It’s very, very strong in the sciences; the House system; very well-known to 'people who matter ', whether industry or grad schools (even if random people may have not heard of it, in particular because they have zero sports exposure.)
Rice is NOT UNDERRATED. Its a fabulous school. Cannot say enough things about it- the caliber of the faculty and staff, the students, the resources. It is a small school, but don’t mistake the lack of name recognitions by some with the worth of the school. Rice is well known and well respected by those who need to know-- potential internship providers, employers, etc. The small size, while being a fabulous research institution/university, is a gift, as are the multiple opportunities at ehthe mega-medical centers across the street. The residential college system is modeled after those in Britain, just like Yale, Harvard’s etc.
Rice and Duke are great schools. At Duke, you well be separated as a freshman, being housed on Duke East’s campus. At Rice you are immediately with all undergraduates as part of your residential college. Depending on what you want to study, Rice , IMO, has, for example, more engineering options than Duke. Both campuses are beautiful. Duke will have more sports worth watching, but if you play an instrument, you’ll have a blast as a member of the Rice marching band.
These are great options to have. Congrats.
^cross-posted with MYOS
I always heard about Rice for their science major. Rice also has a lot of money. I also see students whom I consider to be very high quality – those who would have done well at any college – go there. The only thing I don’t like about it is weather. Rice seems to be like Brown but more STEM focused.
You will be laughing at your friends freezing their butts off in the winter, while you are able to walk around without a jacket. And the buildings are air conditioned. The hottest/most humid months are the summer, when you may not be there.
Duke and Northwestern are similar to an extent, though NU has strengths in some areas Duke doesn’t (media/RTF/theatre/communications/music).
Rice is smaller and would have a higher percentage of STEM majors. If someone doesn’t know much about Rice, that says more about that person than Rice, TBH. However, it is quite unknown internationally (even less than NU and Duke) and has a much smaller presence on Wall Street than NU or Duke (though obviously, it has a heavy presence in energy or any TX-centric field).
BTW, @MYOS1634, Rice does have a sports presence. It actually has a greater percentage of athletes than either NU or Duke (being a smaller school yet fielding a full complement of NCAA DivI sports). It’s just not in a Power 5 league like NU and Duke, though in sports, Rice is still at a higher level than the Ivies.
Essay: Why Rice is special to me - OP, didn’t you write something like this in your app 
For starters: Rice is not underrated in circles that matter. It’s a top 20 uni by almost any standard. And a top 5 in my book. Why …
- I think Rice is the smallest research university with the exception of Cal Tech. Still bigger than LACs, but not by much. With this comes great relationships with peers and profs and easy access to most facilities.
- Rice utilizes residential colleges (think Yale. Cambridge, and Oxford). If you’re not familiar with these, be sure to research them. Probably one of the biggest distinctives of Rice.
- Rice is in a fantastic part of Houston with very easy access to most places you’d want to go. If you don’t know about Houston, spend some time learning about it.
- Rice doesn’t quite have an open curriculum but it’s almost so (they do have distribution reqs and a composition req, maybe some PE reqs too). if flexibility is important to you, this is a huge plus. I don’t think they have a foreign language requirement. Very different from Columbia and UChicago in this regard. You should look into the specific graduation requirements of all your schools to see where they all stand.
Go visit if you have a chance before making a decision to attend elsewhere.
Rice is a Div I school. Despite the recommendation made after a McKinsey report about a decade ago that it drip to a Div III school, the alums screamed NO and it didn’t happen. Their baseball team is strong.
^ I only meant that for people who know colleges from TV sports, Rice isn’t a household name like Duke …
But rather it doesn’t matter since people in industry and grad schools will know perfectly well what a strong school it is.
Op, you expressed interest in studying finance but seem to have applied to a bunch of schools without that major.
@ClarinetDad16: You don’t need to study finance as a major to enter finance.
@lz57c4 Flexibility in curriculum is very important to me (I’m not very talented at science or foreign language haha, would like to avoid both as much as I can). Thanks for telling me that about Rice!
To clarify my financial situation, my parents would cover half of NU/Duke, and I would cover the other half. For Rice/UCLA, I would graduate debt-free (or pretty close to debt-free). If cost wasn’t a concern, I would probably pick Duke, just because it prob has the most “powerful” name of my choices, it is very well-connected for finance, and I would get special perks as a Provost Scholar. Do any of you have advice for what you would do in my situation?
How would you cover the other half? Do you have savings? You’re limited in the amount of loans you may get, you know.
I disagree about the name part but that’s not as material as the financial concerns.
You don’t want to be burdened with all that undergraduate debt. I’d take Duke and NU off the table and go with one of your debt-free options, for sure. You are fortunate that both Rice and UCLA are great options. If it was my kid, I’d pick Rice as I think it will make for a better, more personalized undergraduate experience.
By alum accomplishments, Rice, Northwestern, and Duke are all on the same tier:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1-p1.html
But more importantly, this guy has a good grasp on how much something like “name” matters in the real world (through hard experience): https://theivylie.com/
@PurpleTitan I have relatively minimal savings (about 2-3k from coaching business). My parents said they might be open to my borrowing the remaining money (or a large portion of it) from them, so at least I won’t have to deal with any shady loan sharks.
@doschicos Rice does sound like a very great option at this point. Are there any other benefits (in your opinion) to choosing Rice over UCLA? Could you clarify what would make Rice a “better” undergraduate experience?
I’d pick debt-free Rice in a heartbeat!
From what I’ve heard and read about both (no first hand experience with either) I get the impression that you’ll have access to smaller classes, less bureaucracy, closer relationships to faculty, etc. at Rice as opposed to UCLA due to size of student body, private vs. public, etc.
Compare their stats.
UCLA has ~42K students, Rice ~7K.
UCLA’s student/faculty ratio is 16:1, Rice 6:1.
Just very very different experiences.
Rice will offer a better undergraduate experience at all levels. If you can graduate debt free, all the better.