Rice University Top Questions

Rice prides itself for being open, diverse, and cutting edge when it comes to political correctness. An awakening expereience came for me during my first week freshman year. I had heard about RAs (resident associates/hall monitors...) and knew they were people who were older than the undergrads and people we were suppose to feel comfortable going to if we had any problems or concerns. Well my first week I discovered my RA was a bisexual living with his partner. Very interesting and caught me somewhat off guard. My other RA lived down the hall with her boyfriend. No one seemed to think twice about these individuals' living arrangements. In addition sometimes I feel that Rice tries to be tolerant of all, but ends up discriminating against Bible believing Christians. In an effort to be tolerant, I sense some intolerance against certain groups at times. However, with this said, I am grateful for the expereiences that have stretched me. I don't consider them necessarily a negative. All of my expereiences at Rice have helped mold and shape me into the person I am today. My word of advice: be prepared for the unexpected.

In general, Rice is a very liberal campus. There is a concerted effort to include everybody. Since it is a private school, it can be hard for some students to pay for it; however, Rice generally offers a pretty good financial aid package.

Rice has a lot of wealthy students that come from privaleged backgrounds, but people aren't snobby about it or anything. The majority of students are from either Texas or the east coast. There is wide involvement in intramural sports and campus organization, but people sometimes complain about the majority of the students being politically apathetic compared to other college campuses.

Diverse in terms of experiences, but not that much racial diversity.

fine...same as anywhere out of place: super social, sorority/frat type clothes: some dress up, most give up and wear tshirt and jeans/shorts, sweats, anything goes interact: yes and no, some do tables: athletes/super social, super nerdy/too smart for own good, the we're so smart we can go to class drunk and still get better grades than you, and everyone else from Texas financial: upper middle class politics: yes, mostly some left, lots of right/conservative religiously earn: yes but not too much

All of these are very diverse and accepting. I have opened up a lot to a lot of different people. A very close-minded person or a person who cares nothing about school. A mix of dressing up and just t-shirts/shorts or PJ's. Yes different types of students interact all the time. Rice students come from everywhere. A good number of Texas kids too. Yes students at Rice are VERY politically aware and active. I feel that Rice in general is a little on the more liberal side.

Rice is very friendly to all groups. Students that feel out of place at Rice are republicans. Students where what they want. Yes different people interact all the time. I dont dine in the dining hall. Most students are from out of state. Most students are very wealthy. Students are politically involved in the democratic party. Yes students are only concerned about their futures.

We are really diverse. Only half of our student body is from Texas, and you will find people of all shapes and colors here. There is no single financial background or stereotype that all Rice students fit into, although like most top schools our student tend to be liberal (though not as liberal as most top schools, and we have our fair share of conservatives).

As a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, I really enjoy the passion of Rice students to practice what they believe, not be afraid, and not have to be afraid. We encourage any student to come to and participate in our weekly get-togethers. As a private university, Rice is unique in that all its activities and organizations are inclusive rather than exclusive. Even though, of course, some students are more intolerant of particular groups, I feel that overall, students are very supportive of their peers' beliefs and values. Within my group of friends at my residential college, one of our friends is a devout Muslim who commits herself to staying pure by not attending parties or have parties held in her room, and her roommates and my friends respect her values and do not force her to do anything that she wouldn't want to participate in.

I don't think any student would feel like he or she was out of place. There is a "group" for everyone. What students where to class varies. Some students will dress up and others will roll out of bed. There isn't really a certain way of dressing when it comes to class. The financial backgrounds are what I didn't expect. I thought that a lot of the students at Rice would be loaded but because of all of the scholarship opportunities, many of the students are just middle class.

Each student at Rice can find his or her own niche... the only thing is, the niches don't interact. Even though Rice is supposedly so diverse, I am pretty much friends with only caucasians, and a majority of them are athletes or live at my residential college. If you are a nerd, you dress up for class. If not, you wear sweats. Most kids at Rice seem to have an abundance of money. Rice students like to feel that they are different from their strictly republican parents and claim to be very left-winged. Rice students also get pretty cocky, especially when they are upperclassmen. My friends who have already gotten jobs lined up for next year do not hesitate to brag about their starting salaries.

So far I have found everyone I've met to be extremely accepting of any and all differences. We run the gamut of all socio-economic classes, are gender balanced, have people from all races (though white, Indian, and asian predominate). I personally have friends from pretty much every "social group" I can think of. Different "types" of students mix all the time. Probably the most cliqueish of students are the athletes, but I've found that if you go over and sit with them they are more than happy to have you. There is a good mix of political activism and apathy at Rice. I think alot of students are too busy with homework to spend much time watching the news, but people who are passionate about an issue often stand up and address everyone in the commons at meals and invite them to come to events that showcase those issues. As for politics, like America in general Rice is fairly polarized, with most people either ascribing to the Neo-conservative, ultra-religious, God-fearing right or the Neo-feminist, ultra-socialist, God-ignoring left. As a very-nearly dead-center moderate, I fit with neither group, but can say first hand that both groups accept each other completely--there are neither fist-fights nor artillery duels in the academic quad. I just wish there were more moderates to hang out with. Alot of people at Rice are religious, it is a school in the Bible-belt portion of Texas after all. That said the religious and non-religious get together essentially perfectly: they like the atheists and get along with them find even though they are going straight to hell. For example, I live in a six-man suite, with 4 roommates who are members of perhaps the most arch-conservative protestant group on campus, and one atheist,and myself (a conscientious objector to the religion debate), and I'm equally close to each of them.

Students and Student-athletes interact more than they would at any other university, but the interaction is still not completely friendly. Students are intimidated by their athletic ability, and athletes are intimidated by the average student's intelligence. Both sides develop a sort of animosity toward each other and it's hard to break that barrier down. That being said, there are some athletes that are actively part of the college system and have regular student friends, but those are usually from specific sports such as swimming, cross-country, tennis, golf. This is probably because they are not as noticeable or stand out as athletes as much as a football player or baseball player. Most of the other sports are very exclusive in who they hang out with, in sort of a fratty way.

The only out-of-place student I can think of would be one who doesnt give a flip about their grades and learning. Most students wear pj's to class. All students interact with one another. Most kids here are very wealthy, or so it seems.

There is a lot of diversity at Rice. No one really talks about their socio-economic backgrounds, and while there are wealthy students, no one flaunts their economic superiority. Admission is need-blind, so no student is turned down because they might not be able to pay. The atmosphere on campus is pretty laid-back. Most students dress very casually and preppy students are a small minority of the student body. Most students lean to the left politically, and there are a lot of moderate and libertarian students. There is a lot of religious diversity as well. I am an atheist and I everyone I tell respects my beliefs. Most students are Christian, but very few are deeply involved in their beliefs.

People are pretty open and accepting. I think a Christian would feel most at home at Rice because there are so many Christian organizations here. I think most people would feel comfortable at Rice. People wear mostly jeans/pants and shirts, sometiems pajamas, sometimes other clothes. People don't really separate themselves out in the dining hall. They don't really talk about specific numbers they'll earn one day.

People talk about sex a lot. A lot more than many of them have it. But then again, there are a surprising number of, um, interesting sexcapade stories I've heard during my time at Rice. Chocolate syrup, grape jelly, duct tape, the Coffeehouse closing shift...Rice students are creative, there's no denying that. There's a pretty active LGBT group, and being openly gay is a lot easier than being openly black, it seems. Social segregation still happens to a certain extent, and it sucks, but no one really has a good solution. Don't get me wrong: most people have friends from many races. But we don't sit around the fire and sing "It's a Small World." Race is an issue at Rice, in Houston, and in America at large. We accept that, we deal with it, and many of us confront the issue together. Racism is more overt here than anywhere else I've lived. But its prominence makes it less of a taboo to talk about. There is a minority that openly expresses racist opinions, and a majority that hears those opinions and tries to dissolve them through reasoned discussion and analysis. Recently, the Big Talk project (www.betweenaduck.com) has been specifically pursuing racism and other weighty issues in a public forum, and there is a movement to attack the topics that are supposed to be banned from cocktail parties (religion, politics, etc.) with brute force. We lean to the left more than the rest of Houston, but we're still a campus in the middle of oil country, and many of our engineers hold the political views that employers like Shell and Chevron would want them to hold. There's a fabulous grassroots green movement, but it's still a struggle to get people to recycle beer cans instead of throwing them away.

Diverse and fun.