Your school’s guidance counselor or college counselor should have access to SCOIR or Naviance. It requires a subscription to access, and it provides GPA vs SAT scatterplots. From these scatterplots it can give you a better idea of what your chances are. Some high schools have very good patterns of acceptance to Rice (known as “feeders”). But this can be misleading as some of the students who are accepted have a hook (legacy, athlete, URM, etc). You can tell from looking at the scattergrams if this is the case or not. I imagine that Rice has several feeders from the TX area. Not sure which high schools they are, but ask around.
Here is the scattergram from my son’s graduating class (2018). He attended a well known east coast boarding school, so it may not apply to your situation. But there are a few things that stand out to me. Lowest GPA Rice accepted from his HS was about 3.5, lowest SAT was about 1380. The average GPA/SAT was 3.78 and 1525 respectively. So students who are in the upper outer quadrant had a decent chance of acceptance. But those outside had a much lower chance. Apart from the hooked candidates, its almost a sure rejection.
If you were in my son’s high school class, I’d say that if your GPA is in the first or second decile, and you were unhooked, that you’d have decent chance (>50%) of acceptance. If you were legacy, or had some other special factor, then you might be able to get away with a lower GPA or test score. If you had none of these, and had a GPA below the third decile your chances are tiny.
Find out what the GPA distribution for accepted candidates at Rice from your HS.
