<p>waitlist at tulane=yield protection. There’s no other explanation.</p>
<p>Unless you enjoy pain (ultra-competitive academic pain, that is) and cold weather, I recommend Rice.</p>
<p>My D got into Tulane with full tuition scholarship (turning it down for full tuition at WashU) and they told us that there were 40,000 applicants for 1600 spots. They don’t have a notification date and are great about telling you a month after you apply so the class of 2013 have been filled for awhile. People will decline in April after they hear back from other schools but meanwhile they can’t admit anymore.</p>
<p>I plan to visit RICE and stay for one night next week.
if I do not rent a car, how to get to Rice from Houston airport ,
by taxi or by bus ( if buss available from airport to RICE ) ?</p>
<p>any suggestion ?</p>
<p>look on the Owl Days website; they have all the info for using Supershuttle, or bus. :)</p>
<p>anxiousmom, </p>
<p>many thanks.</p>
<p>brown2009 maybe you’ll get into brown.
[Brown</a> College](<a href=“http://www.brown.rice.edu/]Brown”>http://www.brown.rice.edu/)</p>
<p>So I wrote this for someone who was having a similar dilemma.</p>
<p>Rice and Hopkins are both incredible schools, and biology programs at both institutions are very solid. Overall, I will say that Rice has much more of an undergraduate focus while many people say, “JHU is for grad school.” The faculty and administration at Rice are wholly invested in the undergraduate experience, and it’s much easier for undergrads at Rice to become involved with research and get one-on-one attention because we’re not competing for attention with the grad students. And after graduation, both schools have great grad school and career placement. In general, the overall academic quality of both schools are pretty similar, so I would base your decision on other things: student life, campus setting, atmosphere, extra-curriculars, future plans, other academic programs, etc. Obviously, I’m going to be biased towards Rice :), but one of my roommate’s friends who goes to Johns Hopkins recently visited Rice for a weekend because she applied to transfer, and my high school teacher went to there, so I’ll try to summarize what I’ve heard about the school based on what they’ve told me. </p>
<p>Student life at Rice revolves around the residential college system, which, in many people’s opinions, is the university’s strongest social asset. The college system is very inclusive of all students, and it really creates a close-nit, family-like feel. After a day at school, I immediately felt at home just because of the automatic camaraderie that is a product of the structure of each college—many events and parties are sponsored by each college with their $40K/year budgets. A personal story about the college system: Each college has a set of Masters who are faculty members and their families who live in houses right next to the colleges. I got really sick right before finals last semester, and my masters took me to the hospital and checked in on me for 24 hours until my parents could fly in from out of town. Like I said, your college really is like a family, and that connection is great to have especially in emergencies. Hopkins, on the other hand, has a small Greek system (fraternities and sororities, just in case you didn’t know… I’m not sure if Greek life is a common term abroad). If you end up there, I would definitely recommend rushing and pledging a fraternity. From what I’ve heard, this is the easiest and best way to fulfill your social needs. Granted, I’m not a huge fan of Greek life because it tends to be snobby and elitist (that’s not to say all of it is like that though), but if there’s not much else happening on campus, I would definitely embrace it.</p>
<p>Houston and Baltimore are very different cities. The north-south, east-west discrepancies in the U.S. definitely account for something, and this can definitely be seen when comparing Houston and Baltimore. Houston is southern with a bit of western flare. It creates a rather hospitable, laid-back local culture. While more conservative than Baltimore (Bush is from Texas), the actual city of Houston leans to the left in most elections, and Harris County voted for Obama. Houston is also a much newer city. While modern architecture is refreshing, the city is an unfortunate victim to suburban sprawl and general lack of urban planning because the area grew so quickly with the oil boom in the latter half of the 20th century. Baltimore is a northeastern city, and although the northeast is arguably the most developed and cultured region of the country, northeasterners themselves have a reputation of being cold, stuck-up, and blunt. This is largely an over exaggerated stereotype—my family is originally from the northeast, some of the nicest people I know live there, and, depending on my mood, I prefer them to southerners. However, because of this stereotype, many colleges and universities in the northeast have reputations of being snobby, elitist, and overly competitive. And to answer your question about competitiveness, JHU is notoriously cutthroat. There are lots of huge, weed-out intro classes that lend themselves to a sort of dangerous academic Darwinism. I’ve also heard that Hopkins also has a problem with grade deflation in many cases. Rice is really chill. People do their homework and study together (within the boundaries of the Honor Code), and professors want their students to succeed. Rice is hard, and you’ll have to earn your grades, but there’s always plenty of people to turn to if you need help. Politically, the region is very liberal and progressive. Baltimore is an old city, founded decades before the American Revolution, and Houston does not even begin to compete with its historical charm. The cities’ demographics are also very different: Houston (pop. 2.2 million; metro area 5.7 million) is mostly Hispanic and white with a large African-American minority, while Baltimore (pop. 638,000; metro area 2.6 million) is mostly black within the city and white on the outskirts and in the suburbs. The weather in Houston is definitely more attractive to most people, although there is a lot of humidity and more heat in the summer (which doesn’t really matter because most students don’t stay for the summer). August and September are hot, but the rest of the school year is very pleasant, minus a few cold snaps in December and January. Baltimore has hot summers and very cold winters. There’s plenty of freezing rain and snow in the winter, and while the fall is cool and comfortable, the spring tends to be gloomy and rainy until late April.</p>
<p>Rice also has a lot of school spirit. We have a pretty strong NCAA Division I-A athletic program. Baseball is a huge deal at Rice, and the Owls often make it to the College World Series. Football is also pretty popular—the team was ranked 35th in the country last season. Hopkins competes on the Division III level, with the exception of lacrosse. Hopkins lacrosse is amazing, but that’s about it. While this whole sports thing may seem kind of stupid, just trust me that it’s really nice to be in such an upbeat, spirited environment when you’re personally stressed out with schoolwork. Both my teacher and my roommate’s friend describe Hopkins as depressing, and lack of spirit is probably a huge contributing factor.</p>
<p>The workload at Rice is tough, but it’s definitely doable. I have no idea how it compares to Hopkins in this sense, but the simple fact that Rice is more laid back might make the workload more enjoyable. And while both schools are renown for engineering and science, Rice is probably a bit more well-rounded than Hopkins. If it turns out that Bioengineering (or any sort of science and engineering) isn’t your thing, Rice has really strong programs in political science, English, economics, and history, to name a few.</p>
<p>Since this whole thing has been about how great Rice is (which it is), I will concede that meal plans and late-night food options are better at Hopkins although the food itself is better at Rice. Also, Hopkins’ relative proximity to Washington and Philadelphia (both of which are much cooler than either Baltimore or Houston) shouldn’t be discounted.</p>
<p>In the end, I definitely think you should go to Rice. You’ll be much happier both academically and socially. Sorry for writing an essay on all this, haha. I just wanted to cover everything I could.</p>
<p>Rice and JHU are two of my choices as well. Academically, both are stellar, though I would say JHU is more “prestigious.” However, from what I’ve read on CC and other sources, Rice students seem to have a better overall undergraduate experience (even Princeton Review says so!) than Hopkins’ students. Just going to JHU’s forum, it seems like many students are unhappy. Of course, I’m saying this from what I know on paper… I’m sure you’ve heard this many times, but you MUST VISIT both schools to see how you feel. =]</p>
<p>I agree with a lot of what you said, but I must disagree with you on how ‘well rounded’ JHU is; they do have a kickA international relations program. One of my friends got accepted, and I’ve had to hear her chirp about the greatness of JHU (she’s a humanities chick, she’s going into international relations), while she’s had to hear me chirp about the undeniable awesomeness of Rice).</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, sorry if the wording was confusing, but I said that Rice is the more well-rounded school.</p>
<p>Oops, I think I didn’t read your post properly : / Sorrryyyyy.</p>
<p>Anyway, Rice is totally the more well-rounded school, even though JHU is pretty well rounded. Plus, laundry at Rice is ‘free’ = D </p>
<p>Who could pass that up?</p>
<p>Hermes, enjoyed the full thoughts and opinions of a Rice student…and we are big Rice fans particularly for their trademarke and effective Residentail colleges, but we live more in the Baltimore Hopkins corridor. It is always helpful on this board to get longer missives from students in their own colleges.</p>
<p>As a Duke parent, I will applaud Hopkins for their pro-active campus security system which has been very effective in a city that is crime-infested (NOT bashing Baltimore, please, grew up in that region). But students were victimized in the past and Hopkins stepped up their security game admirably. The Hopkins campus is under appreciated as well…it is historic and absolutely lovely and fits perfectly in its location. Baltimore has much to offer students including access to gazillions of internships and research options. Students have to be alert and recognize where they are at all times however.</p>
<p>oh…and my thanks to the equally amiable Rice parents who frequent this board…and immediately wrote me last summer when we were planning a (very) sudden flight to Houston formy son’s interview and visit…one more indication of the hospitality in the Rice culture (happy, satisfied parents who testify to their children’s great education and life at Rice)</p>
<p>Rice Village is much much more amiable/relaxing/relatively safer to stroll to from Rice Campus and offers what we felt was a great additional homey quotient to Rice’s campus life right in the middle of a major city.</p>
<p>Hopkins is also underappreciated for its liberal arts programs…the English and History departments among others are incredible and so is International Relations. The eastern seaboard is “home” to many and Hopkins is well-placed.</p>
<p>Our son didn’t apply to Hopkins though. He applied to Rice, where their unique Residential College system and relaxed, upbeat student body greatly appealed to him. Didn’t win merit although he is admitted, so he will likely be attending a college where he has been awarded scholarship in this recession. Congrats to all you lucky merit winners at Rice, although our son has some happy outcomes elsewhere.</p>
<p>my updated information:</p>
<p>waitlisted in order of time: TULANE, WUSL, NW, UCHICAGO, DUKE, UPENN, CORNELL;
rejected by DARTMOUTH, BROWN.</p>
<p>accpeted by RICE, JHU, CMU.
I accepted UPENN’s waitlist ( just for fun)</p>
<p>will visit both RICE and JHU soon</p>
<p>S had the same choice two years ago. It was a tough decision. He visited Owl Days at Rice and spent an accepted student’s day at JHU. He was equally impressed visiting classes at both schools. Both campuses are beautiful. He’s a laid back type of guy, so he ultimately felt more comfortable at Rice. We’re from the East Coast, and no one could understand why he turned down JHU for Rice. 
</p>
<p>I think it’s a tough choice. Academically, they are both top notch. Visit both and see where you’ll feel more comfortable. </p>
<p>S has friends that went to JHU and loved it.</p>
<p>BaystateNutmeg,</p>
<p>thanks for your comments. It is hard.</p>
<p>thanks again.</p>
<p>Brown2009 - Good luck with your decision. I’m sure you’ll do well wherever you end up. The visit may help you make the decision.</p>
<p>quote:</p>
<p>kaybee</p>
<p>Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 3</p>
<p>My d is a student at JHU and has told me that only about 15% of her professors know how to teach. She has to teach herself most of the material. She’s happy enough, but this was not the place I would have picked for her.</p>