<p>I’m choosing between these two schools as well. Both have med schools and I know at Rochester, there are volunteer and research opportunities for undergrads at the hospital/med school. Does BU offer the same sort of opportunities for its undergrads?</p>
<p>Yes and really all schools have some of these but the scale of these two schools is vastly different; UR has 5k undergrads and BU has 16k. The availability is greater at UR. It is common at UR for kids to be involved in research. That is a big reason this kid is going there.</p>
<p>I am in the exact same boat, trying to pick between these two schools. I love Boston for the city but I love Rochester for the small classes. I feel like Rochester is much stronger for the sciences but other than that Boston tops it. I just cannot decide.</p>
<p>The differences between the schools are very clear in certain ways. BU is urban - I live about a mile away at most - and is in Boston. UR is a scenic campus, also on a river, but isolated from the city of Rochester. Rochester has quite a bit to offer but it is by no means Boston. BU has a long-spread out campus and UR has traditional Georgian architecture, as seen in the difference between modernist Mugar Library at BU and traditional, beautiful Rush Rhees at UR. BU has 16k+ undergrads and UR has 5k. Big differences.</p>
<p>UR gets substantially more research money than BU and the science / medical facilities are all integrated into one area instead of being spread across the city. </p>
<p>UR has a different educational approach; they have no requirements other than a major and 2 clusters (meaning 3 related courses) and that can be altered by doing a major, a minor, a cluster, etc. BU has, in my experience, gone the other way; as a very big school, they feel they need to instill rigor into the curriculum.</p>