Rice University is a private research university located in Houston, Texas, United States. The university is situated near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. It was founded in 1912 by the Rice brothers, Herman Brown Rice, an attorney, and his brother William Marsh Rice, who had been president of Baylor University.
In fact, Rice is generally considered to be one of the most selective universities in the United States and has been ranked among the top 20 best-value colleges by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. The university is also considered to be a leading institution for undergraduate education in engineering at the undergraduate level.
University also has a well-respected medical school that offers an MD/PhD program for students interested in going into research. It also participates in many interdisciplinary programs with other schools around Houston, including the Texas Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine.
Moreover, Rice has a highly decentralized organization with six schools devoted to different fields of study and four independent departments with their own doctoral programs as well as two separate graduate student organizations and two separate athletic departments that compete in NCAA Division I sports.
Rice’s academic rigor has led to its ranking as one of America’s best universities by several publications since the 1930s when it first joined what later became known as “the Ivy League”. For example, it was listed as one of America’s Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine (2011), ranked No. 4 on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Colleges (2010).
