<p>The reason Rice lacks the four-year on-campus housing guarantee that is so common elsewhere is simple: The demand from on-campus housing is far greater than it is at the vast majority of schools. Most schools can guarantee four years by counting on a significant chunk of their upperclassmen opting to live off campus. The inability to guarantee four years of housing is really a compliment to the residential college system.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to live off for a year, you can often get around it. There are plenty of ways (the specifics depend on your college) to guarantee housing for yourself the year(s) you are eligible to be kicked off.</p>
<p>As for the class size issues, my experience as a rising sophomore has been similar to what others have noted: Whether through special registration by talking to the professor or through the opening of spaces as the shopping period plays itself out, I’ve been able to get into every class I wanted. And that was as a freshman. I was able to get into plenty of small, interesting, upper-level courses.</p>
<p>I don’t see a decline in the quality of life at Rice. There are some issues that come along with the larger size of the undergraduate population that has resulted from the Vision for the Second Century, but my impression is that there are positive efforts to resolve them. I don’t think the issues are major, nor do I think they’ll last.</p>