Web Alert: Rice to Deliver Costa Data Directly to Prospective Students

CONTACT: Mike Cinelli

PHONE: (713)
831-4794

E-MAIL: mcinelli@rice.edu

WEB ALERT: RICE TO DELIVER DATA DIRECTLY TO PROSPECTIVE
STUDENTS

Rice University has become the second
of the highly selective private universities to commit to placing fully audited
academic and cost data on the World Wide Web to assist students, and their
parents, in selecting the most appropriate college or university to attend.

This information is now being developed for posting to the
university’s World Wide Web site.

This initiative is part of Rice’s response to the need for
prospective students and their parents to have easily available forthright and
complete information about colleges and universities, rather than the sketchy
facts and numbers provided in college guides and highly flawed “rankings” by
news magazines that now serve as major sources of information in dealing with
the college selection process.

Rice is placing data on the Web to improve the prospects that
applicants will be able to make fully informed decisions in their choices of
schools. Further, following the recent example of Stanford University, this
information will be vetted by one of the leading accounting firms, to attest to
the validity of the data offered.

“Our purpose is to provide prospective students and their
parents accurate, meaningful, and more fully comparable information concerning
all aspects of a Rice education,” said Rice President Malcolm Gillis. “This
information will be thoroughly screened and checked by an internationally
respected accounting firms to insure its authenticity.

“While we have been ‘ranked’ consistently among the best
research universities in the country by many guides and magazines, we share with
others the view that there are clear shortcomings in the methodology used to
create those rankings, and we remain concerned about the comparability and
overall quality of the data used in the rankings. We hope that other
universities and colleges will see fit to commit to similar measures,” Gillis
said.

Rice University is a leading American research
university–small, private, and highly selective–distinguished by its superior
teaching, commitment to undergraduate education, outstanding graduate and
professional programs, residential college system, collaborative and
interdisciplinary culture, and global perspective.

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