mi22

Hi,
I was just wondering if any current students could tell me what the atomosphere is really like at Rice.. I was reading about it in my college book and it sounds like a tight-knit community with outstanding academics. Does the size seem too small? Is it really a diverse group of people? What kind of study-abroad opportunities are available? Any insight would be great!

Thanks!

thelonius

That’s not a bad description. The residential colleges provide a really tight-knit community (about 300 people) where people look after each other – it also provides an automatic social group if you’re interested. Being surrounded by the same 300 people would get old after a while, but when you get tired of people at your college, you can easily start spending more time with people from other colleges, preventing any feelings of social claustrophobia.
3000 undergraduates may sound tiny (especially compared to state universities with 40-50 thousand) but, in my experience at least, it really isn’t. When I’m out around campus, I run into a lot of people that I already know, but I also constantly meet new people.
And Rice’s diversity is great. I have no idea what the actual statistics are, but my friends on campus have an amazing variety of life experiences and perspectives. One great thing about the college system is that it almost forces you to get to know people that you might not have otherwise.
Study abroad – basically if the program exists and is accredited, you can do it. Rice has a list of programs that it already recognizes (see http://cohesion.rice.edu/campusservi...fm?doc_id=5750 for a complete list) but if you find another program that you want to do, you can submit it for approval, you just have to plan ahead a bit more and do some extra research and paperwork.

anxiousmom

So far my daughter has gone to Mexico (with an alternative spring break trip), Chile (5 month long semester program - administered by IES, which is overseen by a consortium of colleges, including Rice), and Nicaragua (through Rice Engineers without Borders). Rice is big on study abroad, and also increasingly big on community outreach. There are a whole lot of programs starting up to go "outside the hedges".

mi22

thanks! i'm glad there are so many opportunities to study abroad.. and the residential colleges sound really interesting. i definitely think i will look into Rice..thanks again!

NYSkins1

I generally like to think that Rice is the perfect place for someone who's very smart but doesn't take himself too seriously. Where other schools are filled with people who wanted to go to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale but didn't get in, Rice is filled with people who could have, but didn't want to (not the case with everyone, but most Rice students will honestly tell you that Rice was their first choice even though they applied to some of those "bigger-name" schools.)

The academic atmosphere is simultaneously very intense and very laid-back. It's intense in that Rice is one of the premier academic institutions in the country, and thus has a pretty heavy workload, but it's laid-back in that there's not much cutthroat competition.

And then there are the residential colleges. Some naysayers will tell you that the college system is a limiting factor to their social lives; that they prevent them from getting to know people in other colleges. I argue the exact opposite. Living with the same 300 people for four years helps you get to know people you otherwise wouldn't for whatever reason. I find that my friends and I are much more connected over shared personalities and philosophies of life, rather than similar interests--we met each other by living together, not by doing some activity together.