Rice University

Date: Nov 03 2008
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
The psychology program was in transition when I was there as a graduate student. Several professors were very good (Randi Martin and Micky Quinones, come to mind), but there were also a couple of other folks who had long since run out of steam and were good examples of the social cost of tenure.

Graduate students aren't integrated into Rice's college system so we had less of a social network than the undergraduates. That being said, I met undergrads and grads through extracurricular activities (IM sports, clubs, etc) and found them to be very bright people. (Not really different from the very bright people at my undergraduate institution, though.) Other grad students were always very bright, but not all of us were cut out to be academics.

In the end, the academic component was good, but not amazing. The strength of the graduate program was the network of students and professors. I'm glad I was able to network with other grad students and alumni while I was there - the network is still quite strong.