<p>Perhaps there are a larger percentage of kids who “march to their own drummer” at Rice than at UT or Duke - I’m not sure how you’d measure it. My kids are both out-going, friendly, and definitely not socially awkward, and they found plenty of kids like that at Rice, along with super-focused career oriented kids, and laid-back easy-going kids and kids of all shapes, sizes, persuasions and religions and philosophies and cultures. </p>
<p>But the cool thing about college is that you are in a place where you can see beyond that, and into accepting people and learning from people with so many different perspectives… No more high school cliques! 
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<p>That slightly awkward person becomes someone you can count on to tutor you in O-Chem, or supervise you on a committee, or play pickup soccer with…
I’ve met a lot of Rice kids over the last 7 years, and had both a women and men’s club sport teams camp out in my house many, many times – without exception, I’ve been so impressed by the polite, friendly, unassuming and disciplined behavior of the teams. Kids who played at their sport all day, then came back the house, exhausted, only to pull out a flute (practice time!), engineering homework, English assignments etc, or hang out and chat. Nice people. </p>
<p>Anyway - jmho. Rice is a good place to be. ;)</p>