calm spade
Schools: Rice, Vassar (transfer from Vassar to Rice)
Intended major: Economics
Similarities: Small schools with an emphasis on professor-student interaction. Residential college systems.
Costs: ~equal for my family
Name of School 1: Vassar
Pros
- already established here - everyone I know is here, all my career connections were made through Vassar, a fair part of my resume comprises club exec positions here
- the only connection I have who has actually managed to help me get so much as an interview is in Poughkeepsie
- would be leading majorish project on immigration clinics next fall
- sharp grade inflation, generous conditional pass/fail policy.
- can go abroad junior spring
- open curriculum
- I like the winters
Cons
- horrible horrible horrible horrible student culture. impossible to describe
- ridiculous turnover in the economics department
- very poor returns on investment
Name of School 2: Rice
Pros
- more resources - more research + more research positions
- greater diversity of classes + more flexibility in terms of number of classes I can take
- not an extreme difference (as far as I know) in terms of academic support from professors, general accessibility of professors
- in-house think tank!
- not as far from home (California)
Cons
- grade deflation
- maybe a worse culture in their math department (ie. at Vassar there aren't many people who went through the olympiad, etc, circuit, and so culture is more approachable + collaborative; maybe not true at Rice)
- not sure how prerequisites for some courses will work
- would have to drop French major
- harder to get involved in off-campus community work (it's really easy to get ie. internships at obscure nonprofits/foundations/social agencies in Poughkeepsie; probably much less true in Houston)
- harder to get involved in student life
- it's in Texas
Tiebreaking considerations
How "olympiad"ish is the math department culture at Rice? Is there really a "culture of care" there?
topaz ridge
tough locust