@washugrad Just keep in mind that Rice’s “merit aid” is mainly awarded to students who have significant nonacademic accomplishments or were born URMs. See the FAQ on their website for full details.
From the website:
Many of Rice’s peer institutions also offer fee waivers to high stat kids regardless of need. My daughter got one from University of Chicago two years ago. Most high stat kids are applying to many schools in the RD round. At $75 plus a pop, the application fees really add up. The fee waivers may bring in some applications from high stat kids on the fence about applying to Rice. If so, that’s a good thing for Rice. It seems the Rice Investment financial aid initiative rather than fee waivers is the main reason for the huge spike in applications.
U Chicago does not charge an application fee to students applying for need-based aid, so that aspect is nicely built in for students with limited resources. A few other schools (Bowdoin, etc.) are the same. Maybe in the future Rice will look at that option.
@ricegrad Only student from our high school who was awarded a Rice merit scholarship, had perfect scores and GPA as well as community leadership and several talents so guidance councillor said it’s hard to say what part of her resume got her that honour but she is neither URM nor low income.
@Riversider was that this year?
Last year.
I know of 5 students over the years who were awarded merit scholarships (class of 2019, class of 2020, class of 2021, and two from class of 2022). They all had exceptional achievements, very high GPA, high scores. Three ORM, one white, one Hispanic.
Few months ago I saw some information about types of merit scholarships on a google search. It is not showing up on Rice’s website now. I couldn’t find any change of policy announcement. Did they make any changes? Up until early 2000’s, Rice gave small scholarships to all NMS, collectively up to 20% received some sort of merit. Few years ago they stopped NMS and merit giving shrunk to 2-3%. Now with no merit based information but more details for need based aid on their website, it looks like merit has gone even more exclusive and Rice may end it like Ivies did.
“Merit Scholarships
Name Recipients
Trustee Distinguished Scholarship Students whose personal talents distinguish them within the pool of admitted applicants.
Trustee Diversity Scholarship Students whose diverse life experiences and contributions to diverse groups distinguish them within the pool of admitted applicants.
5 more rows
Merit Scholarships | Financial Aid | Rice University
financialaid.rice.edu › scholarships”
If my memory serves well, other five rows were for international, engineering, research , athletic and legacy scholarships.
Son’s school had stats on UT Austin today - it gives some perspective to the significant increase in apps at Rice - over 52,000 UT Austin applications. Rice apps are about half of this for considerably fewer spots. I think UT admits are usually around 20,000 vs. over 2,000 at Rice. There were only 3,000 admitted outside the top 6% in state auto admits making up 13% of the total admits. Admit rates were 15% for engineering and 13% for business.
UT Austin’s auto admit is pretty low but overall acceptance is 40%, if you don’t get in then don’t loose heart, just take one year at any UT campus and then move to Austin.
Oh WOW just wow. By the year I start to apply for Rice, there will be like 32000 applicants. Darn, I really would like to go to Rice.
@19parent just looking at this thread for the first time. My son also received a waiver. Rice does send out application fee waivers to kids who have good SAT subject test scores. Maybe that is what happened? We are full pay also.
@UVAmom23 I know the reason they send out the fee waivers, it is just interesting when colleges send out fee waivers when they clearly have way more applicants for every slot that they can fill. The kids I know that received fee waivers were good but not off the charts by any means and really have no interest in going to Rice. One applied because it was free, but hates Texas and is not going there even if accepted. It was just a game to him. They are obviously trying to get the acceptance percentage down, which is frustrating and just waters down the pool in terms of actual true interest. My daughter received many fee waivers and I just thought to myself, if she was interested, then we would apply. I know there are some kids that truly need a fee waiver, that is different. I am not singling out Rice in this, lots of schools do this and the whole process is just getting crazy. Just my opinion.
@19parent Did your daughter do anything to request the fee waivers? DS is a sophomore and has high stats. Any fee waivers would be helpful. Rice is on his list at this stage. Thanks.
When I saw that some high stats kids or kids were being offered fee waivers I had my son request one and Rice said no. He still applied since his interest is high but the chances are obviously low with that many applicants.
@yearstogo we weren’t looking for a fee waiver, my daughter carefully researched schools and was excited to submit her application to Rice. I think it was just interesting to see that Rice exceeded their last years applications by such a significant number and still felt it was necessary to blanket the country with fee waivers to increase their application pool. I could understand it from a school that was in need of qualified applications, but my guess is that is not the situation at Rice. Please realize that this is not a comment on Rice, it is more a comment on the current state of applying to top schools. It is just difficult.
My daughter is attending rice and got a fee waiver. The fee waiver was highly appreciated as the application fees were really starting to be a burden. It was a reach school, of course a place like rice is a reach school for everyone. We applied to a lot if schools because the financial aid package was everything. Maybe without the fee waiver she wouldn’t have applied. I would make an argument that fee waivers are all good because they do encourage people who would otherwise just assume it was hopeless to apply. The school itself is always concerned about getting the best and most diverse class so the more applicants the better. I would also speculate that Rice is still after a more geographically diverse student body and is still trying to grow the applicant pool from states outside of Texas.
@robotrainbow I definitely agree. Rice is trying to move itself onto the mainstream national scene with every incoming class. As a Texan, this is both exciting and nerve wracking. On the one hand, it’s nice to see Rice being recognized and valued to the extent that it already is in the Southwest; however, this probably means the proportion of native Texans will be decreasing with each incoming class. Rice used to be a “safety Ivy” for kids in Texas…I’m not sure that will be the case in five years, or maybe even next year. As it is, a sub-8% acceptance rate for c/o 2023 is a very very real possibility.