<p>so basically i love everything about Rice and am pretty sure I’m gonna ED there. However I’m from the northeast, specifically Philly, and nobody there seems to ever have heard of it, or if they heard of it they ask me why would you want to go there instead of Penn or Johns Hopkins etc which really annoys me. is this common for people outside the south to be biased against southern schools in general and Rice in particular? do other people on this forum encounter this a lot?</p>
<p>i live in california and most of my friends/people i’ve talked to about applying (i’m doing ED too!) haven’t heard of rice either… the conversation usually goes:
me: oh i’m applying to rice university early
them: oh…<em>confused look</em> …where is that?
me: in houston!
them: YOU WANT TO LIVE IN TEXAS!??!</p>
<p>haha so yeah a lot of people will definitely be biased and think that texas is full of redneck conservatives…which couldn’t be more wrong! (well, in houston at least :P)</p>
<p>yea my conversations often go like that too</p>
<p>Just count yourself lucky that you know of this gem of a school and there will be fewer (the less informed) competing for a spot in the freshman class!!</p>
<p>definitely get that from most people i tell too. but as someone who always thought it would be new england lacs, i have to reconcile my own regional bias as well.</p>
<p>Out west, it’s not uncommon to hear people call Rice the Stanford of the South. I’ve run into some people who haven’t heard of it –
but they’re greatly outnumbered by all the people here who know what a great school it is. </p>
<p>Seriously, how many other schools have their own non-partisan think tanks, a 5:1 ratio, strong merit aid, residential colleges, offer an exceptionally strong undergraduate experience, have extremely high med school/law school/ grad school placement numbers, and feel so nice and comfortable?</p>
<p>yea ottoline that second paragraph basically sums up why i want to go to rice so badly</p>
<p>hey, i’m from philly too and currently a freshman at rice. i totally went through the same things with no one knowing the school and getting asked why i wouldn’t rather go to Penn. but i’m here now and i love it and i know that i am happier here than i would have been probably anywhere else. the people who matter have heard of rice so i wouldn’t worry about it. the only bad part is when you’re a football fan and the eagles lose to the cowboys. it hurts worse when you’re down here.</p>
<p>Grad schools and med schools have definitely heard of Rice. Do you really care if some mechanic named Bubba in New England knows what the hell Rice is?</p>
<p>I’m from the Northeast and I totally feel you on this bias against the South and mostly Texas, not even really a bias against Rice. </p>
<p>The people who matter know how prestigious a Rice degree is, don’t worry about the average man on the street.</p>
<p>Well, maybe it will comfort you to know that here in Texas and in the south-southwest, many people liken Rice to Princeton or Stanford. When I tell people around here I’m applying to Rice, their immediate reaction is “Oh wow, you must be a genius!”</p>
<p>I get a very similar reaction to other posters when I mention I’m applying to Rice ED.
Me: I’m applying to Rice.
Them: Oh great… Where is that again?
Me: Houston
Them: Oh you really want to live in Texas? :chuckle:</p>
<p>I live in Alabama and I still get this type of bias. </p>
<p>“I’m applying to Rice.”
“Where’s that”
“Houston”
“Why do you want to go to Texas?!?!”</p>
<p>^^ Coming from people in Alabama…</p>
<p>Lol I live in Houston and when I say that I am applying to Rice to other kids,
a lot of the time they say “Wow, that is a great school. I could never get in there.”</p>
<p>Houstonians are very very impressed with Rice University lol</p>
<p>Fyi - ignorance does not equal bias. I’m sure you’re right that a lot of folks around Philly do not know about Rice … but who cares if they do. The people who need to know most likely do know Rice is a TERRIFIC school … grad schools will know … major corporations will know … (some solid local Phily companies may or may not).</p>
<p>Wow, it’s good to know that other people get this reaction too. I’m from North Carolina (applying ED as well!) and it’s funny how some people pretend to have heard of it (“Oh, that’s in Alabama, right?”) and others are just completely ignorant (“Rice, like the food?”). Then again the folks who have actually heard of it always say how incredible it is, so I don’t worry too much about those other people.</p>
<p>Yeah. At my high school in California, no one has even heard of Rice, and when I tell them the school that I’m interested in, they reply, “like the food?” Rice has so much to offer! I asked my college counselor if any students from my school had applied to Rice last year, and she told me that no one from my high school had applied there in the last four years!! I guess that means a little less competition…</p>
<p>In high school and around my hometown in northeast ohio, no one had heard of Rice. I kind of assumed that this was how it was everywhere outside of Texas, but this fall I had the opportunity to meet nearly every prominent Ohio government official, and when they would ask where I was in school and I would reply “Rice,” almost every one of them had not only heard of it, but was also very impressed that I went there. I think the distinction is that the people I met this fall were highly educated and highly knowledgeable about good schools, whereas the people from home either didn’t go to college or went to some mediocre instate school. As for my high school peers, nearly all stay instate (Ohio State, Miami U, Toledo, and Kent State, for the most part), so they just don’t know what schools are top schools. </p>
<p>Moral of the story is, when it comes time to applying for jobs or grad school or whatever, the people who matter will know all about Rice.</p>
<p>Indeed Rice does not have the name recognition on the street like most of the other “top 20” and ivy’s. Part of the reason is that it is small and doesn’t have top 20 football or basketball (e.g. Duke). Baseball just doesn’t count and I think Rice would be better off just dropping their sports program down to Div. III and putting even more emphasis (and the $$ savings from cost of big time sports) into their academic programs.</p>
<p>If name value is going to be an important factor then it would be best to apply elsewhere.</p>
<p>rice isn’t the stanford of the south.
stanford is the rice of the west.</p>