Colleges Rice University

Rice University www.rice.edu

Rice University is a private institution that was founded in 1912. It’s located on a 300-acre forested campus in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, and offers a dynamic student life in the nation’s fourth-largest city. The Rice Coffeehouse, Valhalla Pub, and Willy’s Pub are all student-run institutions offering on-campus dining. All students are assigned to one of 11 residential colleges where they remain members even if they decide to move off campus. The residential colleges provide housing, dining, and academic and social events. Undergraduate education has remained at the center of Rice University’s mission since its founding. Rice combines the advantages of a liberal arts college with the resources and facilities of a premier research university. Some of the important engineering and science developments include Rice being the first university in the nation with a department dedicated to space science.

Academics

Rice is comprised of eight schools, including the School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities and Wiess School of Natural Sciences. Its graduate schools include the highly ranked Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and George R. Brown School of Engineering. Rice also has a well-regarded School of Architecture and the Shepherd School of Music. Rice is home to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan think tank, which offers coursework, internships and lectures. The student-faculty ratio at Rice University is 6:1, and the school has 66% of its classes with fewer than 20 students. Popular majors include Computer Science, Psychology, Mechanical Engineering, and Economics.

Special Highlights

Residential Colleges. Unlike many universities, Rice doesn’t have sororities or fraternities, nor is there an honors college or an athletic dorm. Instead, we randomly sort our new students into one of 11 residential colleges. Each student is randomly assigned and stays in the same college throughout their undergraduate years. Thanks to the diversity of our student body, this creates a tapestry of traditions, culture, and, most importantly, community, within each college. Our residential college experience conveys the rich flavor of academic life at Rice and allows students to combine their usual studies with social events, intramural sports, student plays, lecture series, innovative college-designed courses, and an active role in student government.

Student Association. The Rice University Student Association is the governing body of all undergraduate students enrolled at Rice University and the 300+ student organizations and is made up of representatives from the 11 residential colleges including your college president and senator. We advocate on behalf of students on the university, local, and state levels. In addition to having representatives serving on the University’s governing committees, the Student Association manages and distributes funding to registered organizations for student-led projects & initiatives.

School Mission & Unique Qualities

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path-breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contribution to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor. Rice faculty, staff and students share values that are essential to our success as a healthy community. Those values guide our decisions and behaviors and shape Rice’s culture. They come through in the way we treat each other and the welcome we extend to our visitors. These values can be recalled simply by our name, RICE: Responsibility, Integrity, Community, and Excellence.

Student Reviews…

“Amazing diversity, great professors, and world-class research. Rice is especially good for people who like going to small schools. The academic competition is not as fierce as schools like Harvard or Princeton and the coursework is manageable, provided you plan it out accordingly.”