We are very interested in these schools for D22 (and yes we know they are reaches for everyone so they are not the only schools on her list). She is interested in interdisciplinary humanities and law. Our sense, however, is that these campuses tend to be heavily STEM and pre-med focused and there is a lot of commentary here and in Niche re the humanities being seen as less worthy or prestigious by the student body as a whole at least at Rice. WashU recently advised us that only about 25 pct of students in their College of Arts and Sciences major in the humanities; while they do have a strong program and dedicated research and institutes. D22 may be looking to do a PhD or JD/PhD, with a career in academia as a real possibility. We are trying to figure out whether the popularity of STEM as undergrad within major research universities that aim to be T25 for the long run (and therefore have strong humanities programs) presents the possibility of unique boutique experiences in the humanities with less crowded advanced classes and greater faculty interaction opportunities, instead of short changing the offering. We have heard from friends this was the experience of their son at Duke, for example, which also seems often associated with preprofessionalism and STEM and Econ/prefinance. Any recent knowledge or experience of the undergraduate humanities programs and experiences at DERW?
She should be aware that getting a tenure-track faculty job is fiercely competitive, since the number of new PhD graduates far exceeds the number of openings (each faculty member at a research university supervises far more than the one PhD graduate needed to replace them when they retire, plus the small number of additional PhD graduates to replace retiring faculty at non-research universities). In subjects where there little or no industry demand for PhD graduates, each opening may receive hundreds of applications.
While it is true that more students at Rice major in the STEM disciplines than the humanities, the humanities offerings are also excellent. She has never felt that the STEM students look down on her. Rice students are friendly and accepting. The residential college system insures there is lots of interaction among students pursuing different types of majors. My daughter lives with her 3 best friends: an Earth Science major, a premed student, and a cognitive science major. My daughter is a senior completing a double major in Psychology and English. She has loved her experience at Rice, and it was a great fit for her. She has gained admission to 4 of the top journalism programs in the country, including an Ivy League school, for her masters. Rice students majoring in the humanities and social sciences have great success getting into prestigious law schools etc. Her classes are small, and she has excellent interaction with professors. My daughter applied to Duke, WashU and Emory but chose Rice.
How did she decide on Rice?
Yes, would be very helpful to understand her thinking on why Rice over the others. We were concerned also about their being unable to guarantee on campus housing for four years, and their recent announcement that they will be adding 800 students starting with the class of 2025 (without necessarily adding new housing or faculty; unclear).
Emory appears to offer substantial literary aspects:
Housing concerns are real and should be compared to the other colleges (WashU, Emory…?)
However, with regards to the progressive addition of 800 students, they’ll be adding 50 faculty and a 12th residential college, as per the Houston Chronicle. Going from 4,000 to 4,800 undergraduate students, thus adding funding for 800 graduate or PHD students and thus research potential, lab staff, TAs, etc. that go with that.
In case someone was thinking it’d lower selectivity: Over 29,000 applications this year and about 1,000 seats… I doubt it’ll move the needle for selectivity to add 40 seats each year for a couple years.
Rice plans to add more housing and faculty. They just completed a new residential college (dorm) which is larger than the one it replaced so it will hold more students and another college is getting remodeled which will also add more rooms. In addition, they plan to build an entirely new college to be completed before 2025. There is also an empty college that is being used next year to house the students who are displaced due to renovations and for those who can’t get rooms in their dorm and want to stay on campus. I am not sure what the long term plan is for that space.
In addition, according to this article, they plan to add about 50 more faculty.
But yes, Rice does not guarantee 4 years on campus, though many do stay for 4 years. My daughter is a sophomore and has lived on campus both years and unless she decides to move off campus, she will stay on the next two. I would honestly be shocked if Rice does not plan well enough to be able to house students for at least 3 years as they do now.
Great stuff, thanks.
I double majored in the sciences and humanities at Duke before completing a PhD and am now teaching at a college in the northeast. I’ll be a bit vague here for privacy reasons, but I am happy to elaborate via PM.
Duke is a fabulous place to study the humanities and social sciences. There is nowhere better in the US to study classics, religion, public policy, and biological and cultural anthropology, and most other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (English, art history, history, political science, sociology, etc.) are fairly strong as well. The relative unpopularity of the humanities means that undergraduates tend to have small classes (most of mine had <15 students) and a great deal of attention and advising from faculty. Professors in my department would stop me in the hallway to tell me about a recently published book I should check out, ask how my graduate applications were going, and so on, which you simply don’t get in larger and more impersonal departments at Duke like biology.
Additionally, Duke has long emphasized the development of writing skills and has been lauded for its “writing-in-the-disciplines” approach to education (#3 nationally, per a USNWR survey/ranking). The FOCUS program for first year students is particularly geared toward writing.
Finally, Duke students benefit greatly from cross-registration with UNC Chapel Hill, which has its fair share of extremely strong programs in the humanities and social sciences. It’s very easy to register for classes at Carolina, and a bus runs regularly and directly between the two campuses.
My daughter wanted to be in a big city for college. All 4 schools fit this bill, but Durham was the smallest of the 4. Her grandparents live in Durham and are big Duke alums. She wanted to forge her own path. She did not want a school with a heavy emphasis on Greek life. She felt that was the case at Duke, WUSTL and Emory. Rice does not have Greek life. She really liked the residential college format Rice has. She is a happy nerd rather than a preppy type. Rice was somewhat cheaper than the other schools. Rice is laid back and is very accepting of all different types of people. She is an only child and maybe felt more comfortable being closer to home. She is a Houston native. All of the schools are excellent, but Rice was the best fit for her. She was able to visit all 4 schools back in the pre pandemic days. Another student might like the vibe of the other schools better than Rice.
Thank you!
Knowing why/how a student made their decision is always very useful to future readers, current juniors contemplating the colleges, etc. 
Humanities job opportunities for PhDs, especially academic jobs, are, in general, strongly influenced by “prestige”. As such, Duke is the obvious choice, Rice is a good choice, WashU isn’t a good choice and perusing the faculty pages at Emory indicates that they hire faculty whose undergraduate degrees are generally at “higher ranked” colleges than Emory. Emory is only a good choice is she wants to study creative writing, in which case there is a different list.
I would replace WashU and Emory, though the colleges I would recommend instead depend on which field. I remember that you are legacy to a “prestigious” college, so that one should likely be added as well.
Off hand, UMich is a good choice, Ivies, liberal arts colleges are really good choices, UVA, Northwestern, UChicago, etc. For matches and safeties, UIUC, OSU, and Wisconsin are good choice for students who are looking to go on to grad school in humanities and social sciences.