<p>I'm sure someone has posted something like this before, but just of curiosity, it seems as if Rice is really, really under the radar here in the Bay Area. Most of the people think here think about a "good" school as something like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. though I think it is a highly mistaken stereotype.</p>
<p>Do you think the location of Texas has something to do with its popularity? OR is it ignorance of people? Or is there truly something that Rice lacks, which other schools have? Honest opinions would be appreciated.</p>
<p>BTW, I'm stoked to go to Rice now, I got accepted ID into Natural Sciences... :]</p>
<p>dang you!!!...i hope i get accepted...rice is cool...a lot of ppl know..teachers etc so i dont know...i dont think it is because of texas but i really dont know..</p>
<p>I agree with Jenskate1, the location does lend it to being overlooked- however if you talk to the right people, they will recognize that it is a truly excellent school. To people with the right personality- it seems unbeliveably good even (personal opinion).</p>
<p>Because it's in Texas, many of the "upper-crust liberal" types in the East haven't heard of it. In some cases, they even look down upon it :mad:. Of course, that doesn't really mean anything. Rice has it all, and the people that count know it.</p>
<p>It's not underrated. You can't expect a new school like Rice to garner the attention of schools like Yale and Harvard. Plus, it's in Texas (not good). I know that for me, Texas would be one of the last states in which I would like to go to college.</p>
<p>hey, I'm a liberal.. that doesnt mean that I didnt look at a wide range of colleges. That being siad I applied to Rice because it is the best school in the southwest, duke is comparable but somewhat better </p>
<p>but... it was the college system and the rice/baylor program that attracted me</p>
<p>I am actually a Libertarian and am surviving quite well in Texas. However, some would argue that Libertarians are not really liberal... or conservative for that matter.</p>
<p>All I can tell you non-Texans is that you should come visit the Rice campus. I guarantee you will fall in love with it. My D said she would never go to college in Texas, and she is completely happy at Rice. She is very liberal, by the way. There is good air transportation in and out of Houston, the cultural scene is tops (the museums etc. are right near Rice), and the public transportation is free to Rice students. Wearing flip-flops in February isn't too bad, either.</p>
<p>I've found that when I tell people that my son goes to Rice, if they've heard of it (we're from NH), they are surprised at how small it actually is. I guess because it's a D1 school, people assume that it's larger. Personally, I thinks it's a perfect size. </p>
<p>I agree with jenskate1 that there are many liberals on campus (my son being one of them) When we went down for Parent's Weekend last October, my son's college master told us that he calls Bush International Airport the "Big Airport" because he can't stand saying the name.</p>
<p>People in Houston obviously know Rice very well- it has a great reputation down here. When I told relatives and other people who really don't know much about college admissions that I applied to MIT, most of them said something like "Oh, sure, you've got the scores for MIT." Most of the people who I told I was applying to Rice said "You think you can get in?"</p>
<p>"oh well, Im sure i can find some conservatives in texas"
My mom goes to the baptist church that House Majority Whip Tom Delay goes to (shudders; not about the baptist part, but the Delay part). In the suburbs, it's almost uniformly conservative. However, downtown Houston is an urban area, meaning you probably won't run into too many suburbanites, and I hope to god you have no reason to venture into Houston's suburbia.</p>
<p>Downtown Houston is an alright area, but there are no zoning ordinances- meaning there's really nice parts and really dirt-ugly parts. And interestingly, there's intermingling of the two- there's an old tacky burger stand (huge sign) in the middle of a really high class business neighborhood and retail center that refused to leave despite how much money they were offered by local business owners. The contrast was kinda funny. Now, it's even better- the burger stand got replaced by a "420 Smokeshop." Also, Houston is really decentralized- there's about 4 different outcroppings of skyscrapers, surrounded by random development.</p>