Rice ranks top in quality

By Cindy Dinh     8/20/09 7:00pm

We're number one! As detailed in the Princeton Review's new The Best 371 Colleges, Rice ranked at the top in the "best quality of life" category. The rankings were based on a survey of 122,000 students attending the 371 colleges featured in the book. The quality of life ranking was an aggregate of students' assessment of food on- and off-campus, dorm life comfort, campus beauty, ease of getting around campus, relationship with the local community, safety on campus and the surrounding area, interaction between students, friendliness and happiness of students and how smoothly the administration is run.

President David Leebron said the quality of life ranking reflects the kind of community Rice is.

"This university offers the best combination of a beautiful campus, a small friendly environment and the opportunities of a big city," Leebron said.

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He said his conversations with transfer students showed him that students saw Rice as a friendly, supportive community.

"It's part of our culture," Leebron said. "We're getting better at being small and dynamic."

He attributed the residential college system for undergraduates as the most important contributor to quality of life.

Leebron added that the residential college system and Orientation Week help facilitate a sense of belonging, and that opportunities to bring people from different colleges together, such as the space at Brochstein Pavilion and athletic events, abound.

In addition to its first-place ranking, Rice placed eighth for "happiest students," up from 15th last year, and 11th for "race/class interaction," down from second last year. Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs Catherine Clack said she was not aware of any particular incident that might have caused the student pride and surfeit of activities on campus.

"Rice has the best balance between academic and extracurricular activities like the fun musicals and plays," Isidro said.

She added that the small student population was beneficial since students can develop stronger relationships with other people.

Some students, such as Will Rice College junior Karthik Soora, feel the ranking is consistent with what is offered at the university. However, they said it comes with a cost.

"We are essentially buying a higher quality of life," Soora said.

He said the $90 fee to access the new recreation center, which is included in undergraduate tuition, as well as the pay gradient to park close to the colleges, helped pay for improvements in the quality of life on campus.

"It's stressing to have so many charges," Soora said.

Will Rice sophomore Trishna Narula said Rice is very focused on the undergraduate experience, which might change in future years with new additions to the university.

"We have a pretty small graduate student population, but I'm not sure how the quality of life will be once we expand or have the [possible] addition of the Baylor College of Medicine," Narula said.

While rankings from other groups may have arbitrary criteria, Leebron said the Princeton Review ranking was unique since it was based on student surveys.

"It is a kind of validation from people that matter," Leebron said.

The rankings help increase the university's visibility nationally and internationally, he said, which might help recruit more applicants from abroad. For example, he said the number of undergraduate applicants from China has quadrupled over the past two years.

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