Yale and U Chicago also have residential colleges/houses and cooler weather. Many Rice students also apply to those two schools. Rice focuses on undergraduate education but also has about 3000 grad students mainly in the STEM disciplines. The weather in Houston is hot from August to late September/early October but then is very nice from October through the end of April (most of the school year). You will be trudging through snow in New Haven or Chicago for most of the year. Rice does not have a Greek system while there is Greek life at Yale and U Chicago.