Fodor's Expert Review Rice University

Across the street from Hermann Park is top-ranked Rice University, where 3,000 undergraduates from all over the country (and the world) live in an Oxford-inspired Residential College System. The campus is filled with live oaks, Mediterranean-style architecture, and some extremely hefty squirrels. It's a quiet place to escape from the city, and there are many wonderful places to picnic. Rice also houses the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, named for George H. W. Bush's secretary of state. The Rice Owls play football at Rice Stadium, where in 1962 President John F. Kennedy gave his famous "Moon Speech," in which he reaffirmed his earlier call to Congress and the nation that the United States would put a man on the moon in that decade. The 3-mi-long gravel path rings the campus; it's a popular place to walk or jog; massive trees shade most of the route.