<p>Anonymous: Rice is part of Conference USA. You will be competing against N. Texas, Memhis, MTSU, UNC - Charlotte, etc. I bring that up because these schools, while fine schools in their own ways, are not in Rice’s league academically. Make sure your coach will truly allow you to be a full time engineering student. What I mean is make sure he will allow you some slack for the occaisional late afternoon lab, that he is efficient with his practice times, and when you travel out of town to Charlotte or Memphis the team doesn’t take excessive amounts of time to travel. I think you can discern this by looking at your potential future teammates majors, and whether and who receives academic awards such as Academic All-American. Another question to ask is what are the graduates doing 1, 5, 10 years out?</p>
<p>You will only be an athlete for 4 more years, best case.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. You have some exciting options. I think that whichever option you choose, if you work hard at it, understand that there WILL be emotional troughs, you will have an amazing experience.</p>