Help between Stanford EE and Rice EE

[Magician944]

Hi,

I'm having a really hard time deciding where to go. My aim is for a PhD and I have been accepted to Rice(fellowship), A&M(TA), UCLA(no aid), and Stanford ms/phd (no aid). To add a little bit of complication, I also was offered a job into a program at Sandia National Labs which would allow me to go to whichever graduate school I want next Fall. They would pay for a masters degree, but I would be obligated to go work for them for a year and a half (or the length of time they paid for me at school) right after I finished the masters.

So, I have kind of narrowed it down to two options: Rice and go straight through to get a PhD, or Stanford masters and then work for Sandia and then reapply to PhD programs (with no guarantee I would get back into Stanford).

What are y'alls thoughts on this decision? Thanks!

[quadsbaby]

Hi,

I'm having a really hard time deciding where to go. My aim is for a PhD and I have been accepted to Rice(fellowship), A&M(TA), UCLA(no aid), and Stanford ms/phd (no aid). To add a little bit of complication, I also was offered a job into a program at Sandia National Labs which would allow me to go to whichever graduate school I want next Fall. They would pay for a masters degree, but I would be obligated to go work for them for a year and a half (or the length of time they paid for me at school) right after I finished the masters.

So, I have kind of narrowed it down to two options: Rice and go straight through to get a PhD, or Stanford masters and then work for Sandia and then reapply to PhD programs (with no guarantee I would get back into Stanford).

What are y'alls thoughts on this decision? Thanks!

If you're sure you want to get a PhD and you think Rice has good advisors for you to work with, just go to Rice. If you're not thrilled about the program at Rice (i.e. you're not excited about the research) or you aren't as sure you want your PhD, do the Stanford / Sandia deal.