<p>My son was accepted at both MIT and Rice for electrical engineering/computer science. After talking to people at MIT (who couldn’t be bothered), and then at Rice (not only with a prof who had taught at both, and told me that the kids were of the same quality) but for 1.5 hrs. which the comp sci department head, he chose Rice. THe weather was warm, and the personal attention and research opportunities with world-reknown profs from first semester on were amazing. All the top recruiters came to Rice.</p>
<p>My daughter, who also majored in EE/comp sci, chose to go to MIT because of their music program! (Rice has a conservatory). Also, she went to HS in Europe, and wanted to be in a more international community. To this day, I don’t know how she fared in electrical engineering, which is a huge department, but she found her niche in the music department, which is small, and loved MIT.
The top kids in math chose Harvard, but the engineers went to Cal Tech, Rice and MIT.<br>
BTW, Rice offers merit scholarships.</p>