Decisions, decisions - two great schools.
- Legacy (if mom graduated) could help at WashU
- You seem to prefer Rice and even after your visit, it stood out - so that tells me Rice
- Rice is very strong in the humanities - as is WUSTL
Do you have any budget issues? These schools are $350-400K.
Let’s step back - what are your stats - does it even make sense to apply to these two - as far as GPA, test score, what kind of classes have you taken?
It’s really preference - weather, for example. As for on campus, it sounds great and the village at WUSTL is really nice, but many kids prefer to move off campus so that might be ok at Rice - although they note they’re able to take care of most who want to stay on.
I’m wondering if your average class size at WUSTL is correct. If you look at the CDS section I2, they show 529 classes of 2-9 students, 739 of 10-19. There’s 1956 classes total so that’s under half and more than a quarter are 2-9. Of course, whether you get those is likely major or demand dependent. I can’t find the formal figure though.
Rice’s CDS isn’t showing available so no way to compare.
One last thing - law school - irrelevant - in fact, I’d argue it’s irrelevant whether you go to WashU or Mizzou. What will matter are your grades, LSAT, and today more are getting work experience before going - but top law schools take kids from well over 100 colleges - running the gamut from Ivy to directional.
Pick one - they’re both great but make sure your family can afford them and make sure they want to. In other words, a WUSTL/Rice capable student will have opportunities at half the price and less - if that matters to your family. You also likely give up the potential to get merit aid with an ED.
But based on your write up, it does seem Rice fits you better and i would not worry about the humanities programs.
I would though, make sure you are in range statistically.
Best of luck whatever you decide.