{"id":1004907,"date":"2026-08-16T18:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1004907\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T18:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:23:17","slug":"rice-university-welcomes-largest-incoming-undergraduate-class-in-school-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1004907\/","title":{"rendered":"Rice University welcomes largest incoming undergraduate class in school history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than 1,350 freshmen and 50 transfer students arrive on campus Sunday for the start of O-Week<\/p>\n<p>Rice University (Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\"><strong>HOUSTON<\/strong> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Rice_University\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Rice_University\/\">Rice University<\/a> is welcoming its largest-ever incoming undergraduate class Sunday, as more than 1,350 freshmen arrive on campus for the start of O-Week, according to the university.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">More than 50 transfer students are also expected to join the university this fall. Rice said it\u2019s undergraduate enrollment has grown by about 25% since 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The university reported receiving more than 38,000 first-year applications, a 5% increase from the previous year. Rice said approximately 8% of applicants were admitted and that the incoming class includes students from 46 states and 54 countries.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 etvbxt font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Stack-vJ7SwH7U__StackBase-sc-1m5bkhd-0 evEXvX dsnUCb\"\/><\/ul>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Rice described Move-In Day as one of its most energetic campus traditions. Upperclassmen from the university\u2019s residential colleges and members of the football team are expected to greet new students and help families move belongings into residence halls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">University President Reginald DesRoches and his wife, Paula Gilmer DesRoches, are among the campus leaders expected to welcome the incoming students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">O-Week continues through Aug. 21 with activities designed to introduce students to their residential colleges, classmates, campus traditions and university resources.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 etvbxt font_openSans articleList\">\n<li class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Stack-vJ7SwH7U__StackBase-sc-1m5bkhd-0 evEXvX dsnUCb\"\/><\/ul>\n<p>Start Here, Houston<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 bTVksG\">More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 kfUEDb copyright\">Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p>About the Author<a class=\"Link-PukYsz7Y__LinkBase-sc-scvrjz-0 gQZqgJ\" href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/team\/chudspeth\/\" title=\"View Christian Hudspeth&#039;s full profile\" itemprop=\"url\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Hudspeth<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 duhyRF bxSMlJ\">Christian Hudspeth is a Houston native who joined KPRC 2 News in December 2025. Christian began his news career at KTRK in 2022 before moving to newsrooms in Waco, Texas (KXXV), Las Vegas, Nevada (KTNV), and now back to H-Town. He earned his BA at the University of Houston Jack J. Valenti School of Communication in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,350 freshmen and 50 transfer students arrive on campus Sunday for the start of O-Week Rice&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1004908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[13915,10857,4345,11280,16382,358,3187],"class_list":["post-1004907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-back-to-school","tag-colleges","tag-houston","tag-rice","tag-rice-university","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117106586848303549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1004908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}