Duke has to have plenty of nerds... gotta make up for all the basketball players they let in.. who arent exactly intellectual
Wow - fellow Will Ricers (2001). Anyway, DD has a good point regarding the fact that no one cares where you went to college after your first job. BUT - I think that's a pretty important step. I usually tell people that you should go to school that is: a) prominent enough that recruiters come from all over the country or know of your school and respect it b) located in the part of the country you'd like to start your adult life. As a high schooler, I know that this line of reasoning never crossed my mind. But, by the time you're 18 you usually have a decent idea of whether you like your home city and/or whether you're a wanderer. Also, no matter what, you CANNOT live at home for your first year at college. If that's going to happen because of your parents or because you feel you have a great comfort zone among friends, do not stay in Houston. You need to grow; you just don't know it. The thing you (sourav) should get out of posts like Chance's and DD's and whoever else mentioned the ladies and dork factors and such... MAKE SURE YOU VISIT every school you're considering. Don't worry about the money it'll cost - you're going to spend a lot more in tuition. Don't worry about the time it'll take - you're going to spend 4+ years at your choice. Maybe, just maybe, Rice isn't the school for you. Maybe UT isn't the school for you. Maybe the University of Chicago (nice mention) is cool. Berkeley. UIUC. Washington U. in St. Louis. School size, people you meet, the support system, the aura of the campus, the surrounding city/town/cornfields, etc., are all factors you need to consider to make the right decision for you (not your family, not your friends, not your heritage).
Hey, why do you think I went to Rice? Unfortunately, the ratio wasn't quite so much of a ratio by the time I got there. Several of us had to resort to dating the male alumni left over from the days of the ratio.
There seems to be a lot of resentment towards people that went to higher institutions here like Dadakota and others. Anyone that feels going to a better private school makes the world at your doorstep is fooling themselves, along with those that think you don't get a better education. I did my undergrad at Trinity and my Masters at Tulane, both of which are smaller private institutions that were not party schools, but I feel my education I recieved was so much better, more well rounded and deeper than I would've recieved at a large state school. The fact that my exams were predominantly essay exams and written for finance/business exams versus scan tron's for a class of 200 people at a large school shows the difference in the education you recieve. I have no doubt that a guy from a community college can do better than a guy from Harvard because its how well you apply your knowledge and how hard you work, but don't even compare the education you are recieving.
I remember my parents threw me into some summer school study program at Rice taught by some of the professors or TA's there. I remember I took 3 or 4 classes there. One was about plate tectonics and another was about physics/quantum mechanics. I don't remember what the others were about (wups!). When I attended my first class, I sat next to a guy that read the Satanic Bible and another one that picked his nose, wiped it on his forearm and rolled them there. They were discussing ways to kill cats the 2nd day. I think that scarred me for life, and I vowed never to go to Rice (even though they weren't technically Rice students). But then there was Courtney... high society 7th grade hottie I'd never be able to touch (I was in 8th grade at the time I think and dressed like a bum - couldn't really afford much better... lol). All the guys wanted to hook up with Courtney. My best experience from the whole thing wasn't learning about plates shifting, p-waves, s-waves, Schroedinger wave equations, etc. or anything geeky like that. My best friends for that summer were 2 guys from the Chinquapin school - a school for disadvantaged kids and a guy from "the hood" who wore the same 3 shirts all summer long - they were washed, but you could tell what he'd wear every day - the pattern was never broken. We all got to know one other, where we came from, how we were raised, what we planned on doing with the rest of our lives, etc. It was then I realized there aren't blacks, hispanics, whites, etc. - there are the privileged, underprivileged, those who want to succeed, those who are content, and those who are not. We all had our hopes, but some of us knew it would be tougher for us to succeed than it would be for others. The guys from the Chinquapin school kept telling me "everybody thinks we're all a bunch of juvenile delinquents who cause nothing but trouble, but we're not, man. You go to any school and you got that. We just don't get the shots at better teaching and better books and stuff that other people do. But it's not like we're thugs because of it". The guy from the 'hood adds "hey man, I told my mom not to waste money on these classes. I like science, but what's this going to do for me? It's not like I can afford to come here when I get out of school. I've seen those SAT questions. Like I can pass those tests. A lot of the stuff I see in books here, I ain't never gonna see again back in my high school". I responded with "yeah, you're sayin' it's like they're gonna teach you English and when you get to college it's all French". "Yup". I wish I had kept in touch with those guys. But I didn't. I have no idea what happened to them or where they went. Hopefully they succeeded, but at least in the case of one of them, I doubt it. It seemed like he missed out on a lot of education early in his school career and was trying to play catch-up on the fly. That's never easy. He kept plugging away at it saying he could do it, but you just knew he had missed out on too much.\ But I really didn't care... those dudes were great to hang out with. We'd talk about football, Latinas, computers, our cultures, etc. while the Satanic Bible guy and booger roller debated the duality of matter... particle... wave... particle.... wave... I guess what I'm saying is that sometimes it's not going to be where you go to school that's important, but what you get out of it. The greatest leaders and minds in the world didn't necessarily go to the "best" schools. I don't have a college degree - sheer will to succeed, hard work, and a bit of luck are the only things that make me think I'm remotely successful. Once you graduate college and get into the workforce, very few people give a damn where you went to school. But, all the other stuff you learned in school could be something you remember and use for the rest of your life. So go ahead and apply to Rice, but if you don't get in, so what? Go to UT and make a name for yourself when you get out. I'm sure the wife you get and the kids you have won't care where hubby/daddy went to school. Good luck.
But then there was Courtney... high society 7th grade hottie I'd never be able to touch (I was in 8th grade at the time I think and dressed like a bum - couldn't really afford much better... lol). All the guys wanted to hook up with Courtney. Ahhh. Courtney. Knew her well.
No Worries, are you the only liberal to have gone to Rice? I have met many conservatives and probably even more who think it is cool to be apathetic, but I don't think I have ever met a committed liberal who went there. Actually I knew one when I was taking some classes at U of H. He used to come over to listen to lectures at U of H on leftist politics. He said he was afraid to stand out in the uniformity of the college system at Rice U., where no one else was political in a left direction. I have a brother in law and a very close friend who would be doctors now if they had gone to U of H instead of Rice. Someone told me that Rice now has physics & chem for pre-med majors so the doc wannabees don't have to take it on the chin from the guys (gals, too in deference to Isabel) who read phsyics books for fun during their free time.
I have met many conservatives and probably even more who think it is cool to be apathetic, but I don't think I have ever met a committed liberal who went there. Apathy ruled while I was at Rice. Nowadys, apathy appears to be still very common at Rice. There are now more students who are openly Democratic or Republican though. I am not sure if this is a "GWB may send you and a gun to some hellhole" thingy. Wars tend to do that. BTW, I don't consider myself a liberal, more of a moderate independent.
BTW, I don't consider myself a liberal, more of a moderate independent. lol. I guess I was reacting to a poster in another other post who said he didn't believe that people as left wing as you actually existed.
My friend (valedictorian of my class) applied to Rice and UT. Rice put his ass on their waiting list and UT accepted him in the Honors program. He said F it and went to Austin. Another friend graduated the same class (7th out of 800 i think) and he had a hard-on for Rice. They put him on the waiting list, he waited, and got in.
Doesnt Rice require something else besides just the SAT? It might have been called SAT II in the past, now I think its the SAT Subject testing??
glynch - Rice has changed considerably since the time of No Worries in the late 70s early 80s. If anything, I was afraid to trumpet my mildly conservative views for fear of the liberal backlash. There are tons of liberals there. Tons. Glynch, I think your sample size is a bunch of old farts who aren't in touch with the current situation at Rice. One exception to that was in my Spanish conversation classes, where I could run circles around the other students and shout them down at will. For some reason the conversation always turned to politics. Ahh those were great times.
So i might actually have a small chance if i get my SAT scores higher. I will work on that all summer. O btw when should i register to get early registration?
Like someone else stated in this thread, Trinity University would also be something to look at. It is also pretty competitive to get in but being a minority definitely helps. Alot depends on what you wanna study. I am attending Trinity right now so if you have any questions let me know.
Did not go to Rice, but always liked KTRU and for some reason root for the Owls (it's kinda lonely, though).
liberalism vs. conservatism at Rice - Because it's in Texas, it's more conservative than your standard elite school, I think. At the same time, I consider myself independent/liberal and knew others who were as well. I don't think you felt like a minority because of (as someone else said) the overall apathy regarding political issues. Maybe things have changed there since 9/11, though. I don't know.
If you are willing to commit to going to Rice, early registration is the way to go. For the academic year 2002-2003, SAT score by percentile 25th percentile: 1490 75th percentile: 1330
