<p>Yes, Rice might be your best choice if you want a professional degree (Bachelor of Architecture) from a very respected school of architecture set within a small university. </p>
<p>Middlebury College would be a good choice if you want a non-professional degree (a B.A.) from a true liberal arts college with a strong architectural studies (a.k.a. “pre-architecture”) program. </p>
<p>Several of the Ivy League universities (Yale, Princeton, Penn) offer a B.A. in Architecture. These schools are larger than Rice or Middlebury. They offer non-professional degrees in a liberal arts curriculum, as Middlebury does, but each of them also has a graduate school of architecture. Cornell is the only Ivy League school that offers a Bachelor of Architecture from an undergraduate professional school (and I don’t know how feasible it is to concurrently take many courses in their college of arts and sciences). </p>
<p>Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design offer a BA/BFA dual degree program. This might offer you the closest to ideal environment in which to put together your own architectural studies program with a liberal arts focus, but also with access to the kind of courses you’d get in a B.Arch. program. </p>
<p>All these schools are extremely selective. Connecticut College, Hobart & William Smith, and several other liberal arts colleges also offers architectural studies, and are a little less selective than Middlebury. Or, you can pick almost any LAC that appeals to you, but be sure to cover the pre-professional requirements that graduate architecture schools expect (such as physics, math, art history, drawing and portfolio preparation). Colorado College, for example, would be a very interesting place to study environmental science, with some pre-arch courses, in preparation for a career in green architectural design. That’s the path one of my kids chose after going through the same agony this past year. Nice new science center, new arts center, gorgeous location; strong academics too, but more relaxed than some of the east coast schools. </p>
<p>You really do have a lot of options.</p>