Can someone help me? Give me some advices or more information about RIT?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rochester Institute of Technology
1

Hello everyone

I am an international student from China. I studied at an American high school for two years already.

Just got the offer last week(Surprisingly, it comes really early). They gave me a scholarship for 16000 dollars international Scholarship. I also got into the Case Western Reserve University but didnt apply any scholarship. (and …Purdue college of science…but i wont go there bc i dont like the location and its student body: plus my father hates this school…ooops :[ )

Now, I’m still applying to GIT, University of Rochester, NYU, Brandeis, RPI, and university of Miami. The result will come out before April.

I applied the game design and development program
(bc i have some interests to go to this field in the future, but i am not so sure.
I will major in CS, engineer, artificial intelligence, pre-med? or game design, or something fun about engineer…:).)

The problem is not about money. I worry:

Should I risk myself to go to this small-name school compared to these big brand U?

These are my concerns which stop me to go there

  1. I really maybe work in game-industry in future, but I think lots of school also have game-design-program, so I dont have to stick with this one. But I feel like this school really welcomes me to go there, so i may get more attention from this school, which may be better for my future?
  2. RIT has very good game design program, but i dont like too tech-style school because I want to get some decent liberal art education. RIT's liberal art looks not strong compared to Case and other candidate schools.
  3. Brand. I think RIT is not very famous internationally. (People in my hometown know Case, Purdue, NYU, etc, but not RIT) I dont know how a brand will affect me, but I just think choosing a small-name school is risky. RIT's fame is not as big as Case and other candidate school. It is easier to transfer to a low-rank school than transfer to a higher rank school. For example, i can study at Case, and transferring to RIT will be easier than transferring to Case from RIT. <-------allllll is my personal idea

If i went to the RIT, how hard would it be to transfer to other schools?, and how about their graduate school enrollment? What graduate schools did all these undergraduate students in game department go?

  1. How about game designing career future? Will I find a good job in USA? I can say my family is wealthy....I just feel like it's a shame if you cannot be economically independent after graduation.

These are my motivation to go there

  1. I like game. I played lots of games. I also like to research about these games such as how are they made. I play all kinds of games except sports game. I play games on all kinds of gameboxes PC, XBOX, Will, etc.

I am not a master of any game, but I can say that I really know lots of games. I check their graphic quality and appreciate their beauty. (Good graphic quality? Grand,epic stories? some kinds of popcorn culture?even… Philosophically amazing…)

I just think games are so good, and lots of them are very good art products with both commercial value and artistic value.

Game is Art, and I want to work on it. .

  1. China's game industry is newborn and raising. It will be filled with opportunities in this industry. I probably can work in America for a few years to get some experience and go back to start my own game company in China in future...
  2. Again, i think the school likes me, which means that I am not overestimating myself. Maybe I am good at this, why dont I grab this chance?

PS: Actually, i feel very disturbing when my friends ask me: " What is RIT? I never heard of it."

   and my native language is not English, sorry for a few grammar issues.
2

Hi, my son is a freshman in the Game Design and Development major at RIT. He was also accepted to several other schools, including some with more name recognition than RIT, but this was the highest ranked game dev program he was accepted to. Some things to note:

First, RIT is best known for its co-op program – as a GD&D major you will have two real-world work experiences before you graduate. While you can do co-ops at other schools, it isn’t expected and you may not get as much help. My son wanted the help. Because of this experience, the post-graduate employment rate is extremely high for RIT – I think 95% for computing-related majors. A graduate degree is not usually required for these kinds of jobs, that’s probably not a very common path. You’d have to ask about their success.

Second, those people who have heard of RIT are always impressed with RIT students. So they may not be known as much internationally but there is a very good reputation here in the States, especially among people who have supervised co-op students.

Third, the GD&D is perhaps the most competitive major at RIT. Although the overall acceptance rate is fairly high, only 10% of applicants are accepted to GD&D. It is an elite group, and I would expect that the industry knows this. It also means that it is hard to transfer in – I expect that they do not lose very many of these excellent students and so there might not be capacity in the major. One discussion forum says they accept <5 transfer students a year.

Fourth, the RIT GD&D major is quite programming-intensive. Some other schools have more of a design emphasis, but at RIT you get very solid CS training. It isn’t clear to me how many of the jobs people get are in the games industry versus more general programming jobs. But you can get either.

Fifth, you are right that it is weaker in the liberal arts. It is a tech school so they don’t have as many courses to choose from. Except for art – there seems to be a lot of visual arts, both digital and otherwise. You will be required to take courses in ethics, global culture, writing, arts, etc. and you can add a minor.

The culture at RIT is very comfortable for gamers. They are the norm. But there’s lots of other things to do also.

Good luck with your decision!

3

Excellent reply Crowlady! GD&D is the most competitive major. It is really interesting to see the wildly different acceptance rates for the various programs at RIT.

Freddybaby, if you want to do game design you got into an excellent program… with a scholarship…

4

Thank u so much crowlady!

Your contents are really informative and helpful.
I will make the decision late when I do more research on these schools.

5

RIT and RPI both have fantastic GD&D programs, you really can’t go wrong with either of them. I know a ton of Engineers and people in other STEM fields, and they speak very highly of both schools. The educational approach is a bit different, so that’s something that you’ll have to consider.