Frequently Asked Questions

The Jones School Registrar will enroll you in your fall courses. The Rice MBA program is cohort-based and the classes that you will take during your first year have been determined by Rice Business. In July, the Jones School Registrar will post the fall schedule on CampusGroups.

No. Launch is a requirement with credit-bearing course content that is required for your MBA.

Full-time and Professional MBA students:
If you plan to drive a car to campus, you will need to register for a parking pass. You will need to sign into your ESTHER account once you click on the purchase a permit link. Please purchase a permit before Launch or you will have to pay $12/day to park in the garage. Some students park in Central Campus Garage, which is located under McNair Hall. Some park in the West Lot, which is not a far walk, but it can be hot in the summer/early fall when you are going through recruiting. If you have any questions regarding parking, please email the parking office (parking@rice.edu).

Executive Students:
There is no fee that you need to pay. Parking is included as part of your EMBA program experience.

This summer you may read about the GSA orientation that is offered to all Rice graduate school students. Because the Rice MBA program runs on a different schedule than the rest of Rice University, few of our students participate in the GSA orientation. However, if your schedule allows, we encourage you to take advantage of these events.

ESTHER access instructions were provided in the Tech Pack email that you received after making your deposit. You have to take action from that email to set up Single Sign On (SSO). Once you have done that, you will log into ESTHER at esther.rice.edu using SSO and DUO authentication.

Please contact help@rice.edu for any sign on issues. If you are having issues within ESTHER (holds removal, etc.), please contact spo@rice.edu.

Official address changes should be made via ESTHER.

Membership to the Barbara and David Gibbs Recreation Center (“the Rec Center”) is available for purchase for students as well as to their spouse/domestic partner. The fee for graduate students is $134 per year.

All Rice MBA students are required to maintain health insurance. Rice University has an Aetna health insurance plan available to you if you do not currently have coverage. Please visit the Student Health Insurance website to either enroll in or waive the Rice Student Health Insurance Plan. To waive the Rice plan, complete the Insurance Waiver form to indicate that you have other coverage in place; to enroll in the plan, complete the Insurance Enrollment form. Information on where to find these forms and how to submit them will be provided on the Student Health Insurance website. If you do not complete either form prior to Launch, you will be ineligible to register for classes until the issue is resolved and the Rice Student Health Insurance Plan may be automatically billed to your account.

Macintosh computers may not be compatible with some of the business applications utilized in a few of the courses. There are workarounds, but if purchasing a computer for the program, and for the best user experience, we suggest a windows based machine.

Minimum hardware:

• Intel Core i5 processor
• 4 GB of system memory
• 802.11ac wireless card
• 320 GB of hard drive capacity
• Audio output capacity
• Gigabit Ethernet card

Recommended hardware:

• Intel Core i5 or i7 processor
• 8 GB or more of system memory
• 802.11ac wireless card
• 500 GB Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Drive (Solid State Drive is much faster than traditional hard drives)
• Audio output capacity
• Gigabit Ethernet card
• Warranty for 4 years

Required software:

• Current Antivirus software
• Microsoft Office 2016 (Office 365 is available to current students for free. It includes the most recent version of Office which currently is Office 2016)
• Adobe Reader
• Windows 7/10