For those that attended Owl Days, how did it go? What were your impressions pro or con?
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D22 and I had a great experience at Owl Days. We were able to talk to numerous students and even faculty in both humanities and soc sciences, and the opportunities are impressive. D22 had been concerned that the school is really small - she thought it might feel like high school, which she didnât want - but I think visiting eased that concern. Only downside on the day was the logistical hassles of lunch; everyone had to eat from the same 6 food trucks in a 1 hr period, which led to lines 100-deep. But Iâm sure they fixed that by the second day. Overall, we were pleased. We are now deposited and looking forward to O-Week!
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My daughter also has similar concerns about it being small and feeling like high school. What made her overcome that concern?
Good experience at Owl day. Loved everything about the residential college system and orientation week. Advising seems really good also.
One thing we were surprised about was the size of introductory computer science class.
We heard a couple times that the class is 200-300 students! And the class has about 25 TAs which are all undergraduate students.
Apparently the class is well run and students have good access to the TAs, but I was surprised at the size of the class for a small school.
We hadnât thought about the fact that in addition to the 4000+ undergrads, there are also 3500 or so graduate students. With the undergrad numbers growing, there will be almost 8000 students during D22âs tenure. Even though she may not interact directly with many grad students, they are riding bikes on campus, eating lunch in the serveries, etc. - contributing to the overall number of people on campus. It doesnât feel as sparse on campus as the undergrad numbers might imply.
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Ugh me too!!! I still donât know my financial offer and so I canât make a decisionâŠ.unless this is what I make my decision on (theyâre lack of proper assistance)
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Hang in there - we were also told right before acceptances went out that they needed one more form, and we provided it right away. It was about 5-6 days later that we received our award, which was exceedingly generous (even better than NPC had suggested).
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Just wanted to respond as a parent of a Rice Junior in EE/CS. There are definitely some larger classes than my daughter expected in the intro classes for CS and engineering, but I think that is unfortunately the case at many schools for those intro STEM classes. It is difficult to get professors commensurate with the increase in students taking these classes. My daughter has been a TA for the intro CS class and a few others, and although I was somewhat surprised with the system, it seems to work quite well. It definitely makes TAs accessible and they tend to be students who just completed the class and did well in it. As well, they are not âso advancedâ that they cannot explain information in a level-appropriate way. So hopefully that provides a little more information around what seemed to me to be an uncommon TA program.
I think the larger class sizes also help students get the classes they need when they need them so as not to make it difficult to progress through the curriculum and graduate on time. My daughter will have a major, concentration within her major, and a minor, and has also been able to take a fair number of electives both inside and outside of her major/minor.
I currently have a HS senior weighing his college options in engineering (not CS and not at Rice) and will say that we have not encountered any schools (although there probably are some) that donât have some large classes for the engineering/CS tracks.
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If you are waiting on a financial aid decision, give the financial aid office a call at 713-348-4958 and try to talk to a human being. Let them know you canât commit to Rice unless you get an answer soon. Maybe that will get results. The walk in hours on campus are Monday to Friday 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. CT (Houston time), but they may answer the phone before or after those times.
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We are still waiting also. Turned in one form on acceptance day. My daughter sent an email a week later. Heard the next day that they needed two more forms, sent those immediately. One of those forms still has a red X. My daughter has emailed twice that she has turned in everything. Still no response. I am thinking a school that is so hard to communicate with might not be the one.
Iâm sorry about the food ruck problem. Other years, the prospective students have eaten lunch in one of the serveries (dining halls).Maybe they changed that because of covid concerns. Congratulations on your daughterâs decision to attend Rice.
Computer science is the most popular major at Rice. Rice does not limit how many students can major in a subject so the intro classes for many of the STEM subjects are large. The class sizes pare down considerably later.
I agree with this. My D is a junior bioengineering major. Some of the freshmen STEM classes are on the larger size (though most are MUCH smaller than the CS number listed above) but they really are the type of classes that are more lecture based and less discussion based anyway so it wasnât an issue. Some classes have discussion sessions and professors have office hours. Also, my daughter has found most professors and TAâs are great about responding to emails when you have questions. I know having TAâs that are students seems strange but the TAâs donât teach, the professors still do that. They are more there for assistance and might hold office hours, run study/test prep sessions, etc. Because they have recently taken the class and did well on it, they are great resources. The system works! There are also usually students in each residential college (called academic fellows) who are available for help. For some of the popular freshman classes the fellows might hold weekly âoffice hoursâ as well.
But after those classes, my D has found most of her classes are more like 20 - 40 students. Labs are more like 12. She has never complained about her class sizes.
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My son is having a tough time deciding between Rice and another university. We attended the Owl Day last week with Rice as his top choice, but the campus seemed very empty and subdued, so heâs having doubts. Could anyone provide any more context around social life and campus vibe?
Interesting. What day were you there? We were visiting our daughter a few weeks ago and it was a beautiful day out and campus was busy. There were tons of kids sitting outside studying at Brochstein which is the glass building by the RMC (the student center). I think part of what happens at Rice during the day is the kids are either in class (you see a rush of kids when classes change) or they can found near the residential colleges where they live which are on the north and south sides of campus. Youâll see kids there hanging out, playing volleyball, etc. The main quad area is generally somewhat quiet since kids mainly pass through there on their way to other places which is different from other schools where the quad might be the center of activity. The RMC is typically pretty busy, especially around Coffee House, but I think that was closed part of last week and the beginning of this week. Everyone is different but my daughter tends to spend a lot of the daytime either in class or in the Library or in the ODEK (the maker space on campus). She tries to get as much of her work done during the day as she can so she has more time in the evening for fun stuff as possible.
Socially there is always a ton happening on campus, especially in the evenings. Different clubs have events/performances (music groups, dance groups, improv groups, cultural groups, fun activities with food, etc.). Tonight my daughter and her friends are going to an event at the opera house. Tuesday night she went to a concert off campus. I believe there are events at her college both Friday and Saturday nights.
There are also larger events on campus. During normal years there are large parties called âpublicsâ. These are themed parties hosted by different residential colleges. Some themes are 80âs, Risky Business, Texas, etc. There are usually a couple a month and they are generally on Saturdays. The âRice Program Councilâ hosts events frequently such as formal dances, crafty type events (make a teddy bear, pot a plant, painting, etc.), or food themed events. A couple of weekends ago Rice had âBeer Bikeâ which is a week-long celebration that concludes with a bike race.
I guess I would say there is a lot happening on campus and there are options for those with different interests. Maybe things were quiet last week since Beer Bike was the weekend before and kids were catching up on work? Next week is the last week of classes so the kids are getting busy wrapping stuff up!
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Thank you for posting this! It does look great. We were at the Friday Owl Day and it was pretty quiet around campus. Might be hard to overcome that initial impression, but Iâll show my son this video!
My daughter has this same fearâŠthe campus was extremely quiet during our visit and the social atmosphere seemed non-existent. I have chalked it up to being an off-day for whatever reason, but I can tell that it left her very hesitant.
My son is in exactly the same headspace. I keep hearing it was an âoffâ day and that the kids generally have a lot of fun, but honestly we saw a campus that seemed very dead. Kids walking alone, empty student center, empty quads.
It went from the #1 choice to possibly ânot sure I could go there any be happy.â Itâs so hard to know what is the reality of the campus culture. Makes for a very tough decision.
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Thatâs funny because when we toured we noticed the opposite. I remember being struck by kids greeting each other, lots of smiles, lots of groupsâŠbut I totally get that when they get an impression of a school in their head, itâs hard to change it.
It is a small and quaint campus by most standards but also has a lot to offer. My son is WL there and he would accept if given the chance because he isnât a fan of the large state school atmosphere.