I noticed that at the end of February of 2014 Rice released the number of applications received for the class of 2018:
http://www.chron.com/news/education/article/Rice-University-hits-record-with-freshman-5273425.php
But the following year, it was not until early April that Rice released the number of applications received and (at the same time) the number of those accepted for the class of 2019:
http://www.ricethresher.org/article/2015/04/admission-rate-decreases-slightly-for-class-of-2019
There seems to be no consistent pattern as to when Rice releases this information.