<p>It’s hard to say how good the classes are, as I have never taken classes at another university. Overall the professors are good, but there are certain classes (some of them infamous, such as certain chemical engineering ones) that are known to be ridiculous.
The social life is pretty cool. I’m not sure how it is at other universities, but I went to Northwestern recently and there were virtually no parties, apparently because most of the events had become internalized to frats and their pledges. There are no fraternities or sororities here (although all students are in residential colleges, which I guess is similar in some ways, but much better ;P). The party scene is pretty big; we have a wet campus and no RAs so you can drink/have a party in your room whenever you want. Actually people have gotten so ridiculous with drinking that the alcohol policy was recently put on probation due to the increasing amount of EMSed/hospitalized students. Virtually all weekends (and often on weeknights) there are fun parties to go to. Students occupy themselves in various ways when not studying; there are a significant amount who never drink, there are people who always play video games, etc. It’s also worth mentioning that there is a fairly big drug scene here (not hard drugs, but it’s easy to find cannabis, ecstasy, etc., which is telling). The area around here is pretty cool; right next to Rice there is a place called Rice Village which is a sort of shopping center with lots of restaurants and stores; the zoo is near here, which students can go to for free, and there is plenty of other fun stuff in Houston.
I would recommend going here, because it’s relatively small (in a good way), we have residential colleges (hard to describe how much of a pro they are if you haven’t been part of one), it’s really easy to find research, we have #1 quality of life of universities in the US (I’m pretty sure), etc. The only cons I can think of are the weather (pretty hot here at the beginning/end of the school year, also pretty consistently humid) and location (Texas).
I’m currently a Freshman here btw. Hope this helps.</p>