<p>[Office</a> of Multicultural Affairs at Rice University](<a href=“http://oma.rice.edu/]Office”>http://oma.rice.edu/)</p>
<p>See the contact info at the bottom of the page. If they don’t deal with admissions, they should have a number for whoever does.</p>
<p>Thanks Super Moderator. I have a daughter that wants to study neuroscience and is looking into Rice. I have heard it’s a conservative school. We are very liberal minded. Wondering whether it would be a good fit.</p>
<p>D1 applied and was accepted there, she visited during their Vision weekend. She liked it pretty well, said the location and campus was nice, but was unsure about attending college in TX in general due to both weather and a more conservative atmosphere. </p>
<p>She was interested in both neuroscience and architecture at the time and was in need to FA and/or merit aid, so Rice was on her list.</p>
<p>FYI: We’re a conservative, Christian family and I looked into Rice for my son. (It never made it on the list due to the weather and location) I used a book, <em>Choosing the Right College</em>, which gives green light, yellow light, and red lights to schools based on how accepting they are of diverse (read: conservative) thought. Rice got a yellow light, and based on the description, I really don’t think it’s as conservative as people would think. I think a liberal student could go there and feel right at home, quite honestly. I know of several students there who are not conservative at all and they are very happy there.</p>
<p>HTH!</p>
<p>Wow, I would never think to put Rice and conservative in the same sentence.</p>
<p>When my son got a mailer from Rice several years ago and it had a photo of a girl in her bikini (bra?) top on the front cover nice and large, I kind of figured Rice wasn’t trying to perpetuate a conservative image.</p>
<p>^The son of a friend of mine got the same brochure and commented on it.</p>
<p>My D is interested in a small to medium school. She wants to pursue neuroscience. She will need some type of scholarship and wants to get as far away from Arizona as possible. She is miserable here. She wants a liberal school too. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>@azmama Has your D considered Amherst?</p>
<p>No. I will check out their website. What can you tell me about it?</p>
<p>Is she still interested in engineering?</p>
<p>When you say she will need a scholarship, will you qualify for need based FA or will she need a substantial merit scholarship?</p>
<p>No. She attended Carnegie Mellon’s SAMS program for the last two summers and she no longer wants to pursue engineering. She wants to pursue neuroscience as she is interested in math, biology and psychology. My husband’s salary is 73k and I haven’t worked in over ten years due to chronic back problems. My daughter is an only child, first generation, mexican-american. She currently has a 4.3 average. She is 2/350 students and is president of the student government. Mostly honors and some AP’s. She missed NHRP by one point in Arizona. Her last SAT was 1910. She is retaking in Oct.
I’m stressing out over a list of school for her because it really depends on the financial aid she receives. Any help with suggestions for schools would be appreciated. She got a free fly-in to see Wellesley in October. She is excited about that.</p>
<p>azmama- what about applying to Carnegie Mellon for the interests she has now? They seem to be very interested in recruiting minorities and it’s a campus that wants more girls/women to apply. Plus she knows the school and this would be handy to know about with the “Why CMU essay”. Disclosure- my S is there now and participated in the Origins orientation and came back very happy saying- “I’ve never been around more intelligent and well adjusted kids in my life”.</p>
<p>Just curious- what about participating in SAMS turned her off to engineering?</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is on the list. She loved it there. Not sure why she changed her mind on engineering. She really liked her mechanical engineering class. Loved, loved the SAMS experience. I know she has always liked psychology and mathematics.</p>
<p>How does one determine which schools are matches? Do I need to go to each individual school’s website?</p>
<p>Go to the Collegeboard.org website. Type the name of the college in the search bar. This will give you all the stats for that particular college. If you are interested in the sat/act range just click the “Applying” tab on the left side of the page. Scroll down the page and click the “SAT & ACT score” tab. This page provides you with the colleges 50% range.</p>
<p>There are so many colleges that I am unfamiliar with. Is there a list of all colleges with the SAT ranges anywhere?</p>
<p>^I think that this is a good use of the USN&WR ranking list. If nothing else, it is a general ordering of selectivity, which correlates pretty well with SAT/gpa ranges.</p>
<p>Remember, there are 2 lists, one for universities and another for LACs. </p>
<p>Also, on the CB site, use the Find Similar Colleges feature once you find schools that look like a match, that will lead you to other possibilities.</p>
<p>One more thing, it’s going to make a big difference if your D is able to reach about 2100 this Oct. It makes a substantial difference for the selective schools, that’s a foot in the door level score IMO.</p>
<p>I see that starting at No. 29 it starts saying more selective. With a 1950 SAT do you think that is where we should start if we want to get some type of aid or she look farther down the list. One question, I see Wellesley is way up on the list. Why would they offer to fly her in. It makes not sense to me. My daughter found out about Wellesley through a Ventures scholar e-mail, she applied and they are paying for her flight. I’m not sure she should go now. What do you think?</p>
<p>I don’t know what the criteria are for their ‘more selective’ category, you mainly have to do some checking of different schools to get a feel for where your Ds scores fit. By definition, places where your D is going to be competitive for merit aid are going to be safety and match schools; and you should be looking for schools with merit aid specifically for URMs or Hispanics. The only way to do this is to search college websites.</p>
<p>No, don’t drop Wellesley. Look at the CB stats:</p>
<p><a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search;
<p>If you look at the SAT graph, the 25% is 1950. Since your D is a first gen, MA, she may get a bump, and she also may score higher in Oct. </p>
<p>I wish I could tell you that there was an easy way, but there isn’t, you need to do a lot of web research to look for schools, there aren’t many short cuts. How about your HS, is your GC helpful/knowledgeable?</p>