Rice University Regular Decision Class of 2025

Thanks a lot for your detailed information!

Hi, does your DD receive any O-Week information? Do you know when the O-Week will be this year? Thanks!

I’ll ask her.

Rice will communicate with your student mostly by email and sometimes by snail mail about lots of things including O Week. Here is the O Week info. O-Week Schedule | Student Success Initiatives | Rice University

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Thank you!

Thank you for the link! Very helpful!!

@Houston1021 Can you provide any information on the residential houses for students. What we need to bring and what will be provided? Thanks

This is very true. I’ve had 4 students graduating HS and entering college in the last 4 years. All of them “high achievers” with similar stats. After seeing the application process with our first daughter, and realizing how unpredictable the admissions decisions are, we started having them apply to many more schools. This year, for example, my current senior applied to about 30 schools. She was accepted to Rice, Wash U, Penn (Wharton), but rejected from Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, waitlisted at a host of others, including Michigan, Duke, Notre Dame, ect. Basically with so many students looking qualified on paper, the admissions team has to see something they like in the app to choose the applicant and that’s going to be different with each individual evaluating the applications at each school. I haven’t found a way to predict it yet.

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Why wouldn’t you look on the website or send a note to Res Life to ask this - so you get official info. That’d be a much better way. I’m sure it’s all out there but certainly going directly to the school would be your better bet for info like this.

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You will be randomly assigned to a residential college. Each residential college has a different layout and room plan. All the bedrooms in all colleges are furnished and have a bed, desk, chair, and dresser. Some of the residential colleges are suite style and have a common room that the students in each suite furnish while others have a common room on each floor. Some colleges have private or suite bathrooms while other colleges have hall bathrooms. Rice sends out detailed lists of what to bring, floor plans, etc. in communications to the students over the summer. You can look online at prior O Week books to get an idea. See for example one for Lovett from last year. https://lovettcollege.github.io/lovettcollege/oweek2019.pdf Also see info here O-Week 2023 Leadership Team | Student Success Initiatives | Rice University

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Thanks @Houston1021

If I’m waitlisted, can I send another LOCI? I sent one in early April, but I was just admitted to a summer Cancer research internship I would like to update them about.

Sure- you’re wait listed - which is a rejection but hedge for them (not for you). So what’s the worst that can happen.

Re-iterate your interest and inform them you’ve had a change in that you’re now attending the new program. If you were admitted but are not attending, then no need to send it in. It matters what you do
not what you were admitted to do.

My D’21 finally made her decision late Friday night and has committed to Rice! :rice: :owl: :blue_heart:

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@Rue4 Congrats to your D21! Just out of curiosity what were her other choices and where are you from if you don’t mind sharing?

D21 also committed to Rice and is taking her STEM diagnostic test this morning, lol!

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@lr4550 From Virginia. She got in 15. Non safety’s were Tulane, Emory, UVA, William & Mary, Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, Davidson, Richmond, Pitt. She is WL at Vandy.

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Congratulations! Great school. :+1:

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We are now looking into Rice for our Junior year son. Your son sounds amazing! Why do you think his resume didn’t fit their holistic approach? Rice seems like a great reach school for my son, but from the sound if it, it just may not be realistic. Looking for guidance for where we should focus our efforts


I think for competitive schools like Rice it’s just impossible to know exactly what they are looking for. It’s not just grades and test scores. If it seems like a good fit it’s worth applying but no one can count on being admitted.

We were once at an info session for another school and the person speaking said that every year they get calls from parents upset that their child wasn’t admitted - often saying their kid had better stats than someone else that was admitted. He said they could fill their class with students who had perfect GPAs and test scores, but those weren’t the important factors. He said that he liked to think compare filling their freshman class like drafting a football team. That you might be an amazing quarterback, but if they already have enough quarterbacks you may not get admitted. But a student who is not a great quarterback but is a good receiver might get a spot instead.

My recommendation for applying to Rice (and any school really) is for your child to really spend some time thinking about why he feels Rice is a good fit for him and trying to express those reasons in his essay.

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