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Rice University Data & Information Overview

479 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
9% Acceptance Rate
Want the scoop on Rice University? We’ve put together a comprehensive report on the school that covers what majors Rice offers, how the school ranks, how diverse it is, and much more.
All you need to do to learn more about a stat is click on its tile, and you’ll be taken to another page that analyzes that data more closely. Also, you can use the links below to scroll to any section of this page.

How Well Is Rice University Ranked?

#16 Best Colleges in Nation
#1 Best Colleges in TX
Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Rice University was awarded 479 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

Rice landed the #16 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This puts it in the top 1% of all schools in the nation! This is an improvement over the previous year, when Rice held the #23 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Rice is also ranked #1 out of 115 schools in Texas.

See all of the rankings for Rice University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Rice?

9% Acceptance Rate
52% Of Accepted Are Women
46% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Rice University has a very low acceptance rate of 9%, making it one of the most selective out of all the colleges and universities in the nation. It's probably a good idea to apply to other schools in addition to Rice just in case you don't make the cut.

Average Test Scores

About 46% of students accepted to Rice submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 720 and 770. Math scores were between 770 and 800.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Rice University  ( 720 to 770 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Rice University  ( 770 to 800 )
200
800
Rice received ACT scores from 29% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 34 and 35.

ACT Composite Scores for Rice University  ( 34 to 35 )
1
36

Learn more about Rice University admissions.

Rice University Faculty

6 to 1 Student to Faculty
84% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at Rice it is much better at 6 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Rice University is 84%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  84 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Rice University

97% Freshmen Retention
84% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 97% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Rice University enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  97 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Rice for first-time, full-time students is 84%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  84 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Rice University.

Rice University Undergraduate Student Diversity

3,960 Full-Time Undergraduates
56.5% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
47.8% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 4,076 undergraduates at Rice with 3,960 being full-time and 116 being part-time.

How Much Does Rice University Cost?

$16,076 Net Price
9% Take Out Loans
$37,652 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Rice is $16,076. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Rice

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$4,443 $1,340 $6,152 $19,697 $42,730

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Rice, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Rice, approximately 9% of students took out student loans averaging $9,413 a year. That adds up to $37,652 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Rice is 0.2%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Rice University.

How Much Money Do Rice Graduates Make?

$77,683 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor's degree from Rice make about $77,683 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. This is good news for future Rice graduates since it is 83% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at Rice University make the most money.

Location of Rice University

Texas State
3,960 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
Rice University is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Houston, Texas. The surrounding area of the school is a good match for students who enjoy city life.

Get more details about the location of Rice University.

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Contact details for Rice are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 6100 S Main St, Houston, TX 77005-1827
Phone: 713-348-0000
Website: www.rice.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RiceUniversity
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RiceUniversity

Rice University Majors

59 Majors With Completions
1,325 Undergraduate Degrees
891 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 59 majors graduated from Rice University. Of these students, 1,325 received undergraduate degrees and 891 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Music 149 NA
Health & Physical Education 104 $38,232
Economics 101 $87,989
General Psychology 64 $31,474
Mechanical Engineering 58 $70,400
Biomedical Engineering 56 NA
Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology 56 NA
Political Science & Government 48 NA
Cognitive Science 43 $42,585
Electrical Engineering 38 NA

Learn more about the majors offered at Rice University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Rice

33% Take At Least One Class Online
6% Take All Classes Online

Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.

In 2020-2021, 2,696 students took at least one online class at Rice University. This is a decrease from the 7,101 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 2,696 511
2019-2020 7,101 418
2018-2019 365 178
2017-2018 128 44
2016-2017 0 0

Learn more about online learning at Rice University.

If you’re considering Rice University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Rice? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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