My sibling and I have a quite a big age gap so I’ll be done with my undergrad before they enter college
I am biased because my s went to Rice, he has ann engineering degree, and is doing very well. I love the school. BUT, and this is a big BUT, we took out no loans, and he left school with no debt. He might not have been able to do the things he has (buy a car, a house etc) if he had college loans And we might not have been willing to help him, or help fund his wedding, if we were paying off school loans
So, as much as I love love LOVE Rice, (and they might also give you some departmental scholarship $ as they did for my DS when he was there, it didn’t amount to more than a few thousand each year), don’t put yourself in a financial bind if you can avoid it.
Your parents don’t have a lot of room to tell you that you must go to Rice. They should have been more attuned to the need to get FA materials in – they saw the ED agreement saying only insufficient FA would be a reason to decline an ED offer. How did they think Rice would be able to make a timely FA offer if you didn’t get the FA paperwork in? Guessing that the FA office isn’t super keen on bending over backward to rush through a re-evaluation of your FA now given that you didn’t meet the original deadlines. You need to talk to the director of admissions. But if all the hypothetical situations mean more loans, then you need to bow out. Make sure your GC knows it was an FA issue related to medical expenses, too.