Rochester

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have experience with rochester? Are they truly as holistic in admissions as they say during the infor session?

[Anonymous]

My kid didn't apply because it's too cold.

[Anonymous]

Haha! Mine LOVES the cold.

[Anonymous]

No clue if they are truly holistic (as my kid was at the 75-80%+ for SAT and GPA so it's hard to tell). But I tend to believe they are. My own kid did a video for one of the supplemental essays---figured showcasing her love of dance would be much more interesting to an AO than reading yet another essay.
My kid got in EA (or RD can't recall if they have EA).

My kid's acceptance letter had 2 sentences about the Dance video. So I'm inclined to believe they do care about the entire package. UR is truly a school where majority of kids take a minor, 2 minor, 2 major, etc simply because the kids love the things they are studying. The Cluster system makes it easy to do that as well. My kid loves that they can take dance classes (humanities) and 2 psychology courses (or some other social science) and that is all they need outside of their major except a freshman writing course. Much more exciting to learn a bit of dance history and write about that than studying the Revolutionary war yet again.

[Anonymous]

It sounds terrific. Dc's stats are in the bottom half. I'm just wondering if they count the essays and interview as much as they say they do.

[Anonymous]

DD was recruited to play a sport there and I really hoped she’d attend so we visited several times. The coach told us that interviews were very important and to make sure to sign up for one ASAP. DD was accepted for engineering but decided to go to UVA (not a recruited athlete there).

[Anonymous]

We toured the school recently and really liked the campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We toured the school recently and really liked the campus.

The campus is nice. If you can handle a Rochester winter, the spring and fall are beautiful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds terrific. Dc's stats are in the bottom half. I'm just wondering if they count the essays and interview as much as they say they do.

Our college counselor says they do (I'm the PP) and when we visited told my daughter to sign up for an interview immediately after visiting if she at all liked the campus/university. So I know they take the interview/demonstrated interest seriously. UR has a yield problem simply because well, it's upstate NY, cold, dreary, and it's Rochester---it's not Chicago or Boston or an overly exciting college town. So they want to admit students who they believe will actually attend.

My daughter is very happy with her choice (it was her 3rd choice, maybe 2nd---got rejected by T10 ED school)---I actually always thought it was the best fit for her, aside from the physical location. Some people don't understand the cluster system, my kid got it immediately (so did I) and was thrilled she can take classes she actually wants to for her non-major courses. Only required course is Freshman writing. Well my kid is taking that this semester, and managed to get one of the most wanted Writing Courses---Taylor Swift. So even that is 1000x better than a typical freshman writing course at most colleges. Academically she is thrilled with the school, socially she loves it, food and dorms ---well they are old but large and the food isn't the best, but I've seen much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We toured the school recently and really liked the campus.

The campus is nice. If you can handle a Rochester winter, the spring and fall are beautiful.

The campus is gorgeous, all around amazing.

[Anonymous]

This may sound insignificant, but I was especially impressed by the library

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid didn't apply because it's too cold.

The UF parent / Michigan hater returns.

[Anonymous]

RIT or UR?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RIT or UR?

UR---I don't think anyone refers to RIT as "rochester", it's RIT

[Anonymous]

UR grad here. Agree with the comments about the library and the course cluster system, plus the freshman writing classes. I had no complaints about the academics, which were strong.

On the other hand, socially... well, your mileage may vary. I was disgusted with the rampant binge drinking, drug abuse, Greek-dominated culture, and general snottiness of the student body. I was surrounded by bratty rich kids from the DC and NYC suburbs whose parents couldn't buy their way into an Ivy and weren't serious about anything other than the next party. And most of the party scene was on campus, because crime in the surrounding Rochester neighborhoods (especially across the bridge) was really bad.

Maybe things have changed for the better since I graduated. I sure hope so.