is between </p>
<p>UCB with a world renowned ChE top 2-3 department within the incredible School of Chemisty and world renowned overall University</p>
<p>v. </p>
<p>Rice, with a highly ranked overall university, much smaller student body, classes and studen/teacher ratios for undergraduate than UCB and with a 20thish ranked ChE department</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. I have looked at it in that sense as well and basically you have narrowed down the choices similarly to me (except I took Berkeley off the list since it was basically an expensive version of UT in my case. </p>
<p>I am just a bit confused with rankings in general and whether I should trust them. Any opinions on that? People have told me that smaller schools like Rice get hurt in the rankings even though they may be better overall for students than the others. Is this true?</p>
<p>by the way, I have a BSChE degree and if I were given the choice between Texas or Rice, I would probably go for the smaller environment of Rice, but that is just me…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>give me an example</p>
<p>I have, for instance observed a faulty bias against smaller Graduate Engineering departments in the USNWR Graduate Engineering rankings…</p>
<p>however, in the USNWR overall research university rankings it is well known that the rankings are biased in favor of the smaller schools.</p>
<p>I have just heard from several people that Rice is ranked relatively low as an engineering school for undergrad in the USNWR since it is small and doesn’t advertise that much.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t care for rankings if employers don’t (at least in the range we are talking). I really just want to get a good job after college and get into an awesome grad school. I am the kind of person who uses opportunities as fully as I can (which is why I like Rice - easier to get research opps).</p>
<p>Rice is ranked #19 in USNWR undergraduate engineering rankings, not exactly considered that low, right behind Texas A&M at #17 (UT is at #11)</p>
<p>and Texas A&M, as you know is considered a big time Engineering school</p>
<p>Do you have a link to that? From what I saw, Rice was 33rd last time I checked :S (might have been different rank since I didn’t pay for the USNWR.</p>
<p>But how important are these rankings? And why is Rice ranked lower that say UT or Berkeley?</p>
<p>Ok here’s my opinion (BS and MS in ChemE and starting a PhD program next year):</p>
<p>1- Rice is a good school. You’re not choosing between a really good school and an eh school. If its boiled down to Rice vs UT I can totally understand why you would choose Rice. College is about fit and where you feel most at home. </p>
<p>2- Don’t worry about not getting into great grad schools. If you don’t get into great grad schools it will be because of you not your school. Its as simple as that. I’ve been going around the country for the past 6 weeks to some of the best grad schools out there and you know what? A lot of them have people who did their undergrad in so-so places. Rice doesn’t even fall in that category! They got in because of their high gpa, good letters of rec and very solid research. The benefit of going to UT vs Rice is probably minimal. </p>
<p>So to boil it down it really fit. If you want to go to Rice I say go to Rice!</p>
<p>Thanks guys! Lots of help. I am still mauling it over. More to come!</p>
<p>I would say do Rice. You have a great list of schools, but Rice is still a great school and you said yourself you would be happiest there. Going to Rice won’t keep you out of any graduate schools and being happier there can only have a positive effect on your grades and overall performance, which in turn helps job prospects and grad school prospects.</p>
<p>SchoolAdvice, just to consider… You must likely will be be paid the same once you graduate. UT and Rice for the most part share the same recruiting employers. Most likely you’ll be working alongside people that graduate from UT. They will have $10k -$20k in debt while somebody from Rice be in the $40k - $60k debt depending on your financial situation. If that doesn’t bother you Rice is a good choice.</p>
<p>UCBwill give you a different employer base, a job in CA wI’ll pay you more but cost of living will be much higher.</p>
<p>Exactly how much debt are we talking about here?</p>
<p>I’d go with UT here. Good program, good price, good city (if you can handle the heat).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>ha!</p>
<p>I’ll take Austin heat over Houston heat any day</p>
<p>For Rice and UT specifically, how hard is it to get a solid GPA in engineering at both these schools for mech or chem engineering? Is it harder to maintain over a 3.5 at either of these schools compared to the other? I heard Rice has a brutally hard system even compared to UT? I am willing to work a lot, but I also want sleep and don’t want to work into the late hours of the night every night :S. Is either easier in this sense at UT? I really want to graduate in 4 years with a good GPA so I get a good starting job.Though UT is by no means easy, is it easier than Rice? I come from the IB diploma program in high school and have take a few AP classes online alongside this as well and I have had to work to do well. Will it be equally tough at both or not?</p>