I second nixon’s sentiments. I graduated from Hopkins and had an absolute blast there along with my classmates. Getting research with professors is easy - I along with all my close friends not only did research but got published with top notch professors. We hardly had to fight for them - it was the converse , Professors were excited to see undergrads motivated enough to purse research. It’s how I ended up getting a full multi-year fellowship from Stanford and graduated with a Ph.D. while many of my other friends graduated with advanced degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, etc. Professors have a strong open door policy and encourage under research. See the PURA program at Hopkins that may other universities have emulated. Students know Hopkins is hard, but we kept each other sane. Who wants to be competitive and have no social life? I sure didn’t, and again, neither did most of my classmates or friends.
Also, regardless of distinction, most professors teach undergrads. Adam Reiss (nobel prize winning physicist) teaches undergrads as do most of the other professors.
Hopkins has a 94% 6 year graduation rate, 35% alumni donation rate - top 10 in the country, and 97% freshman retention rate (all indications in line with peers or above for student satisfaction).
Rice? a very poor 86% graduation rate in 6 years. Couple this with the fact that 40% of admitted students choose Hopkins (versus 34% at Rice) - it would indicate more people are inclined to want to be at Hopkins and stay to graduate instead of transferring out versus Rice.
Sources:
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/johns-hopkins-university
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/rice-university
Perhaps the Hopkins quality of life is not as bad or the Rice quality of life picture is not as rosy as some on here might lead you to believe. You’ll have no shortage of opportunity for research or a top graduate school at Hopkins or Rice should you work hard. But try to get first hand info from actual Hopkins or Rice students enrolled there now - don’t base any life altering decisions on hearsay. And you don’t have to sacrifice fun either