<p>well, rice is definetely a really small and selective school. its small student body may be why less people know about it, but as far as it being the IVY league of Texas...that kind of stupid to say since ITS THE ONLY DECENT SCHOOL IN TEXAS!... and for the record its more than decent. i know a lot about rice cuz i moved to texas about 4 years ago, and my small school had a student/athlete go there. i can personally say its a beutiful school in a great city. btw, houston is the 4th largest city in the us...</p>
<p>...Rice isn't the only decent school in Texas. I would say that UT is more than decent, as are several other Texas schools. Saying otherwise is a little bit snobby.</p>
<p>"I would say that UT is more than decent, as are several other Texas schools."</p>
<p>...what several others are you talking about. UT maybe the second best in TX, but thats becuase all the others arent that good. its just an "ok" school.</p>
<p>And given that i dont even go to Rice, its not really snobby to say its the only decent school. i'm not saying every other school in tx sucks, but name 2 other schools that are "decent", and UT austin really doesnt count.</p>
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...what several others are you talking about. UT maybe the second best in TX, but thats becuase all the others arent that good. its just an "ok" school.
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<p>Yes, that serves as an adequate explanation for how it is ranked in the top tier...</p>
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And given that i dont even go to Rice, its not really snobby to say its the only decent school. i'm not saying every other school in tx sucks, but name 2 other schools that are "decent", and UT austin really doesnt count.
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<p>Baylor and Texas A&M.</p>
<p>Rice is the best university in Texas, but that is not necessarily because other colleges are bad; there are quite a few decent schools worth enrolling in that not only possess good programs, but are also relatively inexpensive.</p>
<p>Also, Austin College and Trinity College in San Antonio have good reputations. </p>
<p>Additionally, SMU.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, forgot about Baylor. I agree with Baylor being an excellent school, but A&M? I'm not that sure about Austin COllege either, but Trinity is really good for law and tennis, and that's about it. and you know how most of the time a college city is usually really proud if they have a good school, well San Antonio really doesnt care about trinity (im just saying...). I know 2 friends who go to SMU and they say its a good school, too. I know i sound like i think i'm too good for these schools, but i dont. its just my opinion that they arent above average schools.</p>
<p>but i stand corrected with baylor and smu, they are good schools.</p>
<p>and a random, stupid question...how do you get those "quote boxes" in your post?</p>
<p>yes, it really is too bad that Rice isn't more well known. I must admit I am pretty ignorant about the quality of other elite schools because I haven't personally visited any of them. Nonetheless, I have a really high opinion of Rice. Almost all of my friends at Rice from out of state really like it too. There is some good news. Rice's new president, David Leebron, former dean of Columbia Law School, has stated that encouraging out of state interest in Rice is one of his top priorities.</p>
<p>pat57575, that is not good for me.</p>
<p>coqui, the "quote" boxes can be made by enclosing a specific line of text with (QUOTE)TEXT(/QUOTE), whereas "( and )" is "[ and ]" and TEXT" is the text you wish to quote. It is sort of like HTML script (< and >) but with brackets ([ and ]) instead.</p>
<p>oops, sorry nspeds! I should consider my audience...</p>
<p>Baylor and SMU are not excellent schools. They're not even great school. Trinity, UT, and A&M are better than SMU and Baylor and of course Rice is better than all the above...</p>
<p>I didn't go to either school, but Duke is in no way above or equal to Rice. It is more heard of because of its basketball team, but the school does virtually nil research compared to Rice. Rice has more National Merit Scholars than Duke in absolute numbers but has less than 1/2 the overall students. You do the math.</p>
<p>As for reputations, it depends if you care what the uneducated masses think about colleges (Harvard is fo' real! Those people are totally smart and stuff from what I hear!!) or if you'd rather go to a school that combines the intimacy of a liberal arts college with the scholarship of a major research university. Rice has as good a reputation at most departments of Harvard or Stanford as... well, Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>Rice is really the only university of its kind. Harvard is not anything like it in terms of size or attention, and neither is Dartmouth for that matter. But Rice does more serious research than Dartmouth and Duke combined.</p>
<p>By the way, I went to UVa for undergrad but would probably like to go to Rice for grad school. So you can call me biased if I get in, yet I am going to go there only because I have decided it is the best college in most every aspect and I have the grades/scores/experience to be picky and more or less choose the school I will attend among all possible options.</p>
<p>breeze, you mentioned National Merit Students... how much of a help is that to your application at Rice, if anyone knows or has an opinion?</p>
<p>If you are a National Merit Scholar, I think it is a help to your application at any university but perhaps particularly so at Rice. It is definitely a source of pride to Rice that 1 out of every 4 students is a National Merit Scholar. I wouldn't harp on it too much on the application, as it doesn't necessarily make you unique, but it will help!</p>
<p>Also, Rice is a sponsor. So unlike HYPS, etc., they give scholarships for national merit scholars.</p>
<p>i took two classes at Rice last semester as a high school senior, and aside from the academics, the campus is beautiful. Rice is also located near one of the coolest areas in houston (West U/Montrose/Museum District). </p>
<p>here's a question for those of you that live in the south, especially texas (even more so houston): would you choose HYPS or Rice?</p>
<p>I think it's a more interesting question if you make it for people who live in the northeast - b/cyou expect that they'd say the ivys. But i picked Rice.</p>
<p>good point. for those of you in the northeast: Rice or Ivy?</p>
<p>Actually, since i'm still thinking about this - the question is probably most interesting if you pose it either as an open question to everyone regardless of location (so that the "close to home" bias cancels out) or to people where the schools are equally far away (like midwesterners).</p>
<p>I'm further from Rice than the Ivies (in Virginia), but after much debate and research I would choose Rice over any school, anywhere. The only Ivy that conducts any significant research is Harvard, but the students tend to hate living there and there are a LOT of students (particularly graduate students). Yale, Princeton, and especially the "lesser five" conduct little significant research or development of much anything... fairly insignificant schools in the greater scheme of things.</p>
<p>That leaves MIT and Stanford, both of which I think are stronger than all 8 schools of the Ivy League. They both conduct more research than Rice (but probably less per student or per faculty member). They're just a little too big for what I am looking for.</p>