Understand that both schools are great for Engineering. Any insights on how good the Undergraduate program in Physics / Applied Physics is? All inputs appreciated.
Would also like to know how the acceptance rates are in both these colleges.
So for Physics generally, Georgia Tech has a WAAAAAY bigger undergrad Physics program, but Rice actually does a relatively good job producing future PhDs.
However, Georgia Tech has an Applied Physics undergrad program, whereas Rice apparently does not. So if that is a particular interest that would seem to point to Georgia Tech.
Otherwise they are very different colleges in terms of size, often cost, and so on, which I would think would normally dominate a decision over which to do for general Physics.
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Thank you!
Both are very competitive. GT’s acceptance rate last cycle for out of state applicants was 10%. If you are international, it will be even less. Georgia Tech Admission Announces Final Round of Decisions – Enrollment Management News
Rice’s acceptance rate is 8%. https://admission.rice.edu/apply/class-profile
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The 2023-24 CDS now has admissions specifically for In-State, domestic Out-of-State, and International, which is cool. It is a year behind at this point, and not all colleges are reporting, but I think still worth looking at when available.
So for Georgia Tech, domestic OOS was 4328/34535 (12.5%), International 835/8392 (9.9%). That’s actually less of a drop than I have seen some other places, but as you point out, definitely lower.
Unfortunately, Rice did not report. Still, it is a pretty good assumption it will be lower than Rice’s overall admission rate, which was 2447/31059, or 7.9%, in their 2023-24 CDS. Just for comparison, Emory did report separately. Their overall was 3543/33255, 10.7%, and Internationals were 498/7548, 6.6%. That sort of difference, from what I have seen, is more typical for highly selective (and expensive) private colleges like Rice.
OK, so I am pretty sure Rice’s International acceptance rate is typically at least somewhat below Georgia Tech’s, maybe quite a bit below. Of course what this means for any given International applicant is extremely complicated, including when you factor in pay status.
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1 clarification needed - when you said “bigger UG Physics program” at GT - did you mean in terms of number of faculty / research opptys? Or did you mean the number of students majoring in Physics / Applied Physics?
This is very clear - thank you for the insights on acceptance rates
@NiceUnparticularMan @momofboiler1
With “bigger undergrad Physics program” I was referring to the typical number of undergrads majoring in Physics (through graduation).
That is easy to check with NCES College Navigator, although it is important to know it can vary year to year.
Rice in this cohort had 10 Physics majors, and no Applied Physics since that department at Rice does not have an undergrad program:
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=rice&s=all&id=227757#programs
Georgia Tech had 52 Physics majors:
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=georgia+tech&s=all&id=139755#programs
It looks like they didn’t report Applied Physics separately, but I know they have it, through their Physics Department:
In contrast, counting faculty is a lot trickier, because those lists are often broken up into different categories, joint faculty can play an important role, and so on.
And then research opportunities–that is extremely complicated because more students means more competition for research opportunities, but if there are more such opportunities, it might be OK, but then what about grad students . . . just very hard to sort out.
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