BTW, studies have been done that show that happiness/unhappiness due to location and weather is transitory.
People in a hard cold Chicago winter think “wouldn’t it be nice to be in sunny CA”. And they do get an initial bump up in happiness after moving (which is why vacations may be good) but that soon fades, and over the long term, LA residents are no happier than Chicago residents.
That’s true with locale (and campus prettiness) as well. I’ve lived on both coasts and the Midwest and if I could live anywhere with the same job and lifestyle, I wouldn’t be where I am now (and I loved the Bay Area). But I also know that my overall happiness wouldn’t be affected because it wasn’t before by the locale I was in.
And look, I’m not telling you to not choose Penn. Ultimately, it’s your life and you’re not my kid, so I don’t really care.
But from a purely ROI or educational quality perspective, it’s not justifiable, so be honest with yourself: If you choose Penn, it’s because you’ve decided to be ruled by your emotions.
And hey, emotions are what makes us human (that’s why so many people say “follow your heart!” . . . even when that may not be the best advice).
I actually think you’ll get a better education and experience at Rice. I hope you can visit both and make the one that resonates best with your gut (as opposed to your ego) work out financially.
@redpoodles@PurpleTitan@porcupine98@Eyquem@Lindagaf Thank you all for your advice. After more consideration, I think I’ll likely be a part of Rice’s class of 2021, but I’ll make sure to provide an update when I make my final decision on May 1.
Congratulations on being accepted to Penn and Rice for that matter. I have a good perspective on this as I am an alumni of Penn and my daughter attends Rice. So many nuances here I could go on and on. City, campus, climate, size, strengths, bureaucracy, “ivy league”. Penn is at least three times the size of Rice and much more bureaucratic. Rice has a more Liberal arts college feel and is entirely more supportive and cooperative “homey”. Penn is not now the college I attended in the 1980’s but I did not find it cut throat but it has always had its number of, darkly, suicides. I’ll try to be brief . City: Philly much more urban and cultured and grungy. Walkable great public transportation vibrant. Houston more prosperous cleaner safer. Campus urban industrial campus where you’ll be dodging traffic . Sirens car horns fire trucks 24/7 neighborhood goes down rapidly don’t walk past 46th street .Rice a bucolic fairyland quit campus bordered by park and zoo on one side and a very high end residential neighborhood on the other . Walking to class you will be dodging joggers and those little golf carts of the ground crews, who will be out, and other rice employees, Almost nothing within walking distance. Climate. Rice in February you will be sipping latte outside the student run coffee house, no coat, listening to the conversations of professors and students who will be talking to each other serenaded by the sound of chirping birds . Penn in February you will standing in line at a grungy Starbucks in the sleet while being panhandled by a homeless person. Frats are definitely a presence at Penn no frats at Rice Penn parties will be frat parties Rice lots of coordinated school wide events with big school spirit and very playful. Rice is a wet campus, legal drinking is allowed which makes it less prevalent somehow. Bureaucracy, Pen is larger and more bureaucratic. Professors will not be all that accessible never see them outside class. All classes used to be taught by actual professors but intro classes could be bigly, e.i. Huge. Rice your going to run into your professor on campus and he is going to ask you how your project that’s due is going that you haven’t started on yet but later you will be invited to his house which is in Houston for dinner and he/she will set you up doing research for them. Note did you mention economics. Where you admitted to Wharton? It is almost impossible to switch between schools at Penn e.i. Arts and sciences , Wharton, engineering. Rice you are admitted to every school except I think architecture. . Strengths Rice better engineering, science, way better applied science, music. Penn better business, humanities, nursing can’t be beat. I kid you not, being able in life to say “I have and ivy league education” is nice but I suspect you will get a “better” education at Rice. Philly is a more vibrant city then Houston but way grungier. Houston is nice if you have a car and did I mention Houston has palm trees?
@ambitionsquared Remember, you don’t need to decide today, or even this week! Give it some time. LEARN more about each school. In the end, you will make a decision that is probably some combination of reason/emotion. That’s great.
Also, whichever you school attend, there will be things you like more and some things you don’t like so much. It’s not a perfect world and there is no perfect school. There are quite a few very good schools out there, though. And you can be a successful student at many of them. Good luck with your decision and with your future college life.
OP, I agree with @PurpleTitan esp with ROI as the main consideration. You can save bucks, have an AWESOME ug experience at Rice, and then do Penn for MBA. You’ll have the best of both worlds with that approach. Almost a no-brainer. Congrats and good luck with your decision.
I think OP should chose Rice for financial reasons but for those of you who have formed opinions of Philly and haven’t been recently, there is a huge resurgence going on in the city, especially around Penn.
My Oxford scholarship recently got bumped from 20k per year to 48k per year! I would be paying about 37k per year for Rice and 17k per year for Oxford/Emory. I would likely prefer Rice between the two, but the merit award at Oxford/Emory is certainly tempting. Any advice?
Wow, congratulations!!
The Oxford/Emory scholarship is really good and if your parents would agree on banking the savings, it’s pay for part of your MBA.
Rice vs. Oxford/Emory, I’d pick Oxford/Emory in that case. But it’s a case where you can’t make a wrong choice!
Are you attending Owl Days or one of the Admit Days at Rice? If so, that will give you the true flavor of Rice. My D is also trying to decide between Rice and Emory College. She is attending a Rice Admit Day and also visiting the Emory College Atlanta campus soon. Is your scholarship to attend Oxford or the Emory College Atlanta campus? The Oxford (rural) campus is very different than the metro Atlanta campus. Oxford students spend the first two years at Oxford then go to Emory’s Atlanta campus for the last two years. If possible make sure you visit Oxford before you make a decision.
Follow the money. It’s college, not a post-doctoral program in nuclear physics. The 4 year difference is $80,000. How long will it take you, in the career you anticipate now, to generate an extra $80K in disposable income? The highest annual income of non-STEM college graduates is ~$50,000. If your impression of Atlanta is so-so and you end up back in high-tax California, you will have virtually no disposable income after college. You might rationalize the cost if your parents are paying for it, but they are no different than you. Besides, you might inherit the difference someday.
Seriously, it should not be all about money. But when you have very little of your own and have the opportunity to go to one great school or a second great school, and one comes with an $80,000 gift… Seems straightforward.
At this point, it seems pretty tough to justify Penn when Emory/Oxford is 220k cheaper. I should also note that Rice only requires me to maintain a 2.8 GPA during college to keep my scholarship (avg. gpa there is 3.55); Oxford requires me to maintain a 3.4 GPA to keep my scholarship (can’t find any official data, but heard from a student there that avg. gpa is 2.9-3.0). Rice might be safer in that regard.
@PurpleTitan One parent wants me to go to Rice, and the other wants me to go to Penn. I didn’t feel a great fit at emory, but it is def a great school. Didn’t like Oxford, but it would only be two years. I would like to pursue an MBA, so that money could come in handy.
@MYOS1634 Thanks! If I go to Rice, I’ll be primarily responsible for paying for a masters. If I go to Emory, they said they could use the saved money to cover most of grad school.
@Houston1021 The scholarship would be for Oxford campus, but would continue through my 2 years at Emory. I didn’t like Oxford’s campus (very small) and the geographic location (pretty isolating). I will be doing owl days soon.
I’d go with Rice over Oxford/Emory for several reasons: 1) Rice is a better school with more resources, highly engaged faculty and happier students (if you loved the Oxford/Emory setup, that would be one thing, but you don’t, so I don’t see that as a great option); 2) the GPA required to maintain scholarships is much more reasonable at Rice than at O/E; 3) you are not a big fan of Oxford – the first two years of your entire college career represents a significant chunk of time, esp. if you have any any thoughts of studying abroad.
My daughter had to choose between scholarship weekends at both Emory and Wash U. (Emory would have been for a potential full-ride Woodruff/Emory Scholarship; Wash U was for a maximum of full tuition). She chose to attend the Wash U. weekend and never looked back (The same can be said for another CCer whose mom and I have chatted as our daughters have had similar tough choices to make). For the record, my D also got the $28K from Rice and probably would have taken that over a full ride at Emory, but YMMV.
I don’t think that Penn is worth a large premium over Rice, but I do think that Rice is absolutely worth a premium over Oxford/Emory and that Rice is a much better choice than either UCLA or Cal. @robotrainbow, @MYOS1634, and @jym626 have given you a good overview of some of what Rice has to offer, and I think that the benefits of a private university in terms of class size, resources, undergraduate focus, and the ability to graduate in four years make UCLA/Cal a less than ideal option for a liberal arts education.
Seems restrictive to me though. I think part of college should be exploring new areas of potential interest. High GPA requirements could allow for less risk taking and experimentation. At colleges I am familiar with, there is a huge chasm between a 3.0 and 3.4/3.5.
But it’s a case where you can’t make a wrong choice!