<p>Where on the Rice website does it say this stuff? Could you get me the link?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/%7Einstresr/ricefacts/students.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~instresr/ricefacts/students.html</a>
51.6% texans/all students including international</p>
<p>Yea, about half the class is Texans. Rice has the similar situation as Stanford, though. Stuck in such a big state with a lot of qualified students who have the respective school as a dream school.</p>
<p>I'd say Rice is more prestigious. Faculy and professionals in various fields (engineering for instance) place more weight on a degree from Rice than a degree from wash u</p>
<p>And reason no.2 Rice is more prestigious. BECAUSE I TURNED DOWN WASH U FOR RICE. DAMN STRAIGHT!!!</p>
<p>Yay squarehead is awesome</p>
<p>I'd go to wash u. It seems like its getting better every year. Less hs students have heard of it in FL; Rice has the D1 sports.</p>
<p>Everytime someone asks me where I'm going to college and I say Rice, I have to explain to them where it is.</p>
<p>On the other hand, everyone here knows where Wash U is, but that may be because of the mail.</p>
<p>who cares what the average joe on the street thinks. They confuse UPenn with Penn State. Its the professionals' and faculty's opinion that counts.</p>
<p>Murasaki is dead on. Name recognition often depends on the part of the country from which you hail. I have lived on the West Coast, East Coast, South, Midwest, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain West. My gut tells me that Rice is more well known, generally, but only by a small amount, if at all.</p>
<p>I can also tell you that the farther west of the Mississippi you go and the farther south of the Mason Dixon line you go, the fewer the people who seem to care about what college you attended (naturally, there are strong exceptions to this). In the Midwest, the Big 10 schools tend to carry a great deal of prestige. I have heard someone comment on a dumb remark by saying, "Are you sure she went to a Big 10 school." In the Northeast, many people automatically assume that private schools are always better than public ones and, of course, the Ivies are king. In the Rocky Mountain West and Northwest, the state schools tend to get more positive reaction than, say, elite LACs.</p>
<p>I also agree that prestige is a poor way to choose a school.</p>