<p>Look, your continuation of this thread is nonsense; you appear to be ■■■■■■■■, honestly. The whole point of this thread was for you to find out and ask what Rice was doing and should do to much Rice more prestigious. You got your answer. This thread should be dead now (Also, Rice’s prestige is actually on par with Cornell’s, a lower Ivy.)</p>
<p>Rice is not as prestigious among a lot of people nationwide as HYPMS. The important thing to remember is that it isn’t that big a deal. Employers know Rice. Graduate school know Rice. People who are informed of the quality of colleges know Rice.</p>
<p>*<strong><em>RML, first of all, please stop being condescending. It’s making me uncomfortable. What’s with “stop whining” and “you just don’t get it”? I think the souring of the mood has a lot to do with your rudeness. Just drop that and we can discuss this maturely. Thank you.</em></strong></p>
<p>Anyway~
RML, your question is a little besides the point. You keep on talking about making Rice more prestigious, making it rank higher. Why? It obviously doesn’t matter to the people who went, go, will go there. Honestly, I’d much rather go to a school where people go there because they love it, rather than loving the name. I know plenty of people going to Ivies purely because of the name. I wouldn’t want to be in a school like that. </p>
<p>And as for philosophy, as for “wanting to be the best”, schools like WashU completely turned me off. They sacrifice the happiness and academic freedom of their students for the sake of their reputation. Your pick which is more important: A few spots on a ranking, or enjoying the best education you can get?</p>
<p>Reading your posts, I get the sense that you really like Rice and want to go there, but you feel uncomfortable and hesitant because it’s not as famous as you’d want your college, your future identifier, to be. I think you need to stop obsessing about how Rice can be more prestigious so you’d feel better about bragging about your school. I think you should just find a school that makes you happy; which is, more “prestigious” and well known. It seems to matter a lot to you. It doesn’t to us. </p>
<p>In the end, college is about what’s important to YOU. Looking at your priorities, RML, I’m pretty sure you won’t be happy at Rice. I hope you find a place whose name you’d be proud to announce and wear on your sweatshirt. </p>
Just to allay the concerns of any matriculating students really quickly - this ain’t gonna happen. Rick Perry is mostly disliked (was only re-elected since our last gubernatorial race was so split) and will almost definitely be leaving office in 2010 when he’s defeated by one of our more moderate senators, whose senate seat will probably go to - get this - a democrat. Austin, SA, the entire valley, and Houston all go blue…Texas isn’t seceding ANYTIME soon.</p>
<p>And just to add my $.02: I don’t think RML is being rude; I feel like s/he is acknowledging the benefits of a Rice education and expressing confusion as to why more people in the US don’t do so as well. Yes, the concept of prestige is silly, but stop taking these comments as a personal affront to your choice of university.</p>
<p>sigh* rick perry did not help his reelection one bit. I’m a hardcore democrat from california, i’m not worried.</p>
<p>As for silentsailor’s two cents, I’m not at all offended by RML’s view of Rice. I don’t agree with her/his points, as I point out, but offended? no. However, I do think the way s/he is responding to particular people has been unneccesarily rude, with certain phrases and whatnot. Without those, I think RML has 100% the right to express their thoughts, just as I do to ask him/her to be more polite.</p>
<p>Rick Perry is a dumba** Aggie who runs his mouth off. This coming from your typical conservative Texan. We won’t be seceding anytime soon.</p>
<p>And anxiousmom is right, Rice is at least respected as Harvard in Texas and most likely more. When I’ve been out and around Houston, if someone asks where I go to school, and I say Rice, no one looks at me any different, as far as me being snooty and entitled. They just look at me as a regular person who happens to be smart. People that go to Harvard say that telling a stranger they go to Harvard is “dropping the H-bomb” because it changes how the person views them, as far as a socioeconomic way. Rice students definitely do not get a reaction that they are snooty, etc. And Rice has this top dog reputation in Texas, the second largest state, so that counts for something. All those Fortune 500 companies and other prestigious firms located in Houston love to hire Rice grads.</p>
<p>The way to increase the prestige in the eyes of north easterners is to make it impressive to be accepted at Rice. Rice should advertise like crazy there. Make it so desirable that N.E. applications skyrocket. Then only admit 1 in 100 of those applicants. The competition for bragging rights will get the name out there. Imagine little Johnny Prestige Hounds #1-99 are rejected, while Johnny Prestige Hound #100 gets in. Mr & Mrs #100 boast about their offspring. The rejected kids will be wondering why #100 got accepted and they didn’t.
After a few years of the advertising blitz, there will be ‘Chance Me for Rice’ threads popping up constantly on CC. And everyone in the NE will know that Rice is a great school.</p>
<p>There are already “Chance me to Rice” threads popping up I’m from Ohio, and I thought Rice was a reach school for me… so Rice is definitely working on building that image.</p>
<p>Also, Rice is giving informational sessions throughout the country in partnership with UChicago, Cornell, Columbia, and Brown… this will definitely playing a role in bringing more awareness to this excellent institution.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider: I think the “rankings” are skewed because I believe there are a large number of bright and talented students who don’t qualify for any financial aid that don’t bother applying to Ivy schools, but would probably meet their admission criteria and would be accepted to those institutions. So the matriculation rates to those schools are higher because the applicants are either extremely wealthy or get excellent financial aid. What is different about Rice is it gives top students who can’t afford 50K a year a shot at attending a top notch school by offering merit aid, which in the case of my S, made Rice, a top twenty university affordable. An interesting question is the lack of diversity at an institution that is inaccessible to upper middle class students… After paying almost 40% taxes on an upper middle class income, having several kids, fifty thousand a year is tough to manage. Students is this category most definitely are probably grossly underrepresented at HPYSP is my belief and probably proportionally represented at Rice, giving the campus and overall experience a different vibe.</p>
<p>Meeting Ivy League admissions criteria and actually getting in the door are /completely/ different things. A very large percentage of applicants to the Ivy League are qualified.</p>
<p>But Stillwatermom isn’t saying that the students she’s describing would necessarily have gotten in to Ivy League schools. She’s saying that there’s a whole category of students who don’t bother applying because they’re in that middle income category that doesn’t qualify for financial aid and can’t afford/won’t pay full price. Some of those students would certainly get in if they applied, so the fact that they don’t skews the student bodies of Ivy league schools somewhat. I agree, and the merit scholarships at Rice makes a big difference to that category of students and it’s one of the reasons that Rice has a pretty economically diverse student body.</p>
<p>Huh? This argument makes no sense. World and academic department rankings (NRC, USNWR grad, etc.) are almost always based on prestige/strength of faculty and graduate programs. THAT is why schools like UT are ranked higher in rankings that measure such things - they have stronger graduate programs. Rice is indeed a stronger UNDERGRADUATE university, since undergraduate prestige is measured more by factors like selectivity, but it’s graduate programs and faculty are not quite at the same level of research universities like Texas and Washington yet. What do you mean that as a result of Rice being better academically and student body-wise… that strength of graduate programs are heavily emphasized??</p>
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<p>Yes, Rice would be the most prestigious undergrad, but UT-Austin would actually still have the stronger grad program/academic department rankings, though. Per the NRC (and USNWR grad rankings), UT is #1 in Texas in almost every academic discipline.</p>
<p>I was saying that since these world rankings emphasize strength of graduate programs, Rice is not going to be ranked high because they are an undergraduate focused institution. Therefore, since Rice does not have very strong grad programs, it is not as prestigous as HYPSM throughout the world, even though Rice’s undergraduate programs are equal, if not superior, to some of those at HYPSM (depending on the department). I should have connected these dots better for you in my initial argument.</p>
<p>Basically my point was that if Rice was a bigger university and had a strong grad program, it will be more prestigious. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT (with the exception of Princeton) derive most of their prestige from their graduate programs. However, if Rice followed suit, it will then lose it’s undegraduate focus as well, which is the quality that makes it unique in the list of top 20 universities (only Princeton can also claim such an emphasis on undergrads).</p>
I’m from Ohio, and I thought Rice was a reach school for me… so Rice is definitely working on building that image.</p>