<p>I was just curious from current Rice students or ppl who know about Rice if there are plenty of Jewish ppl there as well as other people. I know that schools like Emory and Duke have many Jews and I would appreciate if Rice has many of them, b/c I want to go to a school that is diverse and has ppl of all different religions/cultures and would not mind being around people that are like me lol.</p>
<p>There are certainly jews at rice - like me!</p>
<p>There's hillel on campus and they run lots of events - we've discussed this before, so search the archives.</p>
<p>There are a variety or religious/cultural groups on campus, including hillel, black students association, HACER (latina/latino students), Chinese Students Association, Secular Students of Rice, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Rice for Life and Rice for Choice, Koren Students association, South Asian Society, GATHER (gay/lesbian students), a variety of bible study groups, and a whole bunch more.</p>
<p>I'm jewish (by choice, not culture) and will probably be attending Rice next year.
I've actually heard Rice is one of the more diverse top tier schools.</p>
<p>Not to be disrespectful but what does it mean to be jewish by choice?</p>
<p>umm, i think it means erinf's parents and family weren't jewish but he/she decided to be on their own...but i could be wrong.</p>
<p>one of my friends is jewish by choice, his mom is christian, and his father is muslim.</p>
<p>I did some research. There are defintely less Jews at Rice than at other comparable schools. Check this website out. <a href="http://www.hillel.org/hillel/Hillel_Schools_New.nsf/0/02FDA1C10D99528D85256DD60075DF40?OpenDocument%5B/url%5D">http://www.hillel.org/hillel/Hillel_Schools_New.nsf/0/02FDA1C10D99528D85256DD60075DF40?OpenDocument</a></p>
<p>That may well be true. However, what's nice about Houston Hillel is that it included members from Rice, Baylor College of Medicine, U of Houston, UT Medical School, and maybe some other schools. So they support a huge number of events. </p>
<p>There is also a reform synagogue right across the street from Rice, and Rice's new president is Jewish, so there's a pretty big Jewish presence on campus, IMO.</p>
<p>I checked the numbers, and you are absolutely right, Rice's percentage is short of many other schools. The numbers, for people who don't want to bother calculating, go something like this:</p>
<p>Texas Tech: 1.1% Jewish
Vanderbilt: 6.4% Jewish
*Rice: 6.9% Jewish *
UT-Austin: 9.6% Jewish
Duke: 9.9% Jewish
Stanford: 10.5% Jewish
Wash. U: 26.6% Jewish
Emory: 33.3% Jewish</p>
<p>coqui's right - Both of my parents are different religions, so they decided to let their children choose for themselves. It's a bit out of the norm, but it saved us kids a lot of pyscological trauma. My parents just had us study up on different religions when we were younger, and visit various mosques, churches, temples, etc. </p>
<p>Are most students at Rice pretty religious? Is there one group that's in the vast majority?</p>
<p>It's really split. There are some religious students. And many students do go to services on weekends. But a lot of students seem to be putting religion to the side right now. I don't feel much pressure from either group. (Except hillel - they can be a bit pushy).
Christian students are obviously the majority. They are the vast majority of the population in this country, so anything else is skewed. But there are muslims, jews, athiests, agnostics, buddhists, etc.</p>
<p>How are the racial/econimic/religious interactions on campus? Do students tend to hang out with people from their own ethnic/religious backgrounds? Are they tolerant? </p>
<p>And how apparent are the Black/Latino students on campus and in classes? I'm not talking about the Black/Latino associations but the actual inviduals. </p>
<p>Some colleges say that they are diverse with "this number" % but when you look at how many students are actually in that college, the roles those students who have contributed to the diversity of the campus play, and compare the "diversity" numbers with other college's, those colleges turn out to not be that diverse.</p>
<p>don't have time right now to write you a long response on this, but here is a repost of what i said about diversity at rice on another thread:</p>
<p>I don't know who is on financial aid, and I don't much care. I don't think people know what kind of scholarships I'm getting. And no one is asking me, or not being friends with me because of how much money i may or may not have. There are minorities at Rice. I'm good friends with people who are black, white, asian, indian, etc. I never really think about my friends' races. Some groups self segregate, but I don't think if I were a minority I would feel compelled to only sit with kids of my ethnicity at meals, etc. There was a recent article in the Thresher about a girl who chose to sit with people of her own ethnicity. She was basically explaining why she did so, because a lot of people had been asking her about it. She felt more comfortable with people of her own ethnicity (more things in common, i think?), but other Rice students were constantly encouraging her to join them.
There are homosexuals at Rice, but that scene is very low-key/underground. I think some of them feel that they are not well-tolerated, but the university is really taking steps to solve this problem. We has a whole tolerance workshop during o-week, and it mainly focused on homosexuality.</p>
<p>Here is a brief profile of one minority student at rice:
<a href="http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2004/winter2/students/glamourgirl.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2004/winter2/students/glamourgirl.html</a></p>
<p>Also, the current student association president is black.</p>
<p>But, most of these students are not visible because of their race, they are visible because of their accomplishments.</p>
<p>Can I interject an outsider/parent impression here? My daughter and I visited the campus Friday (btw, so nice to meet you in person Jenn!) and I came away with a very, VERY favorable impression of Rice with respect to cultural diversity and acceptance. I saw exactly what I hoped to see. Kids of different cultures and backgrounds sitting together at lunch, studying together in the residential colleges...just appreciating each other in general. Of course, my daughter didn't notice this at all...because she truly doesn't see differences...it's kind of a ridiculous notion in her mind. But I'm of a different generation and having grown up in South Texas during years of school desegration, I am sensitive and observant. </p>
<p>My husband is Hispanic and I am caucasian and we have worked hard for our children to have opportunities to learn to see people, not differences. I most definitely came away from our day at Rice with feeling that everything we have taught our kids would be well reinforced there.</p>
<p>I was lovely to meet you as well.
I agree by the way with your daughter. I don't notice the difference much, and so it makes it hard for me to answer these questions a little. I think your outsider's perspective was great!</p>