Is Rice University more selective than UC Berkeley for undergraduate admissions?

Yes. For overall undergraduate admission, Rice is typically more selective than UC Berkeley. Rice has a much smaller undergraduate population, fills a smaller first-year class, and its private-school applicant pool leads to an admissions process that is usually tighter overall. Berkeley is absolutely very competitive, but at the campus-wide level it is usually less selective than Rice.

That said, the two schools can feel selective in different ways depending on the student. Rice tends to be the tougher admit for applicants looking at overall odds across the university, especially because it enrolls fewer students and is evaluating for a smaller community with a distinct residential college culture.

Berkeley can feel especially hard for students applying from California public schools or to impacted academic areas, even if the campus as a whole is not quite as selective as Rice overall. In other words, Berkeley’s admissions pressure can be very intense in certain contexts, but if you are asking the broad campus-wide question, Rice is usually the more selective school.

Another reason people talk about them differently is that Berkeley is a large public university with many more undergraduates, while Rice is a small private university. That difference changes the scale of admissions and the way people perceive difficulty.