Rice University Top Questions

There are a variety of clubs and organizations at Rice, and chances are you'll find people with similar interests. Student dorm doors are always open, especially at my residential college since most of us are close.

There are a decent number of non-drinkers. Some of them still go to parties, some of them stay in studying, and some make groups of non-drinking friends who hang out together on the weekends. It is easier to be a non-drinker if you're Christian (built in group of non-drinking friends from bible study and Campus Crusade), but it's not that hard even if you're not Christian. Last weekend, to pregame I went to a party at the room next door, which was not well-attended because it was finals. Then I biked to a party at a friend's apartment off-campus, where there were a bunch of different groups of people, most of whom I knew or knew of. At around two, I biked back to my room on-campus, watched TV with my suitemates for a little, and went to sleep. I met my closest friends at my college. The college system definitely has pros and cons. 1) You might not like the atmosphere at the college you're placed at. This is a small con, because if you're social it's an incentive to make an effort to make other friends. There are tons of people who seem like they're from one college but are technically at another, and get the benefits of being at both. 2) Your friend options are limited within the college, so you tend to make friends with people that are pretty different from you who you may not have befriended otherwise. Good because you make new kinds of friends. Bad because there might be a reason you weren't friends with that kind of person before. 3) You have a set group of people in your grade for four years. Things get cliquey, though nobody really minds because you're usually happy with the group you end up in. 4) There is a tendency to stay within your own college. As Rice is small to begin with, having a lot of insular groups doesn't help things. After freshman or sophomore year, people start doing more and more things off-campus. You usually have to live off-campus sophomore or junior year, so parts of the social scene move off-campus too. And then there are tons of events in Houston to attend, which means there is always something to do on the weekends. The dating scene is depressing. I don't even want to write about it because it will make me depressed. I mean, if you are proactive (read: slutty) or determined, you can be satisfied, but everyone who goes out knows everyone else so random hookups are kind of hard after freshman year. It's true that when you start dating it's long term and serious, because options are limited so if you manage to snag someone you are definitely not letting go. If I'm up at 2 am on Tuesday, I've been doing homework or going to a residential college-sponsored pub night. This means free food and alcohol at the on-campus pub on a Tuesday. They are (obviously) well-attended, both by people in the sponsoring college and outside of it. If you're not part of the drug scene at Rice, you probably aren't aware of it, but you can get drugs if you know the right people. Some people smoke pot, but most only smoke occasionally and if you don't it's not a big deal.

see above..... and public parties are amazing. you meet so many people.

People leave their dorm rooms open and are usually always pretty nice. They are involved in so many things, it seems like they have more than 24 hrs in a day. You mostly won't see people until late at night cause they are so busy during the day. It's cool though cause most people can have a boyfriend/girlfriend but not be consumed by him/her. People do drink a lot almost every weekend, but there are still lots of other things to do. If I am staying up, usually it's cause I procrastinated way too much or I am just hanging out with people from my floor. We have lots of traditions, especially for your specific dorm. We have a campus-wide water balloon fight, throw people into the fountain on their birthday, and lots of other crazy fun things. My closest friends are from my church group and from my floor.

About one tenth of Rice Students are athletes, but we're a small school and we aren't really well known for our athletic prowess outside of baseball. Many students regularly go to football and baseball games, but a few of the other sports have to recruit audiences with free food and T-shirts. For those who don't participate at the college level, Rice also has intramural sports (residential colleges compete against each other) and club sports (Ultimate Frisbee is especially popular). The Rice Outdoors Club organizes camping trips and weekly rock climbing trips. Residential colleges also put on plays or musicals and have yearly talent shows, where students can see their peers' bands, stand-up acts, dances, etc. For professional acts, Rice subsidizes trips to the symphony, opera and ballet from time to time, and students can often petition their colleges to subsidize band tickets or theater if they can get large groups to go. The social scene at Rice is in many ways defined by the residential college system. I met some of my best friends during orientation week at my college, and the others in my free time in the common room, at get-togethers, and during meals in my college Servery. As sad as it sounds, one of the main things Rice students do together on weeknights is homework; some of my best memories are from 2 and 3 am study sessions crammed into my friends' dorm rooms. Rice does not have frats or sororities, but on weekends you can pretty much always find a party in the Rice dorms; these range from typical keggers to public parties put on with the approval of the administration (also usually accompanied by keggers). Not everyone at Rice drinks, though, and it's perfectly possible to have a healthy social life here without ever touching a beer or a mixed drink.

Groups I heard a lot about on-campus were the newspaper, athletics (college and intermural, esp. baseball), student admissions council, south asian society, etc. The biggest positions are, of course, the colleges' councils. I was really involved in R2, which is a literary magazine. We put out very professional looking magazines with really great-quality literature by Rice undergrads, and I was really proud to work with that group, although we did have the reputation for being sort of a clique on campus (there aren't many writers). The dating scene on campus is pretty lame -- people don't go out much, although there are some exceptions. I wanted to move off campus immediately so I could, uh, have my own room for that sort of thing. Everyone knows your business. All the time. Trust me, they will. People attend the sporting events pretty regularly, and theater (especially college theater) is really popular. Guest speakers are way too boring for the average Rice student, although when Bill Clinton came, people were really psyched about that. If you're awake at 2 AM on a Tuesday, you ARE studying. And everyone around you probably is too. People party a lot on the weekends, although it's never as exciting as it looks -- usually it's just a keg of beer and a lot of sweaty people standing around. The good parties happen off-campus, or in small groups in private rooms. The public parties generally suck. Off-campus, if you have a car, is great. Awesome museums, shopping, restaurants, nightlife, etc. It's probably your best bet for entertainment in Houston.

the dorm system, "college" system creates a community or home away from home. Upperclassmen and lower classmen intermingle and treat each other as peers rather than with the barriers of age or grade. in the hallways, people leave their dorms open and random dropby conversations are common. in other situations, pick-up games of soccer, basketball, etc occur often, especially when the weather is nice.

Rice rugby defines my social life. We play hard and party like crazy.

Rice college life is unique and fun. Rice has 9 colleges currently and is adding 2 more come fall 2009. The college system is like a Greek system except EVERYONE is assigned to a college and they are completely random (i.e. there is not a jock college, engineering college, archi...). The college system allows already busy individuals to intearct with folks they may not otherwise meet. For example, my fresh year I lived with another swimmer and a musician. I would have never interacted with the muscian had it not been for our college. In addition, I ate lunch with engineers, architects, med students, athletes, and the like. The college system mandates students to bond with each other, which in my opnion is a positive. There is no reason to alwasy hang out with one group of folks. Get out of yoru comfort zone, meet new people, widen your horizons always bieng true to what YOU believe and hold to be true.

Rice often has some really great guest speakers, there are foreign leaders and dignitaries at the Baker Institute all of the time (last year Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama came, this year the president of Egypt was here, etc.) The dating scene is okay, people seem to be only into serious relationships or random hookups, not much in between. People drink a lot. We have an annual tradition called beer bike that is the funnest thing you will ever do. There are also "college nights" where students often play drinking games openly in big lecture classes. Professors don't usually mind. Off campus is downtown Houston, so there are lots of restaurants, clubs, bars, theaters, cinemas, everything fairly close by.