About the Rice Purity
A decades-old college rite of passage, redrawn for the people who actually take it today.
What is the Rice Purity Test?+
A 100-item self-survey students use to reflect on their life experiences — romance, partying, the occasional brush with trouble. You start at 100 and lose a point for every box you can honestly check, so a lower score just means a more eventful story so far. It’s a game, not a grade.
Where did it actually come from?+
Despite what most copycat sites claim, it wasn’t invented in one tidy year. Rice University students and alumni describe it as a paper tradition that was already circulating on photocopied handouts in the 1980s — long before any website existed. Purity tests spread at colleges everywhere, but Rice is the campus most associated with the 100-question version that came to define it.
Was it really a Rice O-Week thing?+
Yes — but unofficially. Alumni from the ’90s and 2000s remember new students taking it for fun during Orientation Week downtime. Advisors encouraged it as an icebreaker, but it was never a formal part of the schedule. The point was always laughs, not records.
Is there an official version?+
Not in the way clone sites imply. Longtime students say the only “legit” copies carried Rice’s Owl mascot or a Rice Thresher (the student newspaper) mark — no single .com is the anointed original. This site is an independent, modern take and isn’t affiliated with Rice University.
What’s a good Rice Purity score?+
There’s no good or bad — it isn’t a grade. Higher (closer to 100) leans innocent; lower leans experienced. Most people land somewhere in the 60s–80s. Your number is a snapshot, not a verdict.
Is it really anonymous?+
Completely. Everything is calculated in your browser. We don’t ask who you are, we don’t store your answers, and nothing is shared unless you choose to share your result card.
How long does it take?+
About three minutes — 100 quick yes/no questions, grouped into eight short sections so it never feels like a slog.
Who runs this site
ricepuritytest.art is an independent editorial project run by a small web publisher, not by Rice University and not by a content farm. One person writes and maintains it, with a simple brief: build the version of this test we wished existed — accurate about its own history, honest about what the scores mean, pleasant to use, and respectful of your privacy (your answers never leave your browser).
Corrections are genuinely welcome. If we've gotten a piece of the history wrong or a definition sideways, write in via the contact page and we'll fix it and say so. The history page documents our sourcing approach; where the record is thin, we say the record is thin instead of inventing a tidy story. History · Contact