<p>what is the neighborhood like around rice?</p>
<p>Urban!</p>
<p>And mixed!</p>
<p>On the one side, you’ve got the largest medical center in the nation (in the world? something like that). Then there’s a large city park, the light rail (very nice, very new), lots of very nice large houses with many, many live oak trees and exceedingly large yards, and then there’s the Rice Village, which is a lovely little upscale yuppie shopping area.</p>
<p>You’re in the Museum District, which has the Museum of Fine Arts at Houston and several other lovely musea, and you’re just down the road from Reliant Stadium, the Astrodome, and Astroworld. Plenty around to see and do if campus makes you crazy.</p>
<p>urban setting, lots of TREES they create a canopy over the street, houses are big and expensive, million dollars and up with stone walls around them etc.</p>
<p>how is it vs UVA?</p>
<p>i doubt many will know the answer to that here. ask in the uva forum.</p>
<p>Charlottesville is basically a town that owes its existence to a large state university. Cf. Chapel Hill, NC. In Charlottesville, the university is the town and vice versa. Rice is 300 acres in the nicest part of the 4th largest city in the US. Within 10 minutes of the Rice campus are the largest medical center in the world, three major league sports franchises, a large metro park, complete with golf course and zoo, a museum district, Six Flags amusement park, a major symphony, a ballet company, and an opera company. Not far away is the Johnson Space Center.</p>