Rice University

In brief

Rice University, in Houston, opened in 1912 as the William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art and took its present name in 1960. Its founder, the businessman William Marsh Rice, was murdered in 1900 by his valet, in a plot with a lawyer who had changed his will. By our measure of academic influence, it ranks #67 in the United States and #191 in the world. It admitted 8.0% of applicants for fall 2024; admitted students had a median SAT score of 1540 and a median ACT score of 34.

The plot was exposed, Rice’s estate went to the institute as he had intended, and it opened on the 12th anniversary of his murder. Since the 1960s Rice has worked closely with NASA’s Johnson Space Center. It remains small, with about 9,000 students, and runs on an honor code.

Where Rice’s influence is strongest

Rice’s influence is led by chemistry, the field of its Nobel laureates Richard Smalley and Robert Curl. Its strongest broad fields, by US rank in our data, are:

• Chemistry: #23 in the US (#85 in the world)
• Mathematics: #36
• Engineering and physics: #38 each
• Computer science: #46

Within those fields, Rice is a national leader in several specialties:

• #1 in the US: environmental chemistry
• #4: nanotechnology and nanoengineering
• #8: parallel computing and compilers

By comparison, Rice sits further back in sociology (#138) and psychology (#139).

How we measure influence: these ranks come from the citations and recognition earned by a school’s faculty and alumni in each discipline, not from surveys or admissions statistics. See our methodology.

Notable people

Rice’s Nobel laureates are the astrophysicist Robert W. Wilson and the chemists Richard Smalley and Robert Curl. Rice-connected figures also include the novelists Larry McMurtry and Joyce Carol Oates, the mathematician Dennis Sullivan, the nanotechnology pioneer James Tour, the astronaut Peggy Whitson, the aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes, and former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Our full lists of Rice’s most influential alumni and faculty appear below.

Frequently asked questions

Is Rice hard to get into? Yes. It admitted 8.0% of applicants for fall 2024; the middle half of admitted students scored 740–770 on the SAT reading section and 770–800 on math.

What does Rice cost after financial aid? Tuition is $67,857 for 2025–26. The average net price for aided students with family incomes of $48,000–$75,000 was $5,420 in 2024–25; it ranged from about $1,524 for incomes of $30,000–$48,000 to $40,188 for incomes above $110,000.

How do Rice graduates do? 95.3% of students who started in 2019 graduated within six years, and 97% of first-year students return for a second year. Ten years after starting college, former students had median earnings of $90,773.

What is Rice best known for academically? By our influence data: chemistry, mathematics, engineering, and physics, plus environmental chemistry, where it ranks first in the country.