The Average Rice Purity Score, From Published Figures Only
Ask ten websites for the average Rice Purity score and you will get ten confident, different numbers — most of them invented. There is no official statistic and no scientific study of the modern test, so this page does something stricter: it reports only the averages that were actually published by an identifiable source, says exactly where each one comes from, and explains how these numbers are usually produced. For what the bands themselves mean, see the score meaning guide.
The published averages
The most-cited figures come from A Real Me, one of the largest test platforms, which publishes aggregate statistics from its own test submissions. Its reported averages are:
| Group (A Real Me submissions) | Average score |
|---|---|
| All test-takers | 63.78 |
| Under 18 | 91.12 |
| Under 25 | 85.26 |
| Under 35 | 75.62 |
| Male takers | 61.40 |
| Female takers | 63.85 |
Source: A Real Me — Rice Purity Test, statistical report and FAQ. Figures are that platform's own aggregates and move as more submissions arrive.
What the Rice Thresher itself found
The only averages with a direct line to the test's origin come from Rice University's student newspaper, which created it. In the original 1924 survey, the 119 women who took the ten-question test averaged 62. Nearly a century later, the Rice Thresher reported an average of 65 across roughly 274 tests taken in Houston on one Saturday in August 2017, just after Orientation Week. Both samples are small and self-selected — a useful reminder that a campus one-off and a global platform can land within a few points of each other while neither is a census of anything.
How Rice Purity averages are usually reported — and their limits
Every published average is produced one of two ways. Platforms average the scores submitted on their own site, which over-represents whoever that platform's audience is — younger, more online, and answering for fun, sometimes generously. Newspapers and researchers average a room: one campus, one event, one afternoon. Neither method samples the general population, nobody verifies a single answer, and the test itself is a running lifetime total, so an “average” mixes together age, era and honesty. That is why this site will never show you a percentile for your score: there is no honest distribution to compute one from. What the figures can support is the broad pattern — high 80s and 90s are typical for the youngest takers, the overall centre of gravity sits in the 60s, and scores tend to fall as people age into more of the list.
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Average score questions
What is the average Rice Purity score?
The largest published platform statistics put the overall average in the low-to-mid 60s: A Real Me's aggregate figures give 63.78 across all of its test-takers. Treat any single number cautiously — every published average comes from a self-selected sample of people who chose to take the test online or at a campus event.
What is the average Rice Purity score for college students?
Published figures for younger takers are far higher than the overall average: A Real Me reports 85.26 for under-25s and 75.62 for under-35s. At the other end of the scale, Rice University's own newspaper found an average of 65 among roughly 274 tests taken in Houston just after Orientation Week in August 2017 — a sample of mostly new students at a single event.
Do men and women score differently on average?
Slightly, in the published platform data: A Real Me's statistics give an average of 61.40 for male takers and 63.85 for female takers. The gap is small next to the effect of age, and both figures come from self-reported, self-selected samples.
Is there an official average Rice Purity score?
No. Rice University has never published official statistics, and no peer-reviewed study of the modern test's scores exists. Every average in circulation comes from a test platform's own submissions or a newspaper's one-off campus survey, which is why this page cites each figure to its source instead of blending them into one number.