All are good schools. Have you been able to visit any of these 3? What are you looking for in terms of size, location, environment? Or are those factors not that important? Because the schools vary quite a bit in some of these areas. UNC is probably 4 - 5x the size of Rice in terms of undergraduate enrollment and maybe 3x the size of JHU. Do you care about whether or not there is a greek system? Rice does not have one (have residential colleges instead) while JHU and UNC both do.
You said UNC is significantly cheaper. Do you have the means to pay the difference at the other schools if you decide on one of them?
Iāve only been able to visit Rice (what a gorgeous campus!!) which is a bummer. As for financials, I may want to go to medical school and attending rice/jhu would put me in a lot of debt. I donāt know if the opportunities there are worth that cost.
Iāve never visited a medium-size school so I donāt know if I would like that - however, I like smaller classes and more discussion/group work based environments. I probably will not join the greek system but I donāt mind its existence as long it isnāt overbearing.
Do you/anyone else know anything about how the BME programs compare between UNC/JHU/Rice? I know that Hopkins is ranked extremely well but is its program significantly different from the one at rice or at UNC?
Do you know if you can get a masterās during your undergrad at rice in four years?
You might want to create a āhelp me chooseā post in a more broad forum where people might be more familiar with all 3 schools. I suspect you will be told to choose UNC due to the financials. Med school is expensive and the advice that those who know a lot about it usually give is to save your money for that rather than going into massive debt for undergrad. Also, UNC is a good school and the campus is very pretty. We never officially toured it but were in the area to tour Duke so we walked around campus and it was probably one of my daughterās favorite campuses she visited in terms of appearance and the surrounding area.
My daughter is a BME major at Rice (Rice calls is BioE) and I do know that while there are a few pre-med kids in the program, they really donāt recommend it as a major for pre-meds. Itās a very challenging program and the typical GPA coming out is good, but maybe not med school good.
As for whether you can get your masters at Rice in 4 years. Honestly, Iām not sure. If itās possible it would probably depend on your major. I know you can get your BioE Masters in 5 years but 4 would be tough due to the major requirements as a BioE undergrad. If thatās important to you, you might want to touch base with someone at the school to discuss!
My daughter received a very nice care package from Rice today! The box was filled with a tee shirt, water bottle, stickers and other materials that provided a much needed boost from the doldrums of quarantine. Thanks RICE!
The VP of Enrollment told a group of alumni that since Owl Days was cancelled due to the pandemic, Rice used some of the funds that were budgeted for Owl Days to send Rice swag to the admitted students. Some of the students in the upper classes are jealous as all they got was an admissions letter and a small pennant.