<p>I've heard that living in Texas (and houston) do bad things to your chances at ED for Rice. It doesn't really help that I'm Chinese either. I want to apply to a 'reach' school for ED, but I'm not sure if I should apply to Rice, Cornell, or Brown. My mom thinks that Rice is a good idea since it's close to home, but ,again, I've heard my geographic location may hurt me.
Should I apply to one of my other 'reach' schools for ED instead? How will this effect my chances?</p>
<p>Well, really, here’s the problem in a nutshell: you can hear a lot of stuff about college admissions that’s just not true. A lot of the stuff you’ll hear is just a bunch of urban legends and myths and old wives’ tales.</p>
<p>I must make it clear: I have no particular knowledge about Rice whatsoever. Do not consider me some kind of authority. Consider me some guy with an internet connection.</p>
<p>But here’s what makes sense to me. It would make sense to me for Texans to be somewhat overrepresented on Rice’s applicant pool. There are probably more smart, ambitious kids from Texas and neighboring states thinking seriously about Rice than there are smart kids from New England or Hawaii or Kazakhstan. And because Rice does want some measure of geographical diversity and balance in its entering class, it may be just a little easier to get into Rice if you’re from Vermont than if you’re a Texan. But I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference in a single applicant’s chances. Although there will be a lot more Texans and Midwesterners in the applicant pool than New Englanders, there will also be more Texans and Midwesterners than New Englanders in the freshman class. And I’d be astonished if any difference was so great that your could say Rice has any kind of institutional bias against Texans.</p>
<p>It also makes sense to me that *if *it is a little more competitive for a Texan to get into Rice, it will be so in the RD round, too. So, since historically the admission rates for ED applicants have been a bit higher at Rice than the admission rates for RD, IMO, if Rice is really your first choice, and your family feels confident they can afford it, you should apply early to Rice.</p>
<p>But, again, consider your sources. I’m just some guy on the Internet. On the other hand, when you heard that being a Texan “[does] bad things to your chances at ED for Rice,” was that an informed statement from somebody who really ought to know, or was that just gossip? Because what happens often is that people who have been disappointed kind of reverse-engineer a version of the truth that suits them: “Well, if I didn’t get into Rice ED, but somebody from Oregon did, it must be because I’m from Texas and it’s harder for Texans.” Then they start offering that insight to people as truth, rather than the backward-looking speculation that it is.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Deciding where to apply ED is a matter of deciding where you most want to go to school. It is a huge mistake to apply ED at any school that wouldn’t be your first choice RD.</p>
<p>Any advantage or disadvantage of living in Texas is unlikely to be significantly different between ED and RD. The ED advantage is also not that significant; remember that recruited athletes and other hooked applicants disproportionately apply ED and are included in the figures.</p>
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<p>Rice actually makes a point of keeping Texans well-represented in its population. If anything, it’s an institutional commitment to Texas. I don’t know how the acceptance rates for various regions and states correspond to the overall rate, though, so I’m not sure what the statistical effect is.</p>