The traditional, deciding which college to go to thread.

Parents Forum
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<p>anxiousmom… you are from Texas - like I said, <em>in Texas</em> Rice is among the best. Grad school admit rate, Duke is still far superior </p>

<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;

<p>According to Wall Street Journal for admits to the top professional schools,
Duke is 6th (ahead of even MIT), while Penn is 16th, Rice is 20th, JHU is 24th, and Berkeley is 43rd. </p>

<p>again @anxiousmom… just because your DD did not apply to Duke doesn’t mean the OP would like Rice better. Rice wins very few cross admit battles with Duke </p>

<p>@ blackeyedsusan (another Texan) Once again, having an offspring not apply to a given college does not qualify as reason for the OP to pass it up. Yes Durham is not Beverly Hills, but it surely beats the gangs/drugs/murders of west Phillladelphia or the aging and sometimes dirty facilities/overcrowding classrooms/homeless haven that is Berkeley. I haven’t spent enough time around Rice or JHU to make an informed comment about those surroundings.</p>

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<p>@everyone again: First off, thanks for posting all.</p>

<p>@the Duke people: Well, actually, we’ve never been that much into Basketball (hoop? loop?). Also the Frat scene’s definitely not our thing. (Though the Greek letters are nice) Granted those are definitely not reasons to turn down a college, but the argument is more or less thus: For price, we’d rather have Rice or Berkeley. If price isn’t an issue, then we’d pick Penn over Duke. If it’s BME (in my case), I’d rather pick JHU over Duke. As a result we’ve removed it from our list… QED. :)</p>

<p>In any case, we won’t be hearing back from Berkeley regarding how much they expect our EFC to be until next week, so that’s when we’ll decide, I suppose…</p>

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<p>Shrivats, since you have never visited these colleges I understand that you might think… hmm i don’t like basketball and i don’t like frat parties so I don’t like Duke. That would be like me saying …hmm i don’t like oil and I don’t like that pricy hotel that looks like a boat’s sail, therefore, I don’t like Dubai. BME at Duke is number 2 in the nation, and even though JHU is 1 spot ahead of it, Duke’s alumni network and overall reputation more than covers it. Don’t make the biggest mistake of your life and turn down Duke. Ok that was my last attempt to reason with you. Godspeed.</p>

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<p>@oracle: I understand where you’re coming from, but we really have very little to be going on here. </p>

<p>I’m not going to be summarily dismissing colleges out of hand, I assure you. Thanks for your advice though, we’ll keep it as a part of the legions of advice we’ve accumulated so far… :)</p>

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<p>Shrivats, I have to add my voice to those who recommend that you very seriously reconsider Duke. I encourage you to look deeper. I totally agree taking Duke off the list would be like saying I don’t like oil and wealth and 80% expat population therefore I don’t like Dubai. </p>

<p>College attendance appears to be sort of an iterative experience - you arrive on campus, and all of a sudden there are so many new, interesting avenues to explore that you couldn’t consider before, either because you never knew they existed, or because there were barriers to entry. Many, many college students arrive on their respective campuses with a very clear, concise, carefully considered academic and eventually career plan, only to emerge four years later with degree in hand with a totally different result, based on the new opportunities they discovered and subsequently explored. “Many” might even be more accurately “most”. Would-be doctors emerge as engineers, would-be computer scientists emerge as art history specialists, etc. Of course, all of your schools are wonderful, so it doesn’t really seem like you can make a “bad” choice, but, if it were me, given the criteria you’ve posted, given your age, and given that you don’t appear to plan to live in the U.S. long term, Duke would NOT be a school I’d eliminate. </p>

<p>There are also significant cultural differences that will require some adjustment for you - I know a little bit about Dubai, owing to friends and business associates that either live there now as expats, or who have spent significant time there over the past few years. Durham proper is going to be far less of an adjustment for you than will be Philadephia, etc. I’m thinking about things like community, crime rates, weather, etc. I raise this issue because I attended a parent’s session at my daughters college a couple of years ago, and the dean of student affairs spoke and said that the number one reason freshmen transfer out, or do not return for sophomore year is the difficulty in adjusting to the culture of a new city vs. their home city - if the two places are drastically different, the freshmen have a much harder time adjusting, and being happy. While it seems reasonable that wherever you attend college, you will spend the majority of your time on campus vs. in the city itself, I encourage you to evalute the various destination cities. Take a look at census data, the major newspaper home pages, the political makeup, and of course, the weather.</p>

<p>Try to think of college like a great, great menu, and you can choose to eat anything you like, and as much of it as you can taste and experiment with considering 24 hour days x 365 x 4. Which one has the most diverse and far-reaching menu, that you do not have to stand in line with your tray too long to be served? Forget for a minute that you aren’t really interested in trying, say, chocolate-covered octopus, or jalapeno ice cream, or mustard on your cereal. If given the opportunity and granted access, you might just discover that you have to have at least one small taste, and subsequently discover that you just HAVE to add these things to your regular diet. </p>

<p>Re basketball, just as an example, you might find you absolutely love college basketball and cannot consume enough of it - you might even discover that you very badly want to PLAY basketball (just using this as an example). </p>

<p>BTW I am very sorry your Visas didn’t work out…any chance at all of a last minute appeal?</p>

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<p>Great post Latetoschool-perhaps, the plot thickens?</p>

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<p>The plot thickens indeed… :)</p>

<p>No chance on the late appeal actually. The US embassy/consulate is for obvious reasons a bit obstinate in this part of the world. </p>

<p>@latetoschool, thanks for your long post, we’ll take it to heart. Of course that does mean we’re back to a rather sticky situation again. We’ve set ourselves a date sometime in the middle of next week, so hopefully, and this is me being really hopeful here, we’ll have made our decisions by then.</p>

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<p>Shrivats – you and your brother have some great choices; I’m sure you’ll make a great decision. The best part about it is you can’t really go wrong – they’re all excellent schools. My son is also struggling with his decision, and he’s personally visited each school at some point over the past 2 years. He will be attending Owl Weekend at Rice tomorrow, and I can let you know his thoughts afterwards, if you’re interested.</p>

<p>oracle – yes, I’m a Texan now, but I grew up in Maryland. I know Duke very well because of personal connections, and as I said before, the social scene there is not for everyone. You can look at my posts and see I’m not advocating one school or another here. I’m trying to help Shrivats get a sense of the flavor of each school so HE can make a decision. And as to cross-admits, my nephew chose Brandeis over Duke, so who knows?</p>

<p>You might want to look at getting an online subscription to college p r o w l e r (take out spaces). For $40 you get access to all of their in-depth reviews of individual colleges. There’s a lot of helpful information there.</p>

<p>Good luck in your decision!</p>

109

<p>Unfortunately, people like oracle are focusing on some sort of prestige factor without knowing anything about the reputation of Rice especially in engineering and the sciences. Not ever hearing of the school shows the provincialism of some on these boards. Having been to Dubai often, and lived in many parts of the country, and the world, I can tell you that Rice is well known and well respected both in industry and in academia. The kids we recruited out of there are top notch. Jobs prospects and/or grad school for top individuals are good. Research opportunities are plentiful. You want diversity? You have got it in Houston.(Every nationality. All ethnic food types with in 1-2 miles of campus) You want one of the better campus living arrangements? You have it in the residential colleges. (No frats) You want to feel at home and have good prof interactions? You get that too. I laugh at people who claim they never heard of a school. (There are folks who have never heard of many of the best LAC’s too. Does that mean they are not good achools?) Many hear of schools because of their sports teams. Anxiousmom and Balckeyedsusan and mysslf are looking at this from a parent perspective and fit.
Sure if you want big and international go Berkeley–hands down.Depends on how independent you are. But if you want an Ivy like experience for a lower cost but with the benefits of a great city literally at your doorsteps, and spitting distance for the best medical facility in the world at whch you can do research, and 2 minutes from a top orchestra, ballet, opera, theater, and pros sports teams while being educated a top university you might consider Rice. I have been to Duke. I also know many students who have visited and are not interested in applying there. (A former student is doing Biomed. Wishes he had gone to UCSD instead). Those not interested it is often because of the attitude of some of the students there. Some have applied and gone to Rice instead.
As others have posted it really is too bad you not been able to visit. Take the virtual tours. Email some profs and students. Remember “prestige” is often no more than a magazine ranking or a sports team. You have good choices. Go where to the place that fits your personal needs.</p>

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<p>oldolddad,
Would it not be fair to say that Shrivats would fit in at JHU for the same reasons you see him fitting in at Rice?</p>

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<p>^^Or, at Duke, Berkeley, etc., hence the problem. :)</p>

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<p>JHU is a great school. But knowing students who have gone my impression is that it is much more cut throat, it is not surrounded by nice old residential areas and parks that you can walk around, weather is colder. I have not heard about a great residentiall college system. do not think these kids have scholarships there. Do not know about the sports teams at JHU.(iI they do want to watch sports–Rice has a decent enough football team now and games are fun to attend and one of top baseball teams in the country). Also, have not heard much about the undergrad focus of the profs.
(By the way at Rice the colleges staff actually live in the dorms as RA’s. And a professor and family live in a house near each college and are assigned to each one)
Aside from these things JHU and Rice are the same. </p>

<p>(JHU has great biomed ,especially graduate, but specialites areas might be different)</p>

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<p>Okay, badman … I’ll bite. Having lived in both Baltimore and Houston I would have to say that Houston is by far much more multi-cultural than Baltimore. Both Rice and JHU would present great research opportunities. The opportunities at Rice may be more diverse due to the many connections Rice has with various hospitals and medical schools at the Texas Medical Center. Both campuses are very pretty, with large green expanses and trees, although the location of Rice’s campus in Houston is much nicer than that of JHU. It is contiguous to the Medical Center and a 12-square block area of eclectic and upscale shops and restaurants, with a beautiful residential area on the other side. The light rail has a stop at Rice that takes students downtown for free. JHU has lovely old homes on one side and a tiny eclectic shopping area nearby and is separated from most other things, with some fairly sketchy areas not too far away. Baltimore, on the other hand, is much more accessible to other large cities than Houston (DC, Philadelphia, NY). Our intelligence suggests that the student body at Rice is more laid back, less grade-obsessed and more collaborative than the JHU students, but we’re still trying to determine if this is true. </p>

<p>Also, Houstonians on the whole are much friendlier and more accepting of outsiders than Baltimoreans. </p>

<p>Sidenote: my son is also considering JHU for engineering, and he might decide JHU is a better fit for him, so go with what works for you.</p>

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<p>"We’re both prospective Engineers, but both of us are also looking into the prospect of a double major in something completely different. (Monty Python anecdotes aside ) (Physics in my case, IR/Economics in my brother’s)</p>

<p>We’re both extremely, well, not your typical college students. We’re a little young for college. (16 at the moment), we’re the type who consider curling up with a book or just spending some time with friends as a good time. We probably won’t join a fraternity, we’ve no interest in how good the ‘party scene’ is at our colleges."</p>

<p>My anwers focused on thier poeted statements. Rice is good for engineering, easy to double major or changer majors, not a lot of the beaurocracy of a big school, good in biomed, no frats, residential college community is a plus. Won’t get lost. Good undergrad experience.</p>

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<p>These kids would succeed academically anywhere. The question is a congenial environment. I’ve worked at Duke, lived in Durham, visited JHU (my sister was getting a Masters there–she was mugged at least once–(I know, it can happen anywhere, but still). I’ve never been to Rice, but from the descriptions, it sounds like a wonderful option for these students. The Duke and JHU envoronment are not right for everyone and the way these kids describe themselves, Rice sounds like a nice match. Berkeley I know nothing about.</p>

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<p>Various posters on this thread, and others, keep stating how good Duke is and then something along the lines of “not the right place for everyone.” Will some of you more familiar with Duke please expand on for whom it’s NOT the best place to be? Like OP, we have not actually visited there and S is wrestling with whether to visit or discard it as a choice (he’s accepted).</p>

<p>To the OP, congrats both to you and your brother! You have some wonderful, but difficult choices. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Ok, Durham is not a great town, to begin with. Duke is a big sports school. It sounds like a place where “school spirit” and identity are highly sports-oriented. It sounds like frats and sororities dominate the social life. This is exactly what many kids are looking for and would love. The bookish, poetic OP and his brother sound like they would thrive in a different type of environment.</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins is in an iffy neighborhood safety-wise and sounds quite competitive, versus cooperative in the way students interact. Some people would thrive on this (well, not the iffy neighborhood), some would do better elsewhere.</p>

<p>These are all great schools academically, so affordability and personal fit seem to be more important factors.</p>

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<p>okay, I’ve been in the same position as you guys. Accepted to duke, dartmouth, rice and chicago. Now the thing with rice and chicago is theres zero grade inflation. In fact theres grade deflation. The same applies to berekeley and JHU. You do the same amount of work, pull all nighters, listen intently in class, and you end up with an A in duke but a b in berk. Now, the thing is, if youre applying to grad school (which i’m assuming you are since youre both going into engineering), then gpa is pretty much the most important factor, from what i’ve gathered. Its one of the reasons jhu etc are ranked much lower than duke in grad school placement. you guys both sound really really smart, and of course you’ll be like fine, grade deflation, thats just another challenge. The problem with this is, you probably will end up getting your A’s, but you’ll miss out a lot on what the college you go to has to offer since you’ll have to study significantly more than you should have to. </p>

<p>Again this is a difficult decision (i’m still torn between all four of my colleges) but i think grade inflation should factor into your decision.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your responses; we’ve been exposed to so many different views here, and I can assure you, we’re reading each posts intently (evidenced by a certain brother pulling me out of bed, saying that there’s a new post up! :))</p>

<p>We’ve heard a lot about Rice, a lot about Penn, and Duke and we’re really grateful for all the opinions and anecdotes that you’re sharing. With regard to Berkeley (and this is something we’ve seen amongst our own acquaintances and friends), much of what people have to say is hearsay/anecdotal. Have any of you had a son or daughter attend Cal?/lived in the area?/ had any sort of personal experiences with the place? We really do appreciate what you’re all saying, thank you!</p>

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<p>Conversations about grade deflation are always amusing. We all speak up the advantages of a rigorous, demanding school provided the grading is easy. Sorry but rigorous and demanding means that students are pushed to meet academic standards and some students will not have high grades.</p>

<p>I am not sure if lower grades at demanding schools will impact grad/med school acceptance. I would like to believe adcoms can factor this and are more interested in what the student has learned.</p>