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Rice University

How this student rated the school
Educational QualityA+ Faculty AccessibilityA
Useful SchoolworkA+ Excess CompetitionA+
Academic SuccessA+ Creativity/ InnovationA
Individual ValueA+ University Resource UseA+
Campus Aesthetics/ BeautyA+ FriendlinessA
Campus MaintenanceA Social LifeA+
Surrounding CityA Extra CurricularsA+
SafetyA
Describes the student body as:
Friendly, Approachable

Describes the faculty as:
Friendly, Helpful

Female
SAT1450
Average
Lowest Rating
Faculty Accessibility
A
Highest Rating
Educational Quality
A+
She rated most things higher than other students did.
Date: Nov 15 2004
Major: Engineering Department (This Major's Salary over time)
By the way, a little profile: I'm a freshman, came in with no AP credit, almost done with my first semester here. I'm currently a bioengineering major / premed, but I'm not bioe because I'm premed. Now on to the real juice:

1) Orientation week: A lot of extra time is put into making new students feel at home in this place. Don't get me wrong, I may be an international student, but I went to an American school abroad, and sort of got 'Westernized' there, but the thing is that upperclassmen here get you into it. Move-in day is the day you listen to a speech by the prez, get to know some people in your residential college, and do that stuff. Day one of assimilation basically. Throughout the week, you'd get to do stuff like scavenger hunt, which can even have you driving up to Huntsville to get a picture with the Sam Houston statue (1-2 hrs north of Houston), or possibly hide-and-seek in the library (which is easy to get lost in). Otherwise, O'Week was great in that it provided an atmosphere that made it possible for you to make at least 200 friends during the week and know another few hundred more just casually.

2) Academics: So far, the classes have been challenging. I thought it was going to be mediocre, but prepare to be shocked in your first two weeks. Once you get used to it, you can get to fit all sorts of stuff into your schedule. Otherwise, one quote you'd constantly hear on campus is,

Work is never in short supply here at Rice.
There's work to do everywhere you look. People are serious with studying, but that does not mean competition is cutthroat. Here, everyone is pretty much cooperative. When I started off the semester with problems in my General Chemistry I course, I had people calling me to offer their help. And another time, when I switched classes two weeks into the semester, I had more people call up to offer their notes so that I can get started on catching up. The cooperative atmosphere just makes this place even better. Everyone generally works for the common good.

3) Social life: Not the best, but satisfactory. Once you get out of the books, there are always ways for you to have some fun somewhere on campus. Campus is loaded with free food on those Saturday nights if you don't have any way of getting off campus. Activities abound everywhere, and the clubs scene is not exclusive. All you have to do is write off an e-mail to the club president (there is a directory somewhere online) and that's it, generally.

4) The city: There's too much stuff to do on campus that there is generally no need to go off-campus. I've been on-campus 95% of the time I was here. But even if you go off campus, Houston's a great city. There is always something going on somewhere, from plays and musicals in theater district to sporting events (a Houston Texans game is just 5 minutes away) to anything you can think of, this is a great place to live in for not just four years, but the rest of your life.

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