“Another factor that should not be underestimated is the general friendliness and openness of the Rice student body; the pervasiveness of these qualities reflects a conscious strategy on the part of the Rice admissions team.”
Vandy and Rice always get very high rankings for having happy students. For this year, Princeton Review has Vandy #1 and Rice #2.
I’d think the atmosphere at Rice would be helped by its smaller size, its randomly assigned house system and no greeks.
Also, the economic demos at Rice are a bit lower than at Duke and Vandy. Which would tend to correlate with Rice’s higher minority enrollment and also its more local/regional enrollment. Although the enrollments at all three are strongly well to do.
Median family income $161k Rice, $187k Duke, $204k Vandy. Top 1%-ers are 9.8% at Rice, 19% at Duke, 23% at Vandy. Top 5%-ers are 35% Rice, 44% Duke, 47% Vandy. Top 10%-ers are 50% Rice, 56% Duke, 59% Vandy.
Last, what kind of minority enrollment is most important to you? Rice, for example, has the most Latinos (18%) and the most Asians (29%) but the fewest AAs (7%).