Rice is a prestigious research university in Houston, Texas that is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 universities in the country. They are especially well-known for their programs in business, architecture, and a unique relationship with NASA. Rice has been working with NASA for over 60 years, collaborating on research that has shaped the national space program and global technologies and opportunities. The acceptance rate is 7.7%.
If you are seriously considering submitting an application to Rice, the first step is to make sure that you measure up as a candidate. That means squaring your scores and grades with what Rice expects — and exceeding expectations if possible. Now, that can be hard. With such a small acceptance rate, Rice has exceptionally high standards.
Rice requires that all applicants have pursued a fully diversified slate of courses in high school, including 2 years of a foreign language. While they do not report GPAs for recently accepted and enrolled students as part of their Common Data Set reports, they do share that 90% of students who are accepted and enrolled are in the top tenth of their graduating class.
On the standardized testing front, Rice does not require that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores. They do, however, highly recommend it. To us, that means that it is essentially required if you want to get in. The statistics pretty much play this out. For the Class of 2029, 83% of accepted and enrolled first-years submitted the SAT or the ACT. To even hit the 25th percentile for accepted students, you need above a 1500 on the SAT or above a 34 on the ACT. To truly be competitive, though, you need a 1560 or a 36. Yes, those are extremely high scores. But they are worth working towards as you aim to get into Rice.
Once you have the grades and the scores set up, it’s time to focus on telling your story. You have been working hard for years to pursue things you are passionate about, and now it is time to tell that story. So, let’s get into it.
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The Rice supplement is simple in theory but a challenge in practice. There are a bunch of pretty standard and classic supplement questions, and a unique thing, the Rice Box, that requires serious strategy. First are the short answers.
SHORT ANSWER
Rice has two short answer questions that kick off their supplement. 150 words isn’t much, but it is also more than enough space to write an impactful answer. These aren’t supplements you should plan to write in one sitting. Given the short length, editing and iteration is even more important as every single word needs to have an impact. 150 words is a meaty paragraph or two, and you need to make that work for you.
Please explain what draws you to the academic areas you selected above and how you hope to explore them at Rice University. 150 word limit.
There are two “Why Rice?” questions, and this is the academic one. In this supplement, you need to clearly state your intended major, a class or two that you’d like to take within your major, and a professor you hope to study under. If you aren’t sure what you want to major in, that is okay for you personally but it’s not okay for your application. You need to have a clear trajectory charted for Rice — even if your plan may actually eventually change, which Rice knows is likely.
Simply saying what you want to do at Rice, though, isn’t everything you need to do for this supplement. You need to build a frame around what you want to do at Rice that offers your personal ‘why.’ To build this frame, you need to pick a story from your academic experiences with the subject you want to study at Rice that illuminates what makes whatever your academic interest is a passion for you. Open your supplement with this story, and keep it to less than 75 words. That means this story needs to be small, not in importance but in scope.
Based upon your exploration of Rice University, what elements of the Rice experience appeal to you? 150 word limit.
This is the second “Why Rice?”, and it is the social one. Rice knows, now, what you want to study and why, but they also know that they are probably not the only school that offers whatever your dream course of study is. There must be something else, then, driving you to Rice.
When we call this supplement ‘social,’ we’re not talking about Friday night parties or weekend tailgating. Yes, those are fun parts of the Rice experience, but what we are actually thinking more here about the structure of Rice and how it supports students. This could include clubs you hope to join, a residence hall system (the 11 colleges) that you find ideal, research resources, or opportunities to expand your education onto the global stage through study abroad.
What you are excited about at Rice can’t just be listed for this supplement, though. Instead, you need to structure it with a story at the core. This could be a story from an experience at Rice, or it could be an experience that, to you, typifies what Rice offers and why you want to go there. Then, transition to how you will find something similar at Rice, proving that you really did your research by giving details.
Once you have your two short supplements, it’s time to get to the long one. For the next one, you’ll have options. Seriously consider each before jumping to make a selection. Sometimes, the best question for you isn’t the one you are most excited to answer.
LONG ESSAY
The long essay for Rice comes with two options. Both are focused on community, and there isn’t really a bad choice. However, there is one that would be a better choice for you, specifically. Below, we’ll break down each to help you determine the path to take.
Option 1: The Residential College System is at the heart of Rice student life and is heavily influenced by the particular cultural traditions and unique life experiences each student brings. What life experiences and/or unique perspectives are you looking forward to sharing with fellow Owls in the residential college system? 500 word limit.
These prompts, if you’ve read ahead to the other one as well, are extremely similar. What makes them different is really that Option 1 is interested in extrinsic factors, things that you’ve engaged with or that you’ve developed over time, versus the intrinsic factors, things that you were born into, in Option 2. Personally, we much prefer taking an extrinsic approach because it puts you more firmly in the driver seat. This isn’t about what life has handed you, but what you have created in your life.
Writing a strong response to this prompt is all about being yourself, and it isn’t about academics or ‘achievement.’ Writing about winning a championship isn’t interesting here, but slogging through training during the rainiest time of the year might be not because they want you to be waterlogged but because perseverance and positivity in the face of adversity is absolutely something you could contribute to your peers in your residential college.
The key, truly, is to optimize for joy, not flash. You aren’t trying to impress anyone here, but instead making a new friend in the reader. They should leave this supplement excited to meet you, not terrified that you may defeat them in a martial arts showdown. One of our favorite essays we’ve ever supported a student on for Rice was about shopping at a cultural grocery store with her mom in preparation for traditional family dinners, and the ritual of hunting down the right ingredients. It was focused, small, wholesome, universal, and genuine to her values and experiences. Unsurprisingly, this student got into her top choice school and it wasn’t because she optimized for being impressive. Instead, she brought joy to the table.
Option 2: Rice is strengthened by its diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders and change agents across the spectrum of human endeavor. What perspectives shaped by your background, experiences, upbringing, and/or cultural identity inspire you to join our community of change agents at Rice? 500 word limit.
As we said, this is basically the same prompt. It is asking who you are and how you will bring that to Rice. What is different, though, is that you could have written about any aspect of yourself for Option 1. Here, you are more tightly constrained to things in your background that have made you want to create change. We don’t tend to pick the prompts that give you fewer paths forward, but if you are working on the Rice application without support we can see the appeal of a narrower scope.
If you pick this prompt, we would immediately take race off the table as a conversation topic. Culture, though, is not just fair game - it’s an ideal subject. While race is most often noticed as the color of your skin, culture is something that you feel in your belly. It is the thing that drives you in ways seen and unseen. That is what we are interested in for this prompt. Maybe your culture has led you to prioritize or value things that are less emphasized by others. If so, tell that story.
This is not a place, however, to try to play a pity card. You can be sure that there is someone applying to Rice who has had a harder go of it than you, so trying to stand out for the hardship you have faced is a bad bet. Instead, focus on opportunity, enthusiasm, and how you bring people together to create positive change.
Next there is ‘The Box,’ and this is where a lot of people get stumped.
THE RICE BOX
One of Rice's long-standing traditions is “The Box,” a question on our application where we ask all of our applicants to share an image of something that appeals to them. The Box gives you the opportunity to present us with an image that shares something about yourself, your interests or what is meaningful to you. This image is not used for evaluative purposes in the application, but allows you to put your stamp on the application about who you are aside from what you have achieved. Be sure to choose an image that speaks for itself and does not need an explanation. The Box must be a two-dimensional image that is uploaded in the Common Application or uploaded in the Rice Admission Student Portal.
Yes, you read that right. This is a prompt that only allows you to upload one, two-dimensional image of anything you want but with no explanation. Captions are not encouraged, and ignoring the instructions and uploading a single .jpg with 10 images and explanations is not a creative way to bend the rules — it would be a disrespectful ignoring of clear instructions.
We encourage our students to look back at what they have written and to use the box to attach a visual to a story. If you wrote an essay about fishing, maybe a picture of you with your catch. If you wrote about a cultural holiday, maybe a picture of the outfit that has been passed through generations. If you are an artist, but will not be submitting a portfolio, this could be a great place to show your art. What is not a good use, though, is a picture of you winning an award, or of just the trophy. They want to know you better, not see your resume brought to life. Also, no pictures of you posing on campus. That is cringe.
The Rice supplement is everything we want from a supplement. You have plenty of space to develop your application and make a case for your candidacy, but there is also ample space to, to put it bluntly, mess things up. If you have any concerns about whether you can tackle this alone, reach out. We’re sort of the best at this.
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