<p>My daughter loved it, my son did not. We went away realizing this school is perfect for my daughter (we only thought it was a possibility before).</p>
<p>Up until this particular tour, none of the schools felt right for her. She and my son are very different. I could go on and on and list all the specifics of what she loved about the school. I didn't think we were going to find a school that was right for her. I had pretty much become quite down on looking. </p>
<p>ANYWAY....if there is one perfect school out there for her, there must be several others. I think I am going to plan a trip to Carnegie Mellon and Carleton/St Olaf next.</p>
<p>I’m glad it went well! We lived in Houston till d’s junior year, I made her tour Rice - her response was she didn’t want to go to college in Houston :rolleyes: </p>
<p>After the tour, she said, “That was great - small classes all taught by professors” - and she never wavered from that. She ended up at a very small LAC with small classes all taught by professors (but in the mountains, which Houston obviously lacks).</p>
<p>Rice is amazing. I’m still bummed that I had to take it off my list since they don’t have the major I want or the advanced language that I plan to study. How can the otherwise-perfect school for me not have those things? (Sigh.)</p>
<p>I unfortunately will not have the opportunity to visit before applying. Would any of you mind sharing your favorite parts? Anything worth noting? </p>
<p>1) the chance to do research, even when not in a science major</p>
<p>2) the residence college system. It is where you are assigned a “college” by lottery, completely random, and that is where you live. Within the college, you have a community basically. A positive campus life is very important to us</p>
<p>3) campus was nice </p>
<p>4) seems to have good financial aid</p>
<p>The 4th thing was my favorite part. My daughter loved the first 2 points. We all enjoyed the pretty campus.</p>
<p>I would love to hear more about why your daughter felt Rice was a great school for her. My daughter is also considering Rice but she is just a sophomore. Rice has all three majors she is considering ( astrophysics, computer science, engineering) and she may be able to go the athletics route ( even if she is just a walk on). The rep is coming to our high school in two weeks and my daughter will be attending the info session. Her friend is there on a track scholarship and he loves it.</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior at Rice. It is a beautiful campus. The residential college system is truly unique in the way that it provides a small community for each student to be a member of. My daughter’s classes are very small and she knows her professors well. Also, each residential college has a “master” who lives in a house attached to the residential college. And all the RAs in the college are adult members of faculty or staff. Many of them have families. As I understand it, they live in what are essentially apartments in the college. They go out of their way to provide opportunities for the kids just to drop by and visit. I’m so impressed with the way the school facilitates all kinds of interaction between the students and the faculty.</p>
<p>It sounds wonderful! We were out and about downtown one evening and saw a bunch of the kids from the college together (like 20 of them!) on the train. They looked like they were having a blast.</p>