Rice does not have Greek life like NW or a rah rah sports culture. Very few Rice students even go to the football games. Rice has a good baseball team. The Rice campus life is centered around the residential colleges which are modeled after those at Yale. Northwestern has a spectacularly beautiful campus on Lake Michigan. Rice is in one of the prettiest parts of Houston and has a lush campus surrounded by live oaks. The Rice Village is an outdoor shopping/dining area right off the Rice Campus. You won’t have to have a car at Rice but it would be helpful to venture very far away from campus. Mass transit in Houston is very limited. It is 71 degrees in Houston vs. 33 in Chicago right now. They are both great schools.