Wow, I’m a nervous wreck just reading everyone’s posts! My son is a freshman at Rice this year, and I definitely remember the feeling of anxiously waiting. It’s even worse this year with the huge increase of applicants!
On a personal note, I’m so glad that my son decided to graduate a year early and apply last year instead of this year. I was hesitant about him going to Rice so young (he’s 17 for his entire freshman year), but when I now see how much harder it will be to gain admission this year compared to last year, I am really thankful I let him go for it. I thought last year was tough with 20K applications, but 27K? I’m not sure he would have gotten in.
Riversider, what do you have against Rice’s athletic programs? Are they supposed to be competitive with the University of Texas, Ohio State or Stanford? Rice is one of the smallest universities in Division 1, and its student-athletes have to meet academic standards higher than those of student-athletes at most other Division 1 universities. What do you expect from Rice Athletics? What would you recommend Rice do differently?
students and parents split up mostly but there are activities for parents as I recall. Owl days were the first time my daughter or I had seen Rice in person. Students are greeted on arrival by their host. There will be an agenda published when the date is released. There is an agenda for students and one for parents but student stay on campus parents have to arrange for a room. It was four years ago so I am sure other people have better recollection. We could not stay the entire time but it was still well worth it. I think there are some joint events but those campus visits all blend together now so maybe I am wrong
Thanks @robotrainbow! I know none of us should expect an acceptance, with the numbers we’re seeing this year, but at the same time, it seems like there’s very little turn around time to plan with if we DO get an acceptance on Tuesday. We live in Austin but getting away in the middle of the week is tricky (we have 4 younger kids). Thankfully my parents live about 30 minutes from Rice so we would have accommodations.
To reinforce @Meadow530 's point, Rice should schedule events like these at least a month ahead, so that out-of-towners can buy a reasonably-priced plane ticket, book lodging, etc. I will suggest this to Rice Admissions after the admissions cycle.
I think that Rice likes to keep it very fair for all candidates, whether ED or RD, so they tend to announce the date for everyone right after RD decisions. Last year, my daughter was accepted ED to Rice and I booked Southwest tickets based on my best guess of the dates (since SW tickets can be changed). Fortunately the date I predicted was correct. But I agree, it would be better if Rice released the date earlier. My older daughter goes to a school that also has an accepted students multi-day event and they published the date when the EA decisions were released.
Owl Days is a great time for the accepted students; Rice really pulls out all of the stops. Many students say that this event really gave them a feel for Rice and convinced them to attend. Accepted students stay on campus with a student host in one of the residential colleges, and eat in the dining halls (serveries) around campus. I accompanied my daughter to Houston when she attended Owl Days, but I did not see or hear from her the entire time. It is definitely not necessary for parents to attend. I went to some parent oriented events and had a great time exploring campus and the Rice Village, but I am an alum and I take advantage of any opportunity to visit campus when I can. I still fondly remember Owl Days when I was an accepted student!
One thing I would point out. One of the things that helped us decide that rice was a good fit is that flights to Houston are relatively cheap and plentiful. We live in the Philadelphia area and there were multiple flights to Houston daily and they were less then most other places to go. Houston is like smack in the middle of the country and not horribly far from anywhere. I decided that even though it was far it was cost effective. But Houston has two major airports that are massive. As far as flights they should be easy to book. Also there is a cheap hotel like two miles from rice that I have stayed at multiple times that if perfectly fine and always available “Crown Plaza” very inexpensive, close, and completely acceptable with parking
Ok so like I’m starting to freak out now how much do y’all think sibling legacy will help? I haven’t gotten in anywhere yet except for my auto admit to UT (and they didn’t give me my major) but I’ve been waitlisted a couple places. One of my other ‘match’ schools just rejected me and now I’m super concerned. My brother is a Rice student so I’ve always thought this was a match and this is where I really want to go
Rice redesigned the admissions and financial aid websites recently. I don’t see anything on the website either - the merit scholarship info is very high level. Hopefully tomorrow when decisions come out, accepted students will post whether they received a merit scholarship and whether it is one of the “named” merit scholarships.
