<p>I'm a high school student from Finland, aiming to apply for Rice University and I would like to know, do I have any chances to get in? I'm an average student with average grades because while in high school, I was struggling between interior designing and architecture, trying to figure out which I would love to do more. I ended up choosing architecture, because I would recon it being challening enough for me. Therefore, my grades aren't that awesome (yeah I know, my own fault), but I'm going to try to get them up in my last year in high school. I will be doing SAT I and II + TOEFL in November-December and I hope to get a good scores. Thank you in advance, any useful information regarding on Rice will be welcome :)</p>
<p>I'm going to Rice next year--what do you want to know?
There seemed to be a couple of international students in the architecture school when I visited, so I really think that they like people from outside of Texas. Really, the most important part is your portfolio, your interview, and your commitment to architecture. Grades and stuff like a that are only part of the equation, not even the most important part.
If you have any specific questions about Rice, or Houston (which I know pretty well since I've lived there for the past seven years!) I'll be happy to answer them for you! It's a pretty awesome school.</p>
<p>When you have it together, post your portfolio online and let current students give you feedback. There are some very talented students on this forum.</p>
<p>The SAT Is will be very important.</p>
<p>ummm, yeah. If you get a good SAT score than that will definetly helped you. It definetly helped me, since I had like no architecture-related experience at the time I applied. I would probably recommend taking the SATs a bit earlier than November or December, so that way, if you don't like your score, you can always take it again before the application deadline. That's what most people in the United States do. </p>
<p>Yay! I'm happy that people all the way in Finland have heard of Rice! People on this forum seem a little too Cornell obsessed....sooo go Rice!</p>
<p>rice is a great school...it was my one of my top choices when i applied for architecture school. it's a very small school ...25 students a year...and a smaller faculty. it's pretty research oriented from what i hear...and tend to focus a lot on regional issues (houston, urban...etc) i have 4 friends who go there and they seem to enjoy it</p>
<p>Rice is pretty well known in Asia, earlier because we eat rice lol, but now its famous there.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for these answers, it really helps me to know that even my grades aren't that awesome (average tho) I still have chances. I was actually looking at the Top Universities list and I saw Rice there, of course I checked Cornell too but I thought that maybe I shouldn't try to take a too big bite at once and when I saw pictures of Rice and I read a little about Houston, and I kinda fell in love with it. I'm myself from a very little town (25k ppl) so going to Houston would probably be quite scary for me at first hehe :P Oh and... I was thinking, are they going to see it as a plus that during high school, I've done courses in 22 different subjects? :)</p>
<p>22 subjects? Thats something...</p>
<p>I guess thats what makes US highschools unique. In my home country we dont get to pick our classes till 12th grade. And in my highschool we get to do 13 classes all year long, then you get to choose either science field (10 classes) or social sci field (8 classes). Whats great is our church supervised curriculum easily matches or exceed american APs.</p>
<p>Welll... Ok, in Finland, in high school one course lasts 7 weeks. And here's the list:</p>
<p>Finnish: 5 courses
English: 6 courses
German: 6 courses
Swedish: 4 courses
French: 5 courses
Spanish: 2 courses
Math: 5 courses
Physics: 1 course
Chemistry: 1 course
Geography: 2 courses
Biology: 2 courses
History: 2 courses
Social science: 2 courses
Religion: 2 courses
Philosophy: 1 course
Psychology: 3 courses
Music: 1 course
Art: 6 courses
P.E: 2 courses
I.T: 1 course</p>
<ul>
<li>this 1 course where you study the basics of everything about your health (not in a biology way tho) and a course where I did webpages for my school :)</li>
</ul>
<p>So yea I hope they will see those as a big plus. Isabel, could you tell me what the portfolio is all about like, it's a very new thing to me as in Finland the applying system is VERY different. Like, what exactly should it include, what should it be like etc.?</p>
<p>The point of a portfolio is to demonstrate your visual creativity and help the admissions committee gauge your potential in architecture. You could include any drawings, sculpture, paintings, photographs (of course, no original versions of anything)
In my portfolio, I included about 15 photographs (since I took a lot of photography classes in high school) and 5 hand drawings with a little typed description. They want it to be all together in a binder of some sort--I used a binder with clear plastic sheets inside so I could slip my photographs inside. Just make sure that your presentation is nice and that you don't procastinate!
If you get the chance to interview, DO. If you can't because you're an international then it's okay(not like it's required anyways).
It's too bad that their getting rid of interim decision, becaue it was a huge relief that find out my acceptance early. Have you considered applying early?</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry too much about the size of Houston--Rice is a really small school, with 3,000 students (which is smaller than my high school) and the residential college system just makes it smaller. As an archi (as architecture majors are called), you'll be in a studio with 24 other people so you'll be in yet another small community. A Rice architecture class starts out with about 25 people in their freshmen year and only loses about 2 or 3 people by the time they are in their fifth year (unlike other colleges who like to start out big and "weed out" people).
Rice for me had the best combination of everything I wanted in a college: an excellent b. arch program, a small university, a real and tightly-knit campus, with a large cosmopolitan city with plenty of things to do and exploree, and quirky and talented student body. </p>
<p>Oh, and another tip: don't mention the Fountainhead. Ever. Just trust me on that.</p>
<p>Jary, thats a very long list</p>
<p>My highschool courses were:
Math
Biology
Physics
Chemistry
English
National language
Economics
Geography/geology
accounting
Sociology
PE
IT
Religion
Art or music (choose one)
Goverment/politics and citizenship</p>
<p>All 15 (I said 13, sorry my mistake) are reqs for 10-11th grades. Basically 1 course lasts 2 yrs. Yes we take those all year long, 11 months a yr, 6 days a week. On 12th grade we get to choose either:
Science: lose: econ, acc, sociology and politics; Add: calculus.
Social sci: lose: bio, chem, physics, art, geography.
*Religion no longer taken on 12th grade, PE becomes optional. Art optional for social sci students, req'd for science students.</p>
<p>Weekly quizzes, monthly exams, and of course theres always the essays, lab reports, and projects. The only good news: very few homeworks.</p>
<p>This applies only to catholic schools, though. Public schools are easier I heard, but here going to public schools will give you very slim chances of entering top colleges.
Mine, the School of St Aloysius, is a top ranked (3rd nationwide) and accepts no more than 200 students every yr (out of 18-19000 applicants). Yet it's still easier there than St Regina's all girls school (2nd) and St Paul mens school (1st) which accept about 100 students anually. I love St Regina, their girls are hot AND smart.</p>
<p>Ok well... I kinda realized too late that I wanted to study in the U.S. (have my personal reasons) and therefore I don't really have time to take a practice SAT or anything like that. I have to get it done once and get in with that if possible. The thing is, we do our SAT's in my capital city and I live far away from there, so with the travellin (which is like 50-60 dollars), I have to pay the fee for taking SAT which is 68 dollars for internationals. And paying 100 isn't the only thing... The fact is that I have to travel to my capital city 3 times in total, meaning it's going to be quite expensive for me just to take few tests. First I gotta do the normal SAT, then both SAT II's and then TOEFL :( So that's why I have started studying for SAT's already now, to get as good score as possible. I'm not TOO worried tho, cause every single Finn I've asked how they did in SAT, they told me they got 1100 without practicing at all, and one got 1480 after practicing 2 weeks... So I'll just have to see how it all goes.</p>
<p>What comes to the portfolio, I do have many ideas and I can draw very well (sorry for complimenting myself :P) , but all I'm worried is do I get the idea of a portfolio wrong and then I really mess it all up. I guess I should google to see what it's all about :)</p>
<p>Oh and had to check what you meant by Fountainhead :P</p>
<p>//EDIT: Oh and I hope the Finns meant the old max score, which was 1600... HAH!</p>
<p>One thing I can tell you about SAT, if youre good at math the math test is darn easy.
Be really careful on the verbal though, its really tricky.
I got 1090, ruined by the extremely hard verbal test</p>
<p>Well I wouldn't say that I'm that good in math but that's why I just have to practice :) Even tho when I checked those SAT tests, the math part seemed quite easy if u know what ur doing. And yea, the verbal part was kinda hard cause like me, I don't really know the offered words or some words in the sentences. The reading part seemed easy tho. I usually got almost everything right, but then again... There's gonna be a certain time and I'm gonna stress out because of that and probably mess up badly. Just have to see...</p>
<p>Wow.. I did one books PSAT and I got 1230 without practicing LOL. Yea I really need to study on math cause I couldn't remember ANYTHING. So basically I gotta imporve by 770 points, nice! Well I think I can get the math better... But the writing and reading is the problem, the words are so unfamiliar to me :( Something they DON'T teach at our high schools.</p>
<p>Make yourself some flash cards. Get the list of SAT words from teh back of a Princeton Review study guide and make flash cards of the words you don't know. Put the words on the front and the definitions on the back.</p>
<p>You'll be amazed how that will boost your score.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip, I already improved my score by 145 just by doing the second PSAT. Hopefully I will keep improving :) I'm trying to memorize all the math stuff I've learned, I think I can get a pretty good score from the math tbh :) My score is now 1345 and Im kinda hoping to be able to improve it up to 1700 in 3 months. I think I can cause, the only difficulty atm is that I can't remember all the stuff I learned long time ago, and my vocabulary isn't that good, but once I learn the words the book has to offer, I'm sure I'll do pretty good :)</p>