Hi. My child is applying to Rice RD and is very excited. They have visited Rice and have submitted all test scores and I believe all high school transcripts, teacher and counselor recs have been sent. An email was sent with an application fee waiver which caught us by surprise as we are not low income, nor did we apply for a waiver. Does anyone know why this might be? My child loves this school. Thank you.
My kid received this too. I think they try to woo strong students. It doesn’t guarantee admission of course.
It’s a gimmick to increase the number of applications.
I have read that it is a gimmick to increase the applicants, but I only think it is being sent to kids with high scores. All of his scores have already been sent to Rice - months ago - and so I believe that they target high stat kids. Of course any school that sends glossy brochures, personalized letters,etc wants to increase their applications to make their acceptance rate look low (accepted students/all applicants). Having said this, I have not heard of any kids getting this that have low stats.
Many schools do this. The same thing happened to my daughter with U Chicago a few years ago. If you are already planning to apply to Rice, the waiver is an added bonus. Paying for a number of applications can get expensive at $75 or so each. Perhaps the waiver will allow a student that otherwise couldn’t afford to apply to Rice to do so and might convince some undecided applicants to send in an application.
My son got the waiver if I remember as a Class of 2021 applicant. His standardized scores were high but no way was he getting into Rice with a 3.67 UW.
@Hamurtle without knowing everything but the GPA, it is hard to say for sure. But yes, that GPA is low for Rice.
I heard they give this to almost all national merit candidates but idk for sure. Is that the case here?
My daughter received a fee waiver which we took advantage of. She was accepted and is now attending. The fee waiver is part of why she applied, that and their presentation at a group forum they did with Duke and Brown et al. They were the only people there that she liked. She had been focused on liberal arts collages but Rice’s size interested her. Owl days completely sealed the deal.
That said, I do not think colleges want a large application pool solely for the purpose of lowering there acceptance rate. They also want as wide a selection of applicants possible so as to get the best admitted class as possible. It’s like walking onto a car lot. You don’t want to go somewhere where there are only two cars for sale. You would want as much choice as possible. Not that our children are used cars but as an analogy.
My son received the fee waiver as well, he has shown interest in Rice and is a NMSF with high test scores sent to Rice. He had planned to apply the fee waiver is a bonus.
@rockstar01121 my son is not a NMSF but had perfect ACT along with many perfect sat subject test scores.