if anyone has questions

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Rochester
41

<p>Hi, i am interested in transfering to UR this fall, and i would like to ask you a few questions</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I heard the food from the UR dining halls are pretty bad...is that really true?</p></li>
<li><p>Is there any research or internship opportunities offered to the economics major student?</p></li>
<li><p>I heard that most of the students are living on campus...so i am just wondering if most people just stay in their dorms at night or they actually go out and meet people...are there any school activities going on at night?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thank you!</p>

42

<p>Pretty bad? I think the sources you hear that from have no context in which to refer "pretty bad" to. The food here is normal institutionalized food- there are your things which are pretty good and your others which aren't. When you come here you should not expect that the food will be Rainbow Room quality. The food here is better than many other colleges though at least.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Don't know.</p></li>
<li><p>Common weekday night activities- Mr. Rush Rhees
Common weekend night activities- going around hanging out with friends.</p></li>
</ol>

43

<ol>
<li><p>The food is tolerable, but not really good. It gets pretty repetitive fast, and being a vegetarian, the options get limited fast too. Many people believe that Danforth stick laxatives in their food, which I'll let you decide for yourself when you eat there ;).</p></li>
<li><p>There are a few available, but it requires a little research beforehand. They can be found here, <a href="http://www.rochester.edu/College/abroad/programs/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rochester.edu/College/abroad/programs/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li>
</ol>

<p>There is also a real cool internship program in London: <a href="http://www.rochester.edu/college/internships/london/business.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rochester.edu/college/internships/london/business.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li>I'd disagree with hopkinslax, there's more to do on campus on weekdays. It just depends on how involved you are. Many clubs have meetings and activities throughout the week, there are pretty cool visiting professors who give talks, random musical performances. Many activities go on, you just need to be aware of them. </li>
</ol>

<p>Weekends, most people party at frats, there's other things to do as well, just gotta find them. There is this new club that just started, called urban exploring, which explores random parts of Rochester, and I've heard they have had some great explorations.</p>

44

<p>10 Questions to Ask Before Accepting a College Offer</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Is the office of residential life accessible to students? Can students switch if they get a terrible roommate, and how long does that process take?</p></li>
<li><p>Does the school provide student escorts to accompany students walking home late at night?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the average increase in tuition, and when are tuition increases next expected?</p></li>
<li><p>What are the hours at the student health clinic? What about 24-hour emergency care? What does the college?s health insurance cover, and are pre-existing conditions included in the coverage?</p></li>
<li><p>How does the college handle leaves of absence?</p></li>
<li><p>Can you pick your academic advisor? How do current students feel about the advising system?</p></li>
<li><p>Does the school offer storage facilities? How much does it cost?</p></li>
<li><p>What is the crime rate on campus?</p></li>
<li><p>What is a school?s policy on dorm room wear and tear? Are you responsible for compensating the school?</p></li>
<li><p>What kind of food does the cafeteria offer? What are the options when the cafeteria is closed?</p></li>
</ol>

45

<ol>
<li><p>It is very accessible. Very friendly and professional staff. You are able to switch if you get a roommate, I wouldn't say that it is simple, but it can be done if necessary.</p></li>
<li><p>If you need an escort, you can just call security and they will escort you with no problem.</p></li>
<li><p>Average increase is about 5-6% which is consequently on par with other colleges of this caliber.</p></li>
<li><p>The hours are usually from 9AM-9PM and there is an on call physician. Also, don't forget that there is a hospital right next door.</p></li>
<li><p>If you need a leave of absence, just take one. Only problem is that you will graduate later.</p></li>
<li><p>You don't pick your academic advisor for your freshman year (those are assigned by hall). However when you declare your major, you can usually pick yours (depending on the dep't). However if you are an engineer, you have your advisor all 4 years. I think the system is pretty decent. Most of the advisors are very knowledgeable.</p></li>
<li><p>The school itself does not offer any, but there are many many facilities open to students. There are the normal Public Storage facilities and then the kind that deliver big boxes to your dorm. The costs are $40+ a month</p></li>
<li><p>Crime rate is relatively low. <a href="http://security.rochester.edu/stats06.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://security.rochester.edu/stats06.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li>
<li><p>If you damage something, you are responsible for paying for it. Also, if there is community damage, the whole dorm pays for it (works out to be like 50cents per student at times). However you have a $5 "account" where the school will not charge you until your money runs out.</p></li>
<li><p>Cafeteria offers all kinds of food. There are multiple on campus. There are "coffee shops" when the main cafeterias close including a new one by the University Information Technology Center, one in Goergen, one by the Pit in Wilson Commons, one in Susan B. Anthony.</p></li>
</ol>

46

<p>One issue I cannot find an answer to is grade inflation. Are the number of A's limited?
I have heard that in some schools with a high achieving student body, the profs limit the number of high grades, while at other schools, where most of the students in any given class are accustomed to getting all A's all the time, high grades are common.</p>

47

<p>It really depends on the professor.
I know professors who wish they could give A's to everyone whereas I have had professors give a person with a 92% a B.
I think you find the A's if you can deserve it in the sciences more often.</p>

48

<p>my cousin wants to apply to rochester this year. i am asking some questions for her. how many chinese students are there at Rochester? is it easy for a chinese to make friends on campus? can you give some specific information on Quest Program? Is it just like a seminar? Do you find Quest program difficult? Rochester takes a unique cluster system. But we still can't understand it completely. Does it mean you have required courses within your major, but you also have to take severl clusters ? If so, how many clusters should a student take? Are the cluster system designed so that the students can have a broad liberal arts education? </p>

<p>Thank you very much for your time.</p>

49

<p>So I don’t know the exact number per say, but there definitely a significant number of Chinese students on campus. There are many student groups, including the Chinese Student Association, so it isn’t hard to make friends.</p>

<p>Quest classes are meant to be classes that are smaller and for freshman only but more intense in terms of depth and research required. Usually the class is real small like 12 to 20 students, and very discussion oriented. They require more work than most intro classes you take. I took Dante’s Divine Comedy as a Quest course, and loved it. It was challenging but not impossible, and it completely changed my thinking, so I had a pretty good experience with my quest class. </p>

<p>So the cluster system is real cool in my opinion. Basically there are three broad areas of study: social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. Rather force students to follow a core cirriculmn, Rochester allows students to define their own education while still gently guiding them to take classes in all three areas. So the goal is to have experienced all three area of study to broaden your horizon. Usually your major takes the place of one of those areas of study, and cluster in the other two. A cluster is like a basic introduction to an area of study, so most are like three classes that are interrelated and classified as one of the above areas. Minors and majors supersede clusters in terms of double majors and minors. So like I am planning on double majoring in Computer Science (natural science) and English (Humanities) and minoring in Legal Studies (social sciences). Clusters are those people who are interested in an area/subject but don’t want to commit, minor for those even more curious, and majors for those who are committed. And yes the cluster system is designed to give students the freedom to guide their college education while exploring thing they normally would not have.</p>

<p>If you have any more questions, feel free to drop me a pm, and I can give you my direct email address for any other questions.</p>

50

<p>rmillie, </p>

<p>there is a lot of asians here. i am chinese and I feel completely fine here. There are tons of Asian clubs and ther eis also an Asian frat and Sorority which has a lot of asian pride on campus. trust me, I come from a town where I am the only Asian, so i know how it can be. Rochester def. has lots of asians who look out for one another</p>

51

<p>quick question from a prospective student… could you chance me… U of R is my dream school but i dunno if ill get in…
Ethnicity = indian
go to a top 100 high school in nation
gpa 3.38
AP chem, US Hist, Bio got a 4, 5, 5 in order
sat = 1310/1940
band geek, jazz band 4 years, tech crew 3 years
taking three aps this year Music Theory, Physics and Gov
if those stats are too slim, are essays a large consideration because i have a killer one…</p>

<p>Chance me please? sankyaw</p>

52

<p>Thank you all for your replies. It’s great help.</p>

53

<p>nonexistentuser, don’t worry about it. u’ll most lickley get in. remember it’s not all about test scores. i know kids who score like less than 600’s on their SAt and still got in. but they are passionate bout something, be it volunteer or whatnot. in fact, my SAT score wasn’t the best, around 2100, but i got in. </p>

<p>so just live life and do the things u love and they’ll know ur not faking. then u’ll get in</p>

54

<p>Is there a typical UR student? How would you describe the student body/campus culture? What kind of person would feel most/least at home? Political? Politically correct? Preppy? Intellectual? Jock? Geeky? Frat party-oriented? Druggy? Drinkers? Cliqueish? Segregated? Strong sense of community? None/all/fill in your own of the above?</p>

55

<p>Well, you know how all those college manuals keep telling you that there is no “typical” student? Yeah, that’s pretty much college in general, or at least Rochester.</p>

<p>Politics-- I have not seen any protests ocurring on campus, though the environmental club recently went on a ninja excursion to find where on campus lacks recycling containers. Sadly, I had a Spanish paper due the next day, so I forced myself to stay in and work… I’ve seen a few political-minded students, though these kids are usually poly sci majors.</p>

<p>Politically Correct-- for sure. I think this is generally the case at all intellectual schools-- we all respect each other and I haven’t seen any evidence of racial slurs since I’ve been here.</p>

<p>Preppy-- I know one person who is preppy in the entire multitude of people I’ve met. You see a few every once in a while and there are by no means looked down upon, but most people realize that clothes are clothes and it really doesn’t matter in the slightest.</p>

<p>Intellectual-- I would say that if you hae adesire for intellectual conversations, you could pretty much go up to anyone and they’d converse with you. In high school, I really looked for thsi kind of school, but now that I’m here, I thnk I’ve changed slightly. I will do so on occasion, but generally people have the same opinion as I do, so there’s not much point to doing so. Perhaps this is me preferring chilling to thinking-- not quite sure. But I’d say we’re easy-going intellectuals.</p>

<p>Jock-- a lot of people here are involved in club sports, whether it be ski team (me), football (before actually coming I didn’t we think we had a team… whoops…), or ultimate frisbee. If you’re looking for a school that is devoted to sports, this isn’t your place. I think it’s soemthing about 30 people show up to every home/away game. However, the players are good-humored about it and there isn’t a rift at all-- they enjoy playing the game too much to care who wants to see it.</p>

<p>Geeky-- You truely don’t know how un-nerdy you are till you arrive on campus. Think online webcomics and obscure videogames. If you have an interest in anything in one of these fields, no matter how seemingly unknown, you will find someone else who does too. If you have issues dealing wih geeks, you may have an issue here. However, the geeks can laugh at themselves in a good natured way, and you are welcome to join in :)</p>

<p>Frat-party oriented-- I somehow ended up on the jock hall (football players, XC runners, etc) and these people are definitely the part animals of the dorm. Like seriously, you say the name of my hall and people know that that’s where the noise was coming from at 3 in the morning. The people in my hall like to party, which definitely isn’t my thing, but luckily I’ve found another great group of friends outside my hall who aren’t into the party scene either, so I don’t feel left out on the weekends. I will say though that the people are very accepting of my decision not to drink, so it’s not a bad situation at all.</p>

<p>Druggy-- it’s weird-- you’d think that there’s no way people can be getting good grades and be getting high every day, but this isn’t the case. There are 4 guys on my hall thta get high quite often, but all but 1 of them does well on tests. They know when to crack down-- gotta give them props for that.</p>

<p>Cliqueish-- Not unusually so. It’s pretty easy to meet people in clubs etc. However, people don’t smile quite as much as I would have hoped when randomy walking around. I smile at almost everyone, but sometimes it warrants funny looks if they aren’t used to the small town greeting mentality.</p>

<p>Segregated-- I notice that a lot of students tend to hang out with people similar to themselves. I think in time this will change slightly-- as incoming freshman, you just want to find someone to hang out with quickly and generally these are people most like you. However, as people get more comfortable, they branch out. This is self-segregation if anything though-- there’s no predjudice that I am aware of.</p>

<p>Community feeling-- Yeah, for sure-- I love my school and I’m pretty sure that almsot everyone else here feels the same way. There are the ocasional downers-- generally people who had built up their number 1 school in their mind and were rejected for whatever reason or denied financial aid and wound up here. These people annoy me and need to get over it-- our school is AWESOME!</p>

<p>Hope this helped and let me know if there’s anything else you need :)</p>

56

<p>Robotab, are you a freshman?</p>

57

<p>yup, I’m a freshman and I love my school!! (but not this cold weather we’ve been having the past few days-- I am seriously hoping it’s just temporary)</p>

58

<p>Thanks Robotab… Rochester is one of my son top choices and its great to hear a candid description from a student.</p>

59

<p>hopefully the candid description sways you towards rochester :wink:
for the record, a lot of my friends at oher good schools (not rochester’s caliber, but still academically competitive) are unhappy and transferring for next semester. This is definitely not the case for me, nor any of the other people I know, so this is a plus</p>

<p>also, I foudn the transition really easy when I came here-- a few days in I had already gathered a great group of friends (not just people to hang out with, but crew that is there for me when I have hormonal days) and a good amount of acquaintainces as well. Seriously, nothing could relieve my fears (and those of my parents) more than an easy transition.</p>

60

<p>My wife surprised herself by not crying at all after we dropped off our freshman daughter because she was comfortable leaving her there. She was already making friends on her floor by day 2, now has a job, plays in an ensemble, has joined a recreational athletic group, and has good size circle of new friends. Academically she is challenging herself, working hard, and loving it.</p>

<p>We can’t say enough nice things about UR.</p>