Rice University welcomes Landry to campus

It was announced on Friday Night Lights that Landry from East Dillion High School was coming to Rice, so we want to acquaint him and you to his new school a little better.

Located in Houston, Rice is adjacent to the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world. While this urban setting might be a change of scenery for someone from East Dillon High, Rice is nicely situated on 300 acres of an oak-lined campus.

We do have football, of course. Our Rice Owls recently played a close game against the University of Texas and beat crosstown rival Houston.

Like Landry, most students are coming to Rice for its tier one, nationally-ranked academics, but it's not totally unheard of for a student to "walk on" and try out for the football team. Consider Rice's Travis Bradshaw, Bradshaw walked onto the team and led the nation in solo tackles during his sophomore year.

As for the academics, Rice is nationally ranked in many catagories, including #17 for seven consecutive years in U.S. News and World Report's "Top National Universities."

Here are some other highlights:

Princeton Review
• No. 1 best quality of student life (2010 and 2011)
• No. 10 for great financial aid (2011)

Fiske Guide to Colleges
• A “Best Buy School” (2010 edition)

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine
• No. 4 best value among private universities (2010)

Forbes.com/Center for College Affordability & Productivity
• Ranked among top 25 of America’s Best Colleges (2010)
• Ranked as a top 10 research university
• Consistently ranked among top 20 universities in U.S.
overall and for Hispanic students
• Ranked among world’s top 50 universities
• No. 1 in materials science research
• Two Nobel Prize winners in chemistry
• 72 percent of freshmen graduated top 5 percent of
high school class
• 5:1 student-to-faculty ratio with median class size of 15
• Students from 88 countries and all 50 U.S. states
• 16 consecutive years of NCAA conference championship
athletic teams

As noted above, Rice University has been ranked as "best quality of student life" for the past two years.

Undergraduate life at Rice University differs from that at many universities because of Rice's tradition of residential colleges. Before matriculating, each of the university's 3,279 undergraduates becomes a member of one of 11 residential colleges, which have their own dining halls, public rooms and dorms on campus; most of the first-year students and about 75 percent of all undergraduates reside at their associated colleges.

Because each student is randomly assigned to one of the colleges, and maintains membership in the same college throughout the undergraduate years, the colleges are enriched by the diversity of their students' backgrounds, academic interests and experiences, talents and goals.

A faculty master, who is assigned to each college and lives in an adjacent house, helps cultivate a variety of cultural and intellectual interests among the students, as well as supporting an effective system of self-government. Other faculty or members of the community serve as associates to individual colleges.

The experience of college residence is indispensable to conveying the rich flavor of academic life at Rice, allowing students to combine their usual studies with an array of social events, intramural sports, student plays, lecture series, innovative college-designed courses, and an active role in student government.

There's much more to share, and we look forward to you becoming part of the Rice family. For now, here's a map of campus to get you started!