At a Glance
Rice admits 8% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
44.1%
receive need-based grant aid
$26,491
average debt at graduation
Rice graduates carry an average of $26,491 in debt.
Merit Aid
225
students received merit aid
$27,293
average merit award
Getting In
Rice admits 8% of applicants.
Rice University's Early Decision applicants are admitted at nearly 2x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 11.3% vs 7.4%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 59% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 24% of the class submitted
90% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Rice University rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
61.6% of Rice classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Rice, 61.6% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
6:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
51.6%
Live on campus
59%
Men in fraternities
0%
Women in sororities
0%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Rice's student body is 24.2% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Rice graduates 88.4% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Rice graduates 88.4% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Rice
88.4%
4-yr grad rate
Most finish on time
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
95.3%
Overall 6-yr rate
94.8%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
96.77%
96.77% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Houston.
Rice's campus sits directly across the street from the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical complex, and about four miles from downtown Houston — close enough that the Museum District, Hermann Park and Rice Village are all a walk or a short ride away rather than a planned trip. Houston is a genuine global city built around the energy industry, with NASA's Johnson Space Center in the metro area too; President Kennedy delivered his 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech at Rice Stadium in 1962. The trade-off is the climate — hot, humid summers with no real winter — and a sprawling, car-oriented metro surrounding a campus that is walkable but not itself a college town.
Notable Alumni
Robert F. Curl Jr.
Co-discovered buckminsterfullerene, a spherical form of carbon, and shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it.
Class of 1954
Robert Woodrow Wilson
Co-discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang, sharing the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Class of 1957
Peggy Whitson
NASA astronaut and the first woman to command the International Space Station, who holds the U.S. record for cumulative time in space.
Class of 1986
Larry McMurtry
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist (Lonesome Dove) and Academy Award-winning screenwriter (Brokeback Mountain).
Class of 1960
Alberto Gonzales
Served as the 80th United States Attorney General, from 2005 to 2007.
Class of 1979
Brian Armstrong
Co-founded and serves as CEO of Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
Class of 2005
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Major city
Houston, TX
Best For
Traditions
Beer Bike
An annual relay race and chugging competition among Rice's 11 residential colleges, dating to 1957. Men's, women's and alumni teams each field ten riders and ten chuggers per team; a chugger must finish their cup before their team's rider can start the next leg.
Willy Week
The week of inter-college pranks and preparation leading up to Beer Bike each spring.
O-Week
Rice's orientation week, run almost entirely by upperclass students within each residential college rather than by the university administration — most new students' first strong attachment at Rice is to their college, not the university as a whole.
Residential college system
Every student is randomly assigned to one of Rice's 11 residential colleges at admission and remains a member for all four years, whether or not they live in the college's building after their first year. The colleges are Rice's primary social structure — there is no Greek system to compete with them.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Houston
Galveston Island
1 hourGulf Coast beaches and the historic Strand district — the closest coastline to campus.
Austin
2.5-3 hoursTexas's other major college city, live music and a very different vibe from Houston's sprawl.
San Antonio
3 hoursThe River Walk and the Alamo, and a common road trip with Austin along the way.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
William P. Hobby Airport (HOU)
About 30 minutes in favorable traffic from campus
For international flights: George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) — just under an hour by road, longer in peak traffic.
Pro sports nearby
- Houston Astros MLB
- Houston Rockets NBA
- Houston Texans NFL
Career Proximity
Houston's economy runs on energy and medicine, and Rice sits inside both clusters: the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world, is directly across Main Street from campus, and the headquarters of most major U.S. energy companies are a short drive downtown.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Texas Medical Center institutions
- ExxonMobil
- Chevron
- NASA Johnson Space Center
- Shell
Downtown Houston — about 4 miles, a short drive or bus ride from campus
Who Thrives Here
Rice admits 8.0% overall and 11.3% under early decision against 7.4% for regular decision, so applying early moves the rate but not dramatically. Test scores are recommended rather than required, and the middle half of those who submit scored 1510 to 1560 on the SAT. It is a genuinely small school — 4,807 undergraduates taught at a 6:1 student-faculty ratio, with 61.6% of class sections under 20 students. Outcomes track the selectivity: 88.4% graduate in four years, 95.3% within six, and 96.77% of first-years return for a second year. Financially, Rice meets 100% of demonstrated need for the 44.1% of undergraduates who qualify, with an average first-year aid package of $75,643 and debt for the minority who borrow averaging $26,491. The clearest cultural signal is what's missing: 0% of men and 0% of women are in a fraternity or sorority: Rice replaces Greek life entirely with 11 residential colleges every student is assigned to on arrival and lives among for all four years, with 59% of undergraduates living on campus. Beer Bike, an annual bike-and-chug relay between the colleges dating to 1957, is the closest thing Rice has to a homecoming.