A Freshman's Guide To RPI

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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I’ve seen a few threads here titled “Cold Truth” and “an honest review.” I think there’s a pretty big mixture of opinions on RPI’s college confidential, but I think a new one is necessary to address a lot of questions by prospective students. So here it goes… my guide to RPI!

Background on me:
Year: Freshman
Major: Computer Engineering & Computer Science
GPA: 95/100, only ranked in the top 15% of my graduating class (top NYC public high school)
SAT: 1420/1600 :: ACT: 31
APs: 8 with all 4s and 5s.
Hometown: NYC

Why I Chose RPI:
While taking courses at my local community college, I asked one of my professors for their initial recommendations on which colleges are the best for CS/Engineering and RPI was held in very high regard by my professor. This led me to apply. When I was admitted, they originally offered to cover 47k/49k for tuition - which was a great deal. I got offered around 53k (more than tuition) at CWRU and a little less (but I wasn’t dorming) at NYU. I also got a full ride (including dorm) at SUNY Stonybrook, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and UMass Amherst. Purdue also admitted me, but was pretty cheap with money.

This led me to visit, and the campus honestly just blew me away. Beyond that, RPI’s pool of prominent alumni and faculty, strong undergraduate research program, student-run Union (I found this quite interesting), high-average starting salaries (I did a cost benefit analysis of every school I got into), and pretty nice location drew me to accept the offer. I felt like it was just meant to be in the end, and that’s what I stick with to this day.

My Initial Concerns:
As an applicant, I had many concerns. There are a bunch so I’ll list them below (and debunk them if I feel fit - or say they’re real concerns).

–> The quality of the dorms. This ended up not being an issue at all. I dormed in the newly renovated Quadrangle complex and everything was great. I have no complaints about the dorms, and honestly feel they’re much bigger and nicer than many I’ve seen. I only have one roommate and a bathroom with only four people. I’ve seen all the residence halls and have to say, none of them are anything but “above average” for actual college dorms. I feel that most of the complaints are over-exaggerated or from people with super high expectations (unless you’re paying a lot, don’t expect a lot from a college dorm).

–> RPI is in debt. Very true, but I’ve found that it doesn’t really mean anything - and all of the debt was used on big expansions to the school that are paying for themselves at this point. Sure, it would probably be better if the school wasn’t in debt, but the idea that RPI is going bankrupt is very far from the truth. The debt has gone down, and the endowment continues to grow. RPI students are just very involved in the school and alumni are always concerned about finances. If you want to worry about real debt, look at any of the Ivy’s - I wonder why there’s no coverage as to why they’re all billions of dollars “in debt.”

–> Troy. Coming from NYC, I find Troy a very nice and cute town with a lot of nice places to eat/hangout or go to parties. I grew up not very far from a bad neighborhood so this is coming from someone that knows what the “real hood” looks like. I’ve walked back to campus at 3am by myself through the worst parts of Troy (basically almost every weekend), and I’m very proud to say I’m still here after all this time and I’ve never been mugged or felt threatened. Granted, this is probably not the best idea.

–> IT’S SUPER DAMN HARD. Well, this really depends on your major, the courses you choose to take, your skill level, your ways of studying, your time management, and a million other things. Summed up, RPI is difficult. I’m not going to go into it in great depth here, but I was able to manage a 3.0 while working part-time, pledging a fraternity, and being a part of many on-campus organizations (plus majoring in engineering). You just need to manage your time well.

–> THERE ARE NO GIRLS. Um, okay so things have changed a lot at RPI over the last decade. I’m not going to lie and say that we have an even distribution of genders, but less than 70% of the student body is male at this point. This has its pros and cons. If you’re coming into college with little experience with girls, you’ll probably have to step up your game. Granted, it’s a lie that girls are impossible to get or change their behavior. I haven’t had much of an issue getting pretty girls, and I’m not exactly the best looking or most flirtatious guy around. Just be yourself, and it’ll probably be fine.
–> No parties, no social life, etc. This is SO FAR FROM TRUE. I came to RPI expecting there to be no night life, nothing to do on the weekends, and no social life. It actually ended up being the complete opposite. Of course, there are a lot of people that are less social and stay in their dorms (a pretty significant amount actually), but not anything worse than you’d expect at a nerd school. I’ve personally found that aside from the start of freshman year, people are very open to meeting new people, socializing, and generally going out on the weekends. There are a lot of parties usually and people are lying if they say they can’t find any. Kill the social stigma though that parties are drug havens where kids get alcohol poisoning. I’ve never seen a hard drug at a party before, and I’ve never seen someone drink so much that they go to the hospital… even in settings with hundreds of people. I’ve also been to a lot of parties and never even picked up a drink in most cases so things are a bit different. RPI students tend to be very responsible, granted that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of fun to go around ;).
–> Not a lot of well-rounded kids/non-STEM majors. VERY FAR FROM TRUE. There are a lot of non-STEM majors and you will meet many many people not majoring in engineering. RPI’s student body is very very diverse and you will find a lot of people that love writing (engineers included) and people that love doing things in general. If you like something, there’s a club or event out there for you.

So… I went through all the ‘negative’ things and gave my honest insight. I hope this will benefit someone. Here are now some positive things I’ve seen:

  • The smartest kids I've met in my entire life
  • Companies willing to hire RPI grads like crazy (half the reason I got offers freshman year from big companies was I went to RPI - literally half my interviews were spent listening to how good of a school I go to and I always usually ran into another RPI grad if the interviews were in person)
  • Really good professors. I haven't not liked any of my professors so far, but I'm sure not everyone will agree with this. I've found them all to be top-notch so far. Even in the humanities, I'm currently taking a screenwriting course with a professor that's a director.
  • The Student Union. There's been some controversy behind this, but as of now the student-union is "student-run" which has a lot of great opportunities you won't get at any other college in the country (since its one of the only student run unions). Students run everything and literally decide how budgeting happens from student fees.

Links to consider for prospective students/parents:

RPI employment report: https://www.rpi.edu/dept/cdc/Annual%20Report%202015.pdf
RPI alumni: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute_people

A bit of a personal narrative, but several people founded companies directly out of college from my fraternity and come back and recruit. Many also went on to large companies and come back and offer ‘guaranteed’ co-ops and internships to brothers. This isn’t the case at every fraternity (most don’t have this in place), but this just goes to show what kind of students go to RPI and the networking opportunities available - whether you’re in a fraternity or not.

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When I mentioned interviews, I said RPI grad. I meant RPI student. Please ignore any little errors like that, I typed this at like 3am while waiting for my laundry to finish.

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@joedoe thanks for the above. Could you please talk about the sports activities available for people who don’t want to do the high-divisions type sports. My son is interested in stuff like fencing, weightlifting and the occasional basketball pickup games where it’s not official or anything, just times when students can get together to mess around with those sports on their free time.

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@joedoe I graduated RPI with a BSEE in the late 80’s and have visited just about every year since then so I have kept up with all the changes. What you said is true now and was true when I attended. I had a good laugh when I read your post because I was also an all-nighter and always did my laundry in the basement of Davidson overnight. BTW my son is now applying to RPI for a major in HAAS.

@reformedman There are plenty of intramural and club sports available at RPI. The club teams compete against teams from other colleges so there may be some minimal practices involved. The intramural teams typically don’t practice but it is up to each team. I joined and formed many teams while at RPI and found it was a great stress reliever for me from all the tough engineering classes. Everyone needs a break from studying once in a while to maintain his/her sanity at RPI. Perhaps this is the exact reason why there are so many clubs and activities (sports or non-sports) available on campus. One surprising thing I learned from touring colleges the last couple of years with my son is that RPI has a lot more clubs than all the other college we visited. Keep in mind that clubs and activities only exist if students are participating in them so a school with few clubs is probably one where a lot of students leave campus for the weekend or just are not interested in socializing with other students.

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Thanks for the great post!

My daughter visited last year, and she was actually turned off a bit because an athletic director gave the admissions talk. So while she wants to hang around nerds, she thinks RPI is full of jocks! :open_mouth:

Rose Hulman was her first choice (prospective CS major, though definitely could change to elsewhere in STEM). Now somehow without any further visits it seems like she’s shifting to RPI as her preferred school. Assuming she gets in, of course. So I’m trying to learn more about it.

What are class sizes like, and how much access do you have to your professors?

Another question - I see 5400 undergrads, and 1150 freshman. Does that mean that few people graduate in 4 years?

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@thshadow RPI has a lot of smart students and they feel comfortable among other smart people. If that describes your daughter than she should fit right in. RPI does not have a cut throat environment and students are willing to help each other. Why did the Athletic Director give the admissions talk? Does your D play a varsity sport? The intramurals and clubs are strictly for fun and there is no pressure to perform and no stigma if you fail. Only Ice Hockey is Division I and it is taken very seriously at RPI. All the other varisity teams are Division III.

Not sure where you got your 5400/1150 figure. Last year’s freshmen class was the largest ever with more than 1,700 entering. My freshmen class was 1,500 and more than 200 dropped out after the first year because it was too tough. Also, some of those left because they lost their financial aid by not maintain a minimum GPA. Additionally, some students are in a 5 year co-terminal program and maybe they are not counted as graduating in 4 years.

I studied Engineering and the freshmen lectures were huge, with 200 or more students. These courses also broke down into Recitations for groups of about 30-40 with a TA. I never went to my professors for help and asked the TAs when I did.

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I think he’s an athletic director plus he’s on admissions? I dunno why he gave the talk. It was to like 40 kids - and no, my D isn’t any kind of varsity athlete.

I got the 5400/1150 from a random site (cappex), so I can totally believe that it’s wrong.

Wow, 200 / 1500 dropped out because it’s too tough? More than 10%? That seems really high… Are there any specific weeding out classes? If so, I’m surprised the environment is still collaborative.

200 in a freshman lecture doesn’t seem so bad anymore. At Harvey Mudd (a tiny school), I went to their Intro CS lecture, and there were 400 kids there - I couldn’t believe it. (It was a fantastic class - it’s just that it was really big.) At Wash U, IIRC the intro CS classes doesn’t even have lectures because they’re too big. They just watch videos, and then the class is just lab time (maybe recitations).

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@theshadow hey! Freshman engineering and CS student here. RPI has a lot of athletes but that’s definitely not a dominant culture on campus. I actually also was concerned about that. You have a lot of nerds, you have a lot of jocks, you have a lot of frat guys, and artists and basically everything. It’s diverse - she shouldn’t be scared about that at all. Also, the CS courses at RPI actually teach you how to code. You can come in with absolutely no knowledge and leave knowing everything. Lab and recitation periods for classes are separate and require you to complete collaborative or individual programming assignments separate from individual projects (“homework”) you do outside of class. Courses are usually max 200 kids for intro CS courses (not really too bad at all) and it goes down over time to usually 15-30 kids per class for CS (after the first few classes). Also, don’t be afraid about people dropping out. RPI has transformed over the past ten years. Kids are objectively much smarter now than then (acceptance rate has gone down by like 4x, SAT scores up a few hundred points to around a 1420+/1600 average now). The retention rate (people staying after freshman year) is usually around 94% or 95% so only 5% fail out first year or transfer (only roughly 1% fail tho, the rest transfer usually to Ivies or go back home). Roughly 12%-14% fail out by senior year though - it depends on your major, don’t expect to pass a class like plasma engineering very easily for example but expect to be fine in calculus 1. No “weed out courses” per say though. They’re not trying to fail you, you fail if you don’t do your work and put the time and effort into passing your courses. Embedded control is known for being one of the hardest engineering courses or signals and systems, etc. Data Structures and foundations of CS are also very difficult, but you can definitely pass at least. Also, the environment is VERY collaborative. It’s very hard to describe but students are usually always willing to help each other out, especially since there are rarely curves in classes - you literally earn every point. Professors and TAs are also super helpful all the time. Don’t worry about your daughter doing anything but well if she does her work, studies, and goes to class. Hope this helps :slight_smile: and I’m willing to answer any more questions you may have!

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@newjerseydad888 This might be a more recent thing, but RPI does not require a minimum GPA to keep your financial aid. It’s nice to not have that added stress at such a challenging school!

@thshadow My daughter, who knew her comfort zone was a smallish STEM school, also visited RH and immediately crossed it off her list, primarily because of the location. From a parent perspective, I thought RH was great because it seemed very contained and safe and it’s a beautiful campus. I still think RH is a great school and they had the best sales pitch directed toward females we heard out of all our school visits – girls get priority on air conditioned rooms, lol! But I have to agree with my daughter now – location does matter and RPI is in a great location. She LOVES downtown Troy and has had a couple of opportunities to go to NYC very inexpensively. It may sound corny, but I think it’s enriched her college experience.

@joedoe Thanks for taking the time to write about your experience at RPI. I know threads like this were helpful to us when making a decision.

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Thanks for the responses!

I’m glad you all seem to like Troy. Her initial superficial impression of the town wasn’t that great, though I think we only drove through it.

Another question, maybe too specific. Does anyone know how accommodating RPI is for learning differences? DD has ADHD. It’s not clear that she’ll actually want any accommodations, but as her dad, I’d like it if it was an option.

@tulip71 - interesting that you consider RPI a smallish STEM school. DD applied to Rose Hulman, Olin, and Harvey Mudd (among others). Those are smallish! :slight_smile:

She did Operation Catapult at RH (a 17 day summer program), and she absolutely loved it. My hand-wavy guess of what she liked about the kids is that it was goofy-nerdy (e.g. go to Walmart with a group of kids at 1am for no good reason). She’s been turned off by tours where she thought the kids were video gaming nerds. And while I’m sure she knows she’ll have to work hard, I don’t think she wants a work all the time / all-nighters every week culture.

Of course, while she’s been accepted at Rose, decisions aren’t out yet for RPI RD, so I guess there’s no point in me / her getting too excited about it yet when she doesn’t even know if she’ll be accepted…

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@thshadow RPI offers accommodations for students with ADHD, including extended time and tutoring. I know this since I have a lot of friends that sought accommodation.

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RPI has lots of ADHD kids, some take the help, others do not.

There are jocks, but very smart jocks. Anyone watch the Super Bowl ?
Defensive coordinator for the Patriots is an RPI grad, Aerospace Engineer major who played football at RPI.
Nothing wrong with jocks…most do not go onto the NFL, but rather become engineers like others at RPI.

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Wow thank you so much for taking the time to write this @joedoe. My son applied RD. We are not from the NE area and honestly, my son only found our about RPI by researching schools and really liking the admissions rep who was at the college fair in our city! Subsequently, I had done some research and was a little afraid of sending him there, but you have made me feel better about the possibility.

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@phxcactus This is part of the reason I wrote this post. A lot of people outside the northeast especially have never heard of RPI and their only exposure is through media/forums such as this where the perception of the school may be different from the reality. My mom was also concerned about sending me here for those reasons but looking back this is probably the best decision I could have ever made.

Also note, when I mean people outside the northeast I mean regular college applicants and parents. RPI is one of the top 50 technology colleges in the world is well known internationally for its STEM graduates that work in a variety of different fields and industries. I find it pretty odd that with many really good colleges people have never heard of them for the most part outside of the sports schools and Ivy Leagues. For example, take Middlebury or Lafayette or Wesleyan. Amazing universities - ask a random college applicant or parent and they probably have never heard of them. Ask an employer and they’ll hand you a business card and offer you a job.

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Just came across this thread and want to add here that @joedoe’s write-up pretty much reflects what I’ve heard about RPI from my daughter (currently a engineering sophomore at RPI). The only other negative I’ve heard is that the food isn’t great (but that’s true of a lot of colleges).

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Bump since these questions keep coming up on the RPI Reddit page/other threads

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Thanks @joedoe , since you mentioned financials at the top, would you mind sharing if that was purely merit or if there was a need component in the financial awards you were given? We are touring in a couple weeks and my DS is interested in CS/CE as well with similar stats.

Is there anything specific we should look to see? We sent a request to tour CS and they indicated that since students worked on their own PCs, there wasn’t much to see, except maybe meet with a Professor. What about things to see in the Engineering school? CS is in the Sciences and CE is in Engineering - for a combined degree, which school are you in? Also, is it easy to change between schools if you are unsure between the two?

Do most kids stay on campus after freshman year? If not, is it cheaper to live in Troy?

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@ChattaChia I got the Rensselaer Leadership Award, which was around $20,000 a year. I then got an additional $12,000 of the Rensselaer Grant, which is need based. Following that, I was awarded around $12,000 in federal loans as well as TAP money for around $1,000. I also got work study for $2,000 a year. I’m pretty happy with my award package considering my parent’s income and that my grades were literally average by RPI standards. At the time, tuition was around $49,000 so I was essentially paying 2k for tuition and then room and board for my first year.

I’ve seen packages much larger than mine. One of my friends entering this year got $55,000 to attend RPI, another one of my friends the same age got $65,000, but chose to go to Georgia Tech instead. I also know many many people in my graduating class that had similar or larger packages - it really depends on your personal financial situation and what you bring to the table. The essay plays a big role in admission and in the scholarship/financial aid process at RPI since they consider you as a person when determining packages. Even if you’re admitted, they give the most to the students they really want to attract - not just those who are qualified enough to get in. You’d be surprised how much it varies.There are a lot of people around admissions season that complain their son/daughter didn’t get in with very high scores or got zero merit aid. After spending a year at RPI, I can say that there are plenty of smarter people that replaced them. RPI is a phenomenal school with an excellent student body.

In regards to CS, there isn’t much to see. Computer Science research doesn’t require physical facilities beyond a supercomputer, and that’s located off campus in the technology park and is under strict security. Current students are able to use it though if they submit a request.

I am in the School of Engineering doing Computer & Systems Engineering. CSE is more hardware and electronics, less software. CS is more software, less hardware. However, you can do both in either major - they’re both very flexible and have a lot of crossover.

In regard to changing schools, switching from CS to ECSE is pretty easy given the crossover, but ECSE to CS is harder due to the sheer demand for the CS program. You need to get at least a ‘B’ in data structures in order to transfer to CS. If you work hard, that shouldn’t be an issue - but it’s a very difficult course. It’s not so much a weed out class as much as rigorous - students that can’t do it won’t be successful in the CS department. Overall though, besides CS you can switch into any major without restriction at RPI from any other major.

Living off campus is definitely the better way to go. I moved into my fraternity house and it’s costing me around $3,000 for this semester including fees, food, and a room. Many students choose to live off campus with roommates - you’ll save so much money. Thanks to me doing this my parents are paying less than I would at a state school in NYS as an in-state student, even with the Excelsior Scholarship since it doesn’t cover room and board. However, many students live on campus, but I wouldn’t advise it. Why spend extra money for less room and worse food? The only benefit is the convenience of walking to class in 5 minutes, but there are a lot of apartments that close to RPI as well that go for much much cheaper (like $300/month).

If you have any more questions feel free to message me! I love sharing my experience with prospective students and parents given everything RPI has done for me so far.

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@ChattaChia I also forgot to mention - generally just walk around campus, go into the library/Voorhees computing center, see EMPAC, and then just walk freely and look at classrooms and such. Underclassman courses are held in all buildings across campus. Also go to the approach - it’s in the very back of campus, walk directly down from the Carnegie building. The view from the left side of EMPAC particularly is also very nice… Again, for CS there really isn’t much to see in a campus tour. You’re going to mainly get a feel of the campus community and the physical aspect. You’ll also be given a lot of information, like how the CS program average starting salary is 92k and CSE is 86k, etc.

E-mail a professor and see if you can meet with one, ask them questions, etc. - it shows interest and may help in the admissions process and you will also learn a lot about the programs. To find information on professor contacts: https://science.rpi.edu/computer-science/faculty. Dr.Stewart is really awesome if he’s available to speak to you - he teaches CS1 in the fall as well as many upper/graduate level courses.

In terms of the dorms and student life, go to the student union, the Mueller Center gym, the alumni sports and recreation center (nicknamed “the armory” - it looks like a giant castle), and the '87 gym. Also check out ECAV - you’ll need to walk a few blocks or drive, but search “ECAV RPI” on google maps and it’ll come up. First year students typically live on freshmen hill, while sophomores that don’t go off-campus live in Quad or E-Complex (I got lucky and lived in Quad first year). Barton is by far the nicest freshmen dorm, but that side of campus is probably closed for the summer. All students living on campus this summer are in Quad.

I’d also recommend going to downtown Troy. Popular places to go are the Ruck, Dinosaur BBQ (highly recommend), Slidin Dirty (would recommend most), and the Whistling Kettle (also really awesome). Students typically go to these places most when going into downtown.

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Thanks @joedoe. Visiting those places should take up the free time we have. I’m sure I’ll have more questions once we return from our visit.