<p>Last night, I was looking at the ED/ID Rice threads from last year. Seems to me that Rice doesn't place much emphasis on standardized test scores as I thought they did. People with 1300s got in while others with near perfect scores got the rejection letter. So what exactly does it take to be a successful applicant? I think the two most signifcant factors are GPA and the essay with the test scores and ECs as the table-tipper. What do you guys think it takes to get in, especially if you are taking the ED route?</p>
<p>GPA/class rank.</p>
<p>ONe kid from my school played 4 yrs of football, top 10% of class, AIME qualifier, 1490...</p>
<p>He was rejected, but i think he did poorly in some social sciences classes.</p>
<p>Is a 3.80 GPA considered "low" for Rice?</p>
<p>(With 12 APs/Honors classes)</p>
<p>Personality. Passion for learning and life.</p>
<p>Good grades and scores just get you past the first gate. To actually get in, you've got to be an interesting person. They're building a COMMUNITY at Rice, and you've got to show that you'll be a good addition to the COMMUNITY. Remember, it's not just a school, it's a place to live for four years. They're creating a little world.</p>
<p>That's the difference between people who get in and people who don't.</p>
<p>i read somewhere that Rice has the highest number of valedictorians in the nation, and Rice explicitly says in their viewbook that more than 3/4ths of the admitted students are in the top 5% of their graduating class. class rank/gpa (based on the difficulty of the curriculum) is def. tops</p>
<p>So, what does that mean for scholarships? I know Rice offers a number of scholarships each year. Does the competitive student body make them that much rarer to recieve? Also, how's Rice's financial aid program?</p>
<p>As far as receiving scholarships, the number of scholarships aren't likely to change because of the students apps. I believe they only have a certain number of scholarships of each type to give out. And just by thinking if you were head of the college or something, if all of the students were "perfect" one year, it wouldn't be too bright, or plausible even, to give them all scholarships. So this also means if they all suck, you still shouldn't not give out any scholarships. I think its reasonable to assume that it's dependent on how well a student is in relation to that body of students applying that year. So not rarer or more common, but harder or easier.</p>
<p>Now all that there is to predict for a students situation changing is: are the applicants getting better/more numerous AND are the scholarships going to increase or decrease. I'd say the applicants probably are getting stronger, and there are certainly more applying each year generally (this year there were fewer than last, but thats a small anomaly, Rice is becoming more widely known). I looked at some early 90s college review guide and I think the middle SAT range for Rice was like 1150-1260 or something (its weird, other schools with Rice's current range had about Rice's old range as well). So if SAT means something to you, then its getting harder by that metric.</p>
<p>I would think that scholarships would go up because it seems like schools get richer every year with new donations and everything, but also tuition has been rising even more than inflation, which obviously means its getting more expensive. So the cost effect I'm not really sure. But it looks like yes, you are going to have to work harder and harder for the same type of scholarship each year just as you have to work harder and harder to get admitted each year. </p>
<p>Rice's financial aid program is great. I'm not sure what the exact title was, but it was basically #1 best financial aid program in Money magazine. Rice has a huge endowment, I think 3rd behind Harvard and Yale at around $3B. I'm sure you know about the lower tuition. So basically it looks to me that there are a lot of factors going on, but I think the most important thing is that the applicants are getting better/more numerous=harder to get in/get scholarships.</p>
<p>I actually read the whole admissions philosophy on the Rice website and seems as though they are really looking for diversity and people that will bring something new and unique to the college.</p>
<p>I actually read the whole admissions philosophy on the Rice website and seems as though they are really looking for diversity and people that will bring something new and unique to the college.</p>
<p>That is absolutely true. Rice will take someone who is unique or who has overcomed a challenging life experience with a 1400 than someone who is ordinary with a 1550. This makes Rice's admissions much different than its peers,</p>
<p>I'd have to say that that is pretty much true everywhere. At the most competitive tech schools it's true, at ivies, at state schools. Actually not state schools, they will take both! BAHAHAHA. w/e</p>
<p>In my opinion, Rice's admissions policy appears far more eccentric for the in-state applicant, as their in-state admit-rate is quite low. However, for out-of-state applicants, Rice is ostensibly consistent: those who are admitted generally have a high GPA and SAT score, with few exceptions to the rule. </p>
<p>Diversity can be construed in many ways. One could look at ethnicity, the state from which the applicant is applying, diverse life-experiences, socio-economic factors, intellectual idiosyncrasies, and so on.</p>
<p>Edit: My opinion seems to apply to most top universities. Residents of St. Louis complain about WUSTL's admissions policy, as do the residents of Washington, D.C. with respect to Georgetown. </p>
<p>The only universities/colleges with eccentric methods of admissions that are applicable across the entire nation appears to be Harvard, Yale, Darthmouth, Brown, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Swarthmore, and Amherst. There could be others, but I am not familiar enough with the complaints from applicants who have been rejected from those schools.</p>
<p>um UPenn is the most fickle school I have ever seen. To be admitted their RD is ridiculous. Kids from my school have gotten into dartmouth, duke, and brown, and amherst and rejected countless times from Penn RD, kids with 1550+</p>
<p>It's funny how people would hate to be stereotyped, ranked, categorized, and judged by a number -- how about your SAT, or your IQ, or the lowest grade you received on a spelling test in 5th grade?</p>
<p>Yet here we are, college application time, and people are begging for evaluations based on numbers. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Numbers are good, but they don't tell the whole story; they serve as a baseline or, sometimes, a tie-breaker -- but not always. Essays and personal interests, interviews and individual style... these are the things that show the real person behind the numbers.</p>
<p>When Rice's application pool is flooded by in-state applicants, is it really that surprising that the numbers don't have as much to do with it? If you've only got 200 applicants from Florida, it's pretty easy to find interesting people with high scores, too. But when you have thousands* of applications from Texas, you need more than the numbers; otherwise you get boring people. I was at Rice, I met some of them -- interested in nothing more than their next test and their GPA calculated to 14 decimal places.</p>
<p>Don't be like that. :) Please.</p>
<ul>
<li>I'm pulling these application numbers out of my.... hat.</li>
</ul>