Personally I would not choose a college based on architecture (unless perhaps something is just hideous LOL). After a while your surroundings just becomes what is normal. Focus on overall vibe, academic program, and anything else you care about.
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I understand as one’s visual surroundings can have an impact on an individual’s motivation and inspiration. Brings Thoreau’s Walden Pond to mind.
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I do not think that master’s degrees are “usually free”. PhD’s in STEM fields are indeed typically fully funded (and also funded in our specific experience). However, it sounds like you can afford both of these excellent schools.
I agree that visiting WUSTL is a good idea (since you are already visited Rice).
I think of both of these schools as excellent. They might both be quite close to the top of the list of schools that I never applied to and can’t quite figure out why not. I did get to visit WUSTL one time and liked it quite a bit.
I do not think that any difference in ranking matters when comparing two excellent schools at this level, and any difference might be the other way around by the time that you graduate. You might want to look at the courses that you would need to take to graduate, including both general requirements and major-specific requirements.
Then go to which ever school you want to go to. They are both excellent.
And congratulations on having the opportunity to choose between these two excellent schools!!!
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I think once you visit WUSTL you will be able to easily decide.
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I agree. It’s obvious you’ve done all your research. There’s probably no “wrong choice”.
Great schools - pick the one that you feel most comfortable. No regrets. Good luck!
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Houston had a wildly popular gay mayor for over a decade until she termed out, but she may return as county executive soon-that factor I wouldn’t worry about at all. Large and vibrant gay community.
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Congratulations! You have two incredible schools to choose from.
I agree that you need to go visit WashU.
One thing that might help you - you may have already done this, but do you know any current students you can chat with, possibly from the same high school? In my opinion the students tend to be very honest and helped my student get a realistic feel of the campus. (just remember that this is just one person’s pov)
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Deadline to accept for these has already passed? Are you waiting to accept ?
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My D was accepted at both and while I liked the idea of WashU because it would have been a lot closer to home for us, she ended up at Rice.
I think both are great choices and similar in many ways. Both are very pretty campuses. Both are similar in the sense that they are city campuses, but in right next to upscale neighborhoods and large city parks. You are correct that the Jewish population is larger at WashU. Rice has a tight Jewish community, but it’s not that large.
One thing that surprised my daughter was that the student body at Rice felt VERY diverse. While I know something like 40% - 50% of the student population is from Texas, it’s a diverse group. And the rest of the student population is from all over the place. I would not be at all concerned about the LGBTQ+ experience at Rice. Houston is a large city and doesn’t feel like stereotypical Texas - you won’t see people walking around in cowboy hats and you don’t hear a lot of southern accents. As someone commented above Houston had a popular openly gay Mayor for years.
My daughter’s favorite things about Rice was the residential college system and O-Week. Orientation Week is the first week after drop off for freshmen. They are the only ones on campus besides the upper classmen volunteers. It’s a mixture of fun activities, academic planning, and a general orientation of all things Rice. It’s a very beloved part of the Rice experience.
A couple of things about your pros and cons that I wanted to mention:
On campus housing is NOT quaranteed for 3 years at Rice. It’s technically only guaranteed for 1 year. However, there are enough rooms on campus that students can live on campus for at least 3 years it they want. They are also building 2 new residential colleges so while they have increased enrollment recently, there will have enough beds on campus to house a larger percentage of students within the next year or two. Many students do live on campus for 4 years (my daughter did) and some prefer to live off campus as well for various reasons. But after the new colleges are built there will likely be more living on for 4 years if they want.
While Rice is in Texas I would not say the majority of grads stay there. A decent number do and some of the students who are from Texas want to stay close to family. But I don’t think any of my daughter’s friends stayed. She has friends with jobs in Atlanta, California, DC, Boston, and Seattle and friends in grad/law school at Harvard, NYU, Columbia, GA Tech, Madison, etc.
You have 2 great options and really can’t go wrong! Congrats!
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Bit of an aside but I have long felt like a lot of people from a big, diverse state is not necessarily going to be all that different from a lot of people from the United States, with one possible exception. Like most larger US states are basically a microcosm of the US in terms of different urban, suburban, and rural populations, all sorts of different family circumstances, different heritages, and so on.
The one major exception in my mind is ethnicity–there are a lot more families of certain ethnicities in some states than others, and that demonstrably carries over to their public universities and often private colleges as well. And that might be a real issue if you are looking for a certain scale of community/representation for a certain ethnicity.
But other than that, I think this is one of those things I probably would have cared about as a kid, but now as an adult I am less inclined to think is an inherent issue.
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A lot of people assume that Northeast schools would have more racial diversity than a Southern school.
When my D visited Boston College, she felt the vibe was white, preppy boarding school. When she visited Rice, she felt the student body was completely different not only in ethnic diversity but an overall sense of people from different backgrounds.
She wrote her HS Capstone on the misconceptions/stereotypes by Northerners - which I found interesting since she’s only been to Texas twice - both times to visit Rice.
Rice: 27% White 73% people of color/2 or more races etc.
Boston College: 59% White 41% people of color/2 or more races etc.
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I’ve encountered that assumption too, but it is odd if you know much about the college-bound Southern population. Obviously segregation played a big role for a long time, but at most colleges most non-Southerners would consider today, the student population is pretty diverse.
That said, BC is unusually white for a prominent Northeast university, but religion can play a role in that. Like, Notre Dame is relatively white too (63%), compared to say Chicago (32%), Northwestern (37%), or WUSTL (44%). And of course Jewish-related colleges can exhibit something similar. So in NYC, CCNY is 13%, NYU is 22%, Columbia is 32%, Fordham (Jesuit) is 50%, and Yeshiva is 64% (+27% unknown, which is usually more like 1-2%, and 7% non-US).
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Here’s the WashU student geographic distribution for comparison:
Members of the Class of 2027 are from 50 states and 29 countries lus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
- 30% Midwest
- 18% Middle States
- 17% West
- 11% South
- 6% Southwest
- 5% New England
- 65% From more than 500 miles away
- 13% Other countries and territories
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By the way, it occurs to me the difference in Jewish percentages between WUSTL and Rice (reportedly 24% to 5%, so about 19%) is very close to the difference in white percentages (reportedly 44% to 28%, so about 16%).
Obviously I don’t want to oversimplify, but I believe over 90% of US Jewish people identify as white, so that appears to track pretty close. Which supports a sort of truism about diversity, that it is not really possible to maximize every possible form of diversity at once, there are typically practical tradeoffs.
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WashU and Rice are peers – disregard notions of rankings or prestige. This would be like choosing between Georgetown and Notre Dame or Penn and UChicago… (other peer examples)
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Two great choices! As others have said, you really can’t go wrong. Based on my daughter’s experiences as a Rice student, I don’t think you should worry about LGBTQ+ issues at Rice - two of her closest friends are non-binary, and I would estimate that roughly half of her friends are LGBTQ in some sense. Absolutely not an issue at all anywhere on campus (or off-campus, for that matter).
As far as housing and dining…I love Rice and my daughter is having a fantastic time there, but the quality of the housing and food varies quite a bit, depending on the residential college. Some of the dining halls tend to be pretty good, some definitely not. Some of the residential buildings are very nice and relatively new (two new ones have opened in the last year or so), and Rice does tend to renovate and replace older buildings on a schedule. But a few of the older ones are currently in rough shape, and the laundry facilities in those are especially bad. It’s the one real drawback to Rice, IMO. My daughter lives in the worst one of all, but she says the amazing student culture and traditions there make up for it.
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I’m not sure if our daughters were in the same college but mine was in one of the older ones too. But she would not have traded it for the world and like your daughter, LOVES the culture and tradition of the older colleges. She chose to live on campus for all 4 years. She liked the food quite a bit. She thought it was really good her freshmen year, got a little rough with covid, but then started making a comeback.
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Why do you think that Rice does not have a name recognitionon on east cost?
Several DD’s HS classmates turned down Yale for Rice.
Size of Jewish community not necessarily matter. How you feel on campus is very important. DD’s college is used to be religious (Presbyterian) but she goes regularly to local Chabad and participates in Hillel activities. I do not believe that significantly bigger Jewish community in college would make big difference in her college life.
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Yeah, this is just my two cents, but I think in some ways the top “interior” colleges like Rice (and to be fair WUSTL too) are sort of in a sweet spot for coastal next steps. Like, you are a Northeast employer or postgrad program or whatever, and you pride yourself in drawing nationally, and you don’t really want your next kid to be your 15th kid from Dartmouth or 20th kid from NYU or whatever. Well, then top kids from a Rice or WUSTL or whatever are really solid choices, because they are easy ways to add geographic diversity without compromising your other standards.
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My s LOVED his time at Rice, and the chef of his Residential college offered a cooking class! He brought what they made to his red college floor. He was very popular!
And as a Jewish undergrad, he had no problem feeling comfortable and finding plenty of peers.
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