<p>Thanks Antarius and RaeBanging for your respective inputs. I’m currently undecided but im definitely not going to the theatre/visual department 
Would you consider Rice kinda like Tufts? (I mean like it’s a liberal arts college with a HUGE focus on research)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t compare Rice to Tufts at all. It pains me to write the two in the same sentence. Rice is awesome while Tufts is just… dreadful. But besides that, Rice is actually prestigious. </p>
<p>I’d say Rice is in a class of its own due to its unique social atmosphere and strengths as a humanities/science powerhouse. Come visit to get a better sense of what we are :D. At least check out the Baker Institute and the HRC – RaeBanging is right on.</p>
<p>Owl2014 - Ouch. I was considering the two. I think that they are similar in many ways, which is why I placed them head to head. Granted, Rice is a better school.</p>
<p>Regarding Rice, we are not a LAC. We are a Science and Engineering school with a huge focus on research. We also have a great humanities program. I think the best way to describe Rice is a undergraduate research university, where you can research and work in essentially every single department.</p>
<p>I remember seeing in the Tufts movie clips on theU.com that Tufts has a pretty crappy endowment for a university of its caliber. I also read this in other sources. It’s harder to do research as an undergrad if you’re at Tufts than if you’re at Rice. I can’t stress how EASY it is to get yourself involved in research at Rice, or even to find money to do projects. The size of our school is perfect, and the culture and resources are there to aid you in any and all research-related activities you want to throw yourself into. I can’t imagine it’s like that at Tufts, or at any other university, for that matter. </p>
<p>Rice has also always topped the lists of highest endowment to student ratio. This is because of the fact that we have a VERY high endowment for our size, and for the university’s age. The universities that tend to “beat” us in those rankings are schools with bigger/better graduate programs (i.e. Stanford) and/or schools that are a lot older (therefore, more money), for example Harvard’s got a good 300 years or so on us.</p>
<p>Now, the student-endowment ratio may have changed in recent years because of the fact that our enrollment increased and the economic crisis hit everyone. But yeah, the point is, undergraduate research experience is most certainly important at Rice, and the resources are there to fund and support it, unlike at many other similar universities.</p>
<p>I love Rice. It’s so different from other schools…</p>
<p>Because fun doesn’t go die at Rice (like it would at Columbia and UChicago). Instead, fun runs around naked during Baker 13, and then guzzles Bud at Beer Bike.</p>
<p>Like RaeBanging said,
</p>
<p>Yeah as a social sciences major, (Poli/econ) I can tell you there’s plenty of course selection and the professors are solid. There are plenty of research opportunities as well.</p>
<p>From: [What</a> You Do vs. Where You Go - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/29/does-it-matter-where-you-go-to-college/what-you-do-vs-where-you-go]What”>What You Do vs. Where You Go - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>“The late author Loren Pope, who wrote “Looking Beyond the Ivy League” and “Colleges That Change Lives,” noted that the greater the opportunity for engagement and critical, creative and collaborative learning with faculty, peers and community, the more likely the chance for future success.”</p>
<p>^ Basically, that’s the Rice community explained right there.</p>
<p>@ rymd:</p>
<p>Add period is 2 weeks, which is same length as at most other universities. Additionally, student-taught classes and pass/fail classes are increasingly becoming common at other universities, including Duke. Nevertheless, Rice, similar to Brown, does give a lot of academic freedom compared to most other schools… their distribution requirements are quite loose.</p>
<p>Hope your views are not representative of the Rice student body </p>
<p>Your focusing on “endowment” & “prestige” as a reason for choosing a school? </p>
<p>Shouldn’t the focus be on professors/teaching, the quality and diversity fellow students and the school’s “atmosphere”? </p>
<p>I know little about Rice so don’t want to comment on your school, but I can say Tufts has great students, who are smart, diverse and want to “make the world a better place”. Our professors are focused on teaching, as opposed to some who care more on research. We have a great fun environment for students both on our campus and in Boston/New England. </p>
<p>If a student has an interest in Tufts and Rice help them to learn about both schools. That will help the student to find the right fit for them. There are lots of smart students who will like what Rice offers more than Tufts (and vice versa). </p>
<p>Anyway enough with the name calling…</p>
<p>@tuftsfan</p>
<p>I referred to endowment not as a measure of prestige - Rice definitely doesn’t have the largest endowment. But I believe the high student-endowment ratio is somewhat telling - it shows, at least in part, the resources available at this school to every single student if the students chose to take advantage of them. And so yes, we reap the benefits of great resources and extremely personal classes at this school, even with professors who do research. In fact, some of us students do research right alongside them. As explained on many other posts on this board, this schools atmosphere is unique and WONDERFUL.</p>
<p>Furthermore, students who chose Rice come here because they want to be here for Rice and everything that makes it unique compared to other schools of its caliber. I know many students here who turned down ivy-league schools or schools of “higher prestige” because they believed that their experiences here would be better. A lot of Rice students don’t even like how the current university president is trying to increase Rice’s prestige at the expense of its culture, but that’s a whole other story. Basically, prestige is very far down on the list of reasons to come to Rice :)</p>
<p>As for Tufts, I personally did not have it on my list in part because of shallow reasons (e.g. the whole ivy reject stereotype haha), but more so for legitimate reasons: I wanted a school that was in a city, with warm weather, and I also wanted a smaller school (Rice is only about a thousand students smaller, but the student faculty ratio is smaller than at Tufts). Once you get to a certain level on the college rankings, ALL of the schools pretty much have great, smart students who have populations within them that want to make the world a better place. I chose this school because the culture suits me, the facilities are fabulous, were RIGHT in Houston (with a very low COL rating, a medical center all around us, and plenty to do), and of course, the residential college system makes this university different (and, in my opinion, sooo muchhhh better!!) than so many other universities.</p>
<p>If a student wants to know more about the benefits of Tufts, then they should check out the Tufts board. From my knowledge, its not too similar to Rice except in the fact that its has a liberal curriculum (right?) and a focus on teaching undergraduates.</p>
<p>From a fellow applicant’s perspective:</p>
<p>My S did an information session and interview at Rice in July, but we could not do the Engineering info session on the designated day, since we were unable to travel until later in the week. My son called the school to see if a “student” could meet with him and answer questions, show him the lab facilities, etc., and he arranged for an appointment. The Assistant DEAN of the Engineering department met with my son one-on-one, during his off-day, coming from his home. The meeting lasted one and a half hours. From what I’ve heard, this is the norm and not the exception…</p>
<p>^ Yeah, it is totally the norm, that’s the culture at this school. Faculty are just that awesome and down to earth, and are for the absolute most part willing to help anyone with anything 
:)</p>
<p>Definitely. Back when I was a prospective student, I came to campus for the normal tour and information session. After that was over, I walked into the physics department office and asked if there was anyone I could talk to about the department. Even though I had not called ahead or made any other arrangements, one of the faculty members with an office nearby (who would later turn out to be the professor for all my physics labs) sat down with me and answered all of my questions. It’s a very friendly environment.</p>
<p>To add, I had many experiences like this as well. Two semesters ago when I was an undergrad, I signed up for Metabolic Engineering - a graduate level Chemical Engineering course with Dr. Ramon Gonzales. Turns out, I was the only one (UG or G) to have signed up at all.</p>
<p>As a result, I met with him before the semester started. He asked me why I wanted to take the course, to which I said that I heard it was interesting and it would teach me something outside the usual curriculum. Because I wanted to learn, he agreed to teach the class - to me.</p>
<p>We moved the time slots to ones that were convenient to both of us and he tailored the lectures/work/project to make it more engaging and research oriented. I was very surprised that he agreed to teach the class despite there being just one student. </p>
<p>Just another example of professors going the extra mile to teach those who want to learn and do so in a way best for their students.</p>
<p>If Tufts is an IVY Reject school, then so is Rice…and for the same reasons its a good school, but not quite as good as H-Y-P…</p>
<p>Tufts “Overlap group” is Dartmouth, Brown, Georgetown, Washington U in SL, Penn, Cornell etc…which is competitive with Rice… [The overlap schools are those we compete with head to head for students.] </p>
<p>There is no benefit potential students who read CC to your insulting my school. </p>
<p>Students who read these boards understand who is trying to help them find the “right school for them”. </p>
<p>Talking about the strengths of your school and how it might fit their needs is helpful. Insulting other schools isn’t. </p>
<p>I suggest you change your approach, if you want to attract students to Rice.</p>
<p>tuftsfan - I agree with your side that Tufts is also a good school. My final decision was Rice vs. Tufts. Tufts had an edge as I am from Boston and it was literally 2 streets away from Somerville. Rice gave me a ton of money, so I ended up here.</p>
<p>Let us just try to keep things civil. This thread is not the right place to be slinging mud at each other.</p>
<p>Well said, Antarius!</p>
<p>I was NOT trying to mudsling at your school in my second post - in fact, I didn’t really insult it at all. I was simply saying the reasons why I myself did not chose Tufts. They’re not BAD reasons, they’re just reasons that didn’t fit me. Many decide to chose schools like Tufts for the very same reasons that I didn’t chose Tufts. And, for the most part, there are a lot more schools that Rice overlaps with more so than with Tufts in part due to their geographic location. I have also been trying to give a lot information about Rice and its strengths; I don’t believe my posts have been focused on insulting Tufts. </p>
<p>I have friends who go to Tufts and love it, and it was their first choice. It’s obviously a good school; I never said it wasn’t a good school. </p>
<p>Again, no disrespect :)</p>
<p>Haha I don’t know if the original poster asking about Tufts vs Rice is even still following this thread, but I just talked to my two friends who are sophomores at Tufts – I guess if you boil it down, Tufts and Rice are both universities with strong undergraduate programs with highly involved faculty (liberal arts feel) ALONG WITH the research component included. However, if we had to generalize, Tufts is more on the right brain with research (humanities/social sciences research) while Rice definitely has a lot more research in sciences and engineering. Consequently, if we had to boil down the cultures as well, it seems that Tufts is a lot artsier (dance/theater/visual arts) while Rice is a little sportsier (we don’t care enough about our D1 sports, but we’re in Texas - a lot of students here are avid sports spectators of other college sports and pro sports, plus the intramural culture is really intense).</p>
<p>However, I do remember reading this other post last year on Tufts, and this MIGHT line up with the whole financial-aid/scholarship component involved in picking a potential college:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/686063-tufts-bowdoin-end-need-blind-admissions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/686063-tufts-bowdoin-end-need-blind-admissions.html</a></p>
<p>^ Rice is still need-blind, and for people for whom this matters, this is a very important factor.</p>
<p>@tuftsfan</p>
<p>RaeBanging must have hit a nerve with you when she innocently wrote that Tufts is an “Ivy reject” school. (Probably because you didn’t get into one yourself, but I may be wrong. Perhaps you just didn’t even bother applying.) Your response to her was that Rice must also be an Ivy reject school because… well because… it’s not as “good” as HYP. How interesting that you say we should evaluate schools based on their "professors/teaching, the quality and diversity fellow students and the school’s “atmosphere,” yet you ignore these qualities when comparing Rice to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Now pay attention: I know this will be hard for you to imagine since you go to Tufts, but people do turn down the Ivys. In fact, it’s normal for the average Rice student to do that. You know why? Because Rice is just as “good” – if not better than – HYP and definitely better than, say, Dartmouth and Cornell. Shocking! I know – a school below the Mason-Dixon isn’t full of stupid football jocks? At Rice there’s no inferiority complex like there is at Tufts because we are not rejects living next door to the schools we really wanted to go to. All Rice student who I’ve met all wanted to be here from the get go. </p>
<p>As a side note to prospies listening in: We’re not mean here at Rice; we just love our University and will defend it against fools like tuftsfan. Also take not that there clearly isn’t much going on at Tufts if he’s found himself browsing an obscure thread in the Rice forum during finals week. Everybody knows that Tufts is in an awfully boring town. Houston, on the other hand is a vibrant city – the fourth largest in America. So many reasons to choose Rice!</p>