How it started at Rice
Rice University in Houston, Texas created the original Rice Purity Test in 1924, published through the Rice Thresher — the campus newspaper. The original purpose was specific: give incoming freshmen during Orientation Week a structured, voluntary way to talk about their pre-college life experiences. The test served as an icebreaker, a bonding tool, and a way for new students to mark a transition from high school to college.
Over the decades, the format spread to other universities. Variations appeared at Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, and dozens of other campuses. The question set evolved, modernized, expanded — but the fundamental format stayed the same: 100 yes-or-no questions, one point subtracted for each "yes," final score between 0 and 100. The version most students take today is roughly an 80% match to the official Rice version, with regional and generational variations.
Average scores in college
For the 18–24 age group, the average Rice Purity Test score is approximately 79. That number is heavily weighted by college students, who make up the majority of test-takers in this demographic. First-year college students tend to average closer to 82–88 — they've left high school but haven't yet had their first college semester to subtract many points. Senior-year students average around 65–72, reflecting the typical 8–15 point drop most students experience over four years of higher education.
Average scores vary noticeably by school type. Liberal arts colleges and large state schools tend to produce lower average scores than religiously affiliated institutions or commuter campuses. Greek life participation, athletic team membership, and study-abroad experiences all correlate with lower scores. None of this is judgment — it's just what the data shows about which environments expose students to more of the experiences the test catalogues.
How it actually gets taken on campus
The most common scenario isn't a solo experience. It's a group of freshmen during Orientation Week or the first month of school, sitting in a common room or dorm lounge, taking the test together. One person usually reads the questions out loud while everyone else tracks their own number quietly. The reveals at the end produce most of the memorable moments — and most of the friendships, since the conversations sparked by score gaps tend to run for hours.
The Rice Thresher itself maintains the official version of the test and runs an associated Instagram account where students share their scores. The unofficial culture around the test is broader: TikTok videos of students reacting to specific questions, group-chat comparison threads, and date-comparison rituals where new couples take it together as a get-to-know-you exercise.
Taking it as a freshman vs. as a senior
If you take the test as a freshman in your first weeks of college, your score will be a snapshot of pre-college life. Take it again at the end of senior year and the gap between the two numbers becomes the more interesting data point than either score on its own. That gap — typically 8–15 points — is what the test was originally designed to measure: the maturation of experiences across the four years that define traditional college life.
If you're somewhere in the middle, the test is a useful waypoint. It's not designed to predict where your senior-year score will land. It's just a number reflecting where you are right now, on the specific list of experiences that 1924-era Rice students decided were worth tracking — plus the modernizations that have accumulated since.