If you are going for Film, then UCLA (and Los Angeles environment) will be your absolute best choice.
@uclaparent9 Although I love film (and plan on taking many film-related classes for fun in college), I will likely be pursuing some type of business degree. I realize neither UCLA nor Rice has an undergrad business major, so I would be doing econ for whichever I go to.
@MYOS1634 Could you elaborate on what makes Rice a better undergrad experience? I really like the idea of smaller class sizes there and greater interaction with professors.
Class size, undergraduate focus, interaction with faculty, seats in the library/ease of reserving a room there for your study group, ease of getting the books you need, how fast something is fixed or replaced… Simply, money. Rice is a wealthy private institution with an undergraduate focus. UCLA is a great university with a graduate focus and making dinner with udget cuts. It’s a great institution, one if the top publics, but the cuts have affected the undergraduate student experience. At Rice 2/3 of your classes would be small (20 and fewer) allowing for plenty of interaction with peers and faculty; 7% would be large (50 or more, with only 2% above 100.) At UCLA, 51% of your classes would be small, mostly in the upper years, but 23% would be large, with fully 12% above 100. Most if our early classes would be large lectures, versus seminars at Rice. Your lecturers would be topnotch, but so would the professors at Rice, and the experience would be very different.
What program did you apply to at Rice?
- making do.. Not 'making dinner '!!!!!!?!
Unless there is some special reason you want to attend UCLA due to the Los Angeles location, I would pick Rice over UCLA any time if both cost the same amount; you will get a higher quality education (ranked #5 in quality teaching) at Rice. Besides, it’s ranked higher than UCLA. When I think of Rice, I think of Brown – smaller and high quality education.
By the way, I found out that my kid didn’t really get flat out denied by UCLA but got waitlisted instead. He found out the letter offered him an option of going on the waitlist which he rightfully declined so that someone who wants to attend UCLA can have the spot.
Another thing to mention the most important aspect of college is the bond and relationship you build with your professors. They can do recommendations and open doors and are invaluable . My daughter is at Rice and she was able to get a paid research position as a freshman. Not only research but paid research that lead to doing research in the summer. And rice is so beautiful and you get free admission to the Houston zoo next door to the university and to Houston’s fabulous art museum. Also Rice is always number one or close to it at Niche for happiest students. It is known for it’s cooperative rather then competitive atmosphere. My daughter loves it. I’ve heard duke is much more cutthroat. As for duke, chapel hill is a fun college town, though I myself might choose UNC over Duke for a fun school, but it is not the big city like Houston oh and Houston is a lot easier to get to then chapel hill. My daughter didn’t even apply to Duke.
Rice is sounding like a really awesome deal, and I would likely go there over UCLA. However, if I want to go into finance, it seems like Duke is the strongest in that area. Is it possible that a Duke degree would pay itself back over time?
@ambitionsquared: That much more than Rice?
No.
Note that with those cost savings, you can pay for a top-tier masters or top-tier MBA and still likely have some left over.
DS went to Rice. Cannot say enough fabulous things about the opportunities there.
Of my 3 “dream schools” I mentioned in my original post, I was waitlisted at Harvard/Brown and accepted to Penn! This is awesome!
It would be heartbreaking to turn down Penn, even at double the cost as Rice. Does anybody have advice on how to make it work financially? Could I defer for a year to save up money to attend?
Congratulations on Penn. It would be more heartbreaking to go into debt when you have Rice, which is a fabulous school, and affordable. It’s okay to let go of a dream when reality is so much more…realistic.
Why would turning down Penn be heartbreaking?
OK, thought experiment: Take the small college in a pretty part of Houston with the residential colleges and call it “Penn” with a top 10 ranking and Ivy designation.
Take the big urban uni in a gritty part of Philly and call it “Rice” and a ranking around #20.
Which would you attend and why?
@ambitionsquared Try not to get too hung up on a “name” and focus on the education. Both Rice and Penn offer a great educational opportunity. Learn more about each school. Will you have an opportunity to visit either or both as a prospective student?
If you are looking to defer for a year to save up money to attend a school, that would suggest an option that is not really financially feasible.
If you are looking to study “business” (my recollection from previous posts, but I didn’t go back to verify), and plan to get an MBA, where you get your Masters is going to be much more important than where you studied for an undergraduate degree.
Regardless of what you think your long term plans might be, keep in mind that many, many students make dramatic changes in their plans as they work through their education. You may well be one of them.
“Heartbreaking” would be to turn down Penn for a school with limited educational resources, but Rice is no such thing. In many respects, it has an edge over Penn. It is NOT a step down from your dream. Just different. And more affordable too, which is extra awesome. Go for it.
@PurpleTitan In that scenario, I think I would attend “Rice”, since I loved Philly when I visited and had difficulty liking Houston (I’ve been there over a dozen times, and it hasn’t grown on me). However, I do like the “residential colleges” aspect of “Penn”.
The crazy thing is, this isn’t even deciding between a cheaper big average-flagship-quality school and an Ivy.
This is between two schools who are, when you look at alumni achievements (or quality of the student body, or educational quality), on the same tier and the smaller school where more personal attention is likely is the cheaper one.
What @PurpleTitan said. Going to Rice seems to be only a compromise in location. Certainly not educational quality.
I saw your most recent post. The thing is, if you love Philly so much, you could splurge on multiple vacations there and still come out more ahead if you take the scholarship.