Impression of Rice

Antarius
Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:36:14 +0000

Anyways, no more bickering. It reflects poorly on everyone here.

The answers to your questions, in my opinion are



How good are the classes? How difficult are they? How good are the professors? Would it be terribly difficult to maintain a GPA above a 3.8 in a Biology major?



This is a hard one to answer as Rice has some excellent classes and some larger intro classes that are similar to anywhere else. In general, the quality of education is top notch. Professors make effort to know you and are easily accessible for questions and followup work.

Regarding a 3.8, it is possible. You will need to put in effort and put your best foot forward. I wouldn’t call it easy, but if you have an aptitude for the subject, the willingness to work and an interest, you should be good



How is the social life? Is Greek life prominent? Is there a big party scene? How do most students spend their time outside the classroom when not studying? How is the area around Rice?



The social scene is not bad. It is not a party school by any means, but people do have fun. The best way to describe it is “something for everyone”. There are events/groups for people who do not drink/party, party but don’t drink, casual partiers and the hardcore party crowd.

Regarding the question about greek life, I will have to say - this is one of the first things you find out when researching Rice. we do not have a greek scene as there is a Residential college system. There are a lot of threads on the college system here, so take a look. Many good perspectives about the pros and cons there

There are a lot of activities going on outside class. Many students work part time, many play sports (IM, club, college and Varsity) and others have their hobbies. There are many sports going on during the semester. Some of my friends would play 6-7 sports a semester, which would result in games almost every day.

Sometimes you don’t have very much free time and you are pulling all nighters. That depends on your courseload.



Finally, would you recommend going to Rice? Why or why not? Feel free to list any pros and cons that might stand out.



Yes. I loved being there. The amount of time and dedication put in on this forum by parents, current students and alumni (like me) shows that we really care about Rice and the community and want to allow others to experience the awesome time that we had.