<p>Hey guys!
I am an international student from China. Now I cannot easily make a decision between Rice and WUSTL so that I am here to ask for your advice.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>academics
For both schools my intended major is Electrical Engineering. However, i want to make a double major or sth like that in business/economy. I know Rice Engineering is generally better than that of WUSTL. But Rice does not have a business school for undergraduates...Does this hurt?</p></li>
<li><p>location
It's a Houston vs St. Louis. My question is, considering future career & job market & internship oppurtunities, does location mean that much?</p></li>
<li><p>people around
Are people in both schools friendly and helpful? You know that i may have a hard time at the very beginning since i have to get accustomed to a brand new culture and environment.</p></li>
<li><p>campus life
How are Rice's and WUSTL's dorms? What about food? Is it convenient to go shopping near the campus?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I really appreciate your help. Thank you all very much.</p>
<ol>
<li>How is Rice’s Engineering program generally better than Wash U’s? Just by going off USNews Graduate program rankings? Useless.
There is a new building being constructed for the Electrical & Systems engineering department, which will open this summer. From what I know it’s a pretty small department so you’ll have a lot of faculty attention and small class sizes. You should really do your research on the Electrical Engineering department’s website, where you can look at the main research interests, classes, and other good information: <a href=“http://ese.wustl.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://ese.wustl.edu</a></li>
</ol>
<p>Rice’s not having a business school probably squashes your ability to study business there. Wash U has a business school, and a sizable amount of Engineers take classes (or second major) there. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>No. </p></li>
<li><p>Yes. Definitely for Wash U, and also for Rice from what I’ve heard anecdotally. </p></li>
<li><p>WUSTL’s dorms are very nice. The whole residential community is amazing, beyond just the facilities. Wide variety of food, generally very high quality. Lots of options depending on your nutritional preferences. Some think the food is a bit pricey, but I personally don’t think it is too expensive (and I’m not wealthy) especially compared to schools similar to Wash U. There is shopping within walking distance (the Loop district, mainly boutique and indie stores), but there are also two or three malls within 10-15 minutes (free transit takes you to the closest one, it’s a large, generally upscale mall).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope you attend Wash U! It’s probably hard for you to make an informed decision given that you are from China. You should join the Bear Buddies facebook group for accepted freshman where you can contact other current students one-on-one: [Washington</a> University in St. Louis Class of 2015 | Facebook](<a href=“Facebook”>Washington University in St. Louis Class of 2015)</p>
<p>bump…
really wanna hear from more ppl.
thx</p>
<p>I can’t exactly compare WUSTL to Rice since my son only attends WUSTL, but he has found the people extremely friendly, the food terrific, and the dorms wonderful. I’ve called him on occasion on a weekend and he was grocery shopping with his roommate, just going off-campus and getting a few snacks for the fun of it. It’s also extremely easy to get to/from the airport via the transit system, which doesn’t cost anything to students. (It’s ~$28 for NU students to do that each way.)</p>
<p>I was looking pretty intently at both schools last year, and here’s what I would say:</p>
<p>Academically, I would call it a tie</p>
<p>I really disliked Houston personally, but St. Louis isn’t too much to brag about.</p>
<p>The people at both schools are friendly and laid-back, but to me, the people at WashU just seemed more intelligent. I will admit, much of this was from a pretty bad tour guide at Rice, and another tour guide who used y’all twice in one sentence, despite being an English major.</p>
<p>I think WashU has MUCH nicer dorms (seriously, Rice’s dorms look like they were designed by a bathroom tile company). Can’t say I ate at Rice, but food at WashU is very good. Shopping is very accessible.</p>
<p>why no replies… sigh</p>
<p>Hi cyhtjdg, what other questions do you have? A few people have responded with opinions to your questions, and I don’t think more people responding will necessarily give you new perspective. I would tend to agree with everything that has been said. Do you have any other questions that we Wash U folks can answer? </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I have a question in a similar vein to cyhtjdg’s: how do WUSTL and Rice compare in the humanities and social sciences, particularly psychology and English?</p>
<p>Questions involving comparisons are extremely hard to answer…we only attend one university, and our knowledge of others is often no better than yours.</p>
<p>grammarfreak: the search feature is your friend :)</p>
<p>English: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/1101725-english-creative-writing-wustl.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/1101725-english-creative-writing-wustl.html</a></p>
<p>Posts in this thread on some social sciences majors: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/695842-washu-v-penn-international-relations.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/695842-washu-v-penn-international-relations.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t know what specifically interests you in social sciences, but I very highly recommend the Econ dept here, and the Poli Sci dept is amazing (especially after you get past the one or two freshman intro courses, which are kind of large, but I at least had a good professor so it wasn’t a negative experience despite the large size). </p>
<p>Also, regarding humanities, you should really check out the IPH (interdisciplinary humanities project) major. All the people I know in this program absolutely love it. Admittedly, I haven’t done any research on comparable programs at other schools, but this seems really unique for Wash U to have. [The</a> Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities](<a href=“The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities | Washington University in St. Louis”>http://iph.wustl.edu/)</p>
<p>I’m not a Psych major so I can’t comment much on that, but Psych is certainly in the top 5 most popular majors at Wash U. The graduate program is ranked 13th according to USNews (I know… I know… rankings…) It’s common knowledge that Cognitive Psych and anything related to neuroscience are the strongest concentrations. </p>
<p>FWIW, the current dean of Arts & Sciences here, dean Gary Wihl, was formerly the dean of Rice’s humanities college. We took him a year or two ago. He’s spoken at a couple events and seems to be a nice, smart guy.</p>
<p>@OP</p>
<p>I was in your position last year having been accepted to Rice and Wash U. They both gave me nearly identical financial aid packages; however, WashU offered me a research internship during the summer after high school so that was one of the big reasons to attend WashU. Seriously, you can’t go wrong at either school.</p>
<p>Some of the other reasons I chose to attend WashU:</p>
<ol>
<li>You probably noticed while looking into Rice that they really push the residential college system. I wasn’t a huge fan of that system because it seemed to divide an already very small student population. I didn’t want some intensified rescollege rivalry confining my social interactions to just the 200-300 people in my area.</li>
</ol>
<p>WashU’s rescollege system is much more laid back. Sure we have “Residential College Olympics” that can get pretty competitive, but for the most part students don’t really care what rescollege you are from.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I liked the medium-sized university feel more than Rice’s smaller feel. I don’t know why; I think it made it feel more collegey.</p></li>
<li><p>Weather! Coming from Los Angeles, I was used to the entire year being a mild variation of summer. Being faced with the decision between Houston or St. Louis, my thought process was as follows:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Houston: mild variations of summer + humidity
St. Louis: actual seasons</p>
<p>I chose seasons.</p>
<p>So, those were a few of my reasons for choosing WashU. Both schools are stellar; at this point it’s just picking the one that you think you will fit in better. It’s a tough decision but know that you really can’t go wrong. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>MS</p>
<p>musicalscientist, thx for ur reply.
Actually I love Cali! lol. especially the weather of LA.
btw, since you are from LA, a definitely large and great city, how do you feel like St. Louis? There’s a Houston vs St. Louis game you know.</p>
<p>hey vbball90,
I want to know that if I can have a great many internship opportunities in WashU and St. Louis… since my intended major is EE, which i think is kind of unusual at WashU. and what about future job market for EE students from WashU?
Houston vs Stl. Does this matter a lot?
In addition, I wanna double major in Olin. Can I do this? How’s Olin graduates’ job placements? especially for international students.</p>
<p>Many thanks</p>
<p>Well I went to Rice awhile ago and I recently visited WashU. To me the college feel is similar, however Rice is smaller.
Houston is a great place to go to college. Rice is in the middle of a vibrant medical center and the neighborhood is gorgeous.
In terms of business, WashU is better.</p>
<p>Good luck. You can’t go wrong on either college.</p>
<p>lacroseeemom, what about St. Louis? How do you feel like it?
yep, i do think that a double major in Olin is better than just a minor in buzi at Rice. Is this true? I mean in finding internships and job in my future career.
I do not want to be just an engineer… XD.
But Houston just offers much more oppertunities in internship and job than St. Louis does?</p>
<p>St Louis has tons of large companies headquartered here, not to mention satellite offices of other large companies, and a host of mid-size and small companies.</p>
<p>I’d say most students don’t end up interning in the city where their University is – whether that is Houston or St Louis. Just because you are going to school somewhere does not mean you will be spending every summer there. While I do know a lot of people who have worked for large companies in St Louis, most of my friends found a job elsewhere because we have so many companies recruiting here from out of state. New York and Chicago are by far the most popular cities for summer internships. St Louis of course is common, but there are a fair amount of people who end up in DC or Los Angeles or Minneapolis.</p>
<p>flashmountain，
so how did they find internship and, job in the future? you know that i’m an international student so that I care this a lot… No doubt I wanna work in a better city</p>
<p>Well, for what this is worth…upstairs right now I have a boy from Houston visiting us (we are in California). They are Houston transplants. The dad, coincidentally, grew up in St. Louis and still has family there. The mom is from Mexico—>Cal—>Houston. They hate Houston, moved there for business (he is an oil trader), and can’t wait to get out of there. The boy (who is upstairs) will go to school anywhere but Houston. The dad speaks lovingly about St Louis (except he has lived in California so I doubt he’ll ever live there again). My son will be a freshman at WUSTL in the fall (olin). Although I could see him doing internships in St Louis or Chicago, there is no question in my mind that he will not ultimately live in St Louis. All US schools have job placement- WUSTL has extensive connections in other parts of the country. It’s a big school with a big name. So, just like I don’t think you would end up in Houston if you went to Rice, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll end up in St louis if you go to WUSTL if you did not want to. Both schools have recognized names beyond their region. You need to look beyond job placement when you are making your choice- they both have names and are recognized outside of their cities-and instead focus on programs that give you the education and focus that you are interested in- and only you can answer that question.</p>
<p>flipper – as a parent, it would be nice for you to set the tone here and offer positive differences between the schools/cities without tearing one down. I have one son at Wash U and one son at Rice and they’re both terrific schools with supportive down-to-earth students, gorgeous campuses, great faculty, and lots of resources. The biggest difference for the poster is in the strength of the particular programs he’s interested in, but he really can’t go wrong with this decision.</p>