<p>S has been looking at 3 large engineering schools, but would have the chance to play his sport if he goes to RH. We visited and thought it was beautiful and everyone was extremely nice! Just having a hard time getting past the concerns regarding social life at such a small school that is not within walking distance of anything! How "do-able" is playing a sport and succeding at Rose? Is there even time for social life? What do you do for fun?</p>
<p>My son is a freshman this year at RH and I wanted to share his experience as I know I was desperate for information about Rose last year. In short, my son loves Rose so far. Part of the reason he chose the school was due to being able to play his sport. The other part was that it is a great school and he was also impressed about how nice everyone was on his visit as well. He has not been disappointed at all. </p>
<p>One thing he mentioned that he liked was that “everybody” plays intramural sports. He played two in the fall and had a great time. He also ended up joining a fraternity which surprised me a bit, but he has really enjoyed it. He plans to live in the house next year. Something that I have really appreciated is all the community service activites the students have done. He has done community service with his team, with his dorm and with his fraternity. </p>
<p>I think since there is not as much to do off campus it makes everyone at the school be more involved on campus, which I think is great. I know he has gone out for dinner with friends a lot, goes to basketball games, goes to parties at the frat and of course the intramural sports on top of regular workouts. Of course he has to study too, so being bored has never been a problem. </p>
<p>Hope that helps a bit. No school is right for everyone, but RH has been a great fit for my son.</p>
<p>Thanks, Centennialmom. That was very helpful. Interestingly, while it seems like there are many students who were hesitant to choose RH, I have not been able to find anyone, on-line or in person, who says they are sorry they chose RH in the end!</p>
<p>FutureEngrMom,</p>
<p>I have also been searching the internet for the last six months for negative thoughts about Rose-Hulman. I have only found one person who had anything negative to say about Rose. Their reason for being unhappy was that they had decided they wanted to be a star on Broadway someday. I have actually kept a file of all e-mails I have gotten concerning Rose and went back and read all of them before our college trip to see this school two weeks ago. Our son went to Operation Catapult last summer and has been in love with this school ever since. </p>
<p>If anyone has anything negative to say about Rose, I would love to hear before spending thousands of dollars on tuition.</p>
<p>I don’t post here much, but feel compelled to tell you our experience! Last year at this time my son had decided on a different engineering school and had picked out dorm, everything. He had a very good scholarship. But I just didn’t feel he was entirely happy. One month before decision day I told him to look at Rose. He had not visited because of the expense.
Once he visited he loved it and we knew what we had to do.</p>
<p>To say that it has been a sacrifice financially is an understatement. </p>
<p>To say that it is completely worth it is also an understatement.</p>
<p>My son loves it there, has made many friends. He does not have a car, but always seems to be going to Walmart or out to eat with friends. He was not interested in a fraternity, but is looking forward to the soph. dorm next year. He too loves the community service the school gives and participates regularly. </p>
<p>My son had quite a few friends in high school, but honestly I dont know if he was ever completely comfortable there–he is a true geek! He is completely comfortable at Rose and finds the classes challenging and interesting. He was able to test out of many classes and was glad that they “met him where he was” and did not have to repeat things he had already learned.</p>
<p>This is my fourth child in college and they have all chosen completely different routes but this one was the right choice for my son–hope this helps.</p>
<p>Hollyanne,</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to reply to our posts. It sure does make us feel better about possibly spending thousands more at Rose than we would at our local state school.</p>
<p>“If anyone has anything negative to say about Rose, I would love to hear before spending thousands of dollars on tuition.”</p>
<p>Haha. This sounds like me!</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore at Rose right now. My college choice came down to Rose (1,800 students, $35k/year) versus BYU (30,000+ students, 5k/year) - so my final two were quite opposites. </p>
<p>I don’t regret choosing Rose. Being totally honest, I’ve only found two “negatives” at Rose.</p>
<p>1) The cost. This one is quite obvious, but it is probably the biggest negative. But, it’s the same pretty much anywhere you go with private schools.</p>
<p>2) Rose is quite small, so you don’t get as much diversity and options in your course selection as you would elsewhere. There is a humanities department at Rose, so you can take some classes outside the technical curriculum, but don’t expect an abundance of choices (although the selection isn’t as bad as some might think…you can take a look on Rose’s website). And since the humanities department is small there isn’t going to be five sections of each humanities course offered, so you can occasionally run into time conflicts or undesirable circumstances (8AM classes! 
). But it’s not that big of a deal.</p>
<p>You can tell that Rose is good from how poor my complaints are. #1 is applicable to a lot of schools, and #2 is a minor gripe - especially considering a lot of Rose students don’t really care much for humanities anyway. </p>
<p>Rose-Hulman’s faculty and staff are friendly, the education is top-notch, and all of the students are there for the same reason: they are geeks that like engineering, science, and math. Fantastic environment.</p>
<p>gobeavs: Thanks for trying to find some negatives about Rose - I would love to hear from your friends - the good and the bad. </p>
<p>Do you have time for intramurals?
How difficult is it to get to and from the Indianapolis airport without your own car?
Do you feel you will have good job opportunities when you graduate?
Are you encouraged even as a freshman to look for summer internships?
Do you get tired of the one cafeteria on campus?
Do most people use the mandatory computer issued to each student or do they use their own computer?
How do you feel about the limit on the use of the internet? Are you able to watch Netflix without going over your limit?
What if a student doesn’t have exposure to computer programming?
Do you suggest taking AP credit for Calculus I if you got a 5 on the AB exam?</p>
<p>Thank you, gobeavs! Your comments are so helpful.</p>
<p>And good luck to you at Rose!</p>
<p>I agree thanks for at least trying to come up with the negatives! And Freshman20112012 great questions! I keep hearing “we’re all geeks” and that makes me a little nervous…S likes computer games and robotics, but is also an athlete and, ya know, not totally uncool! Does that still fit your student definition of geeks (like not necisarily “totally nerdy” but just on the techy side??)
Freshman20112012 mentioned a limit on the internet … what is that?
Percentage wise, how many students would you say continue to live on campus after Frosh year?</p>
<p>[Do you have time for intramurals?]</p>
<p>Yes, but I don’t personally participate in intramurals. I’m off-campus and just play sports with my friends, but a lot of people play intramurals. Especially freshman year, when you are really involved with your floor, residence halls and floors will have teams and people compete in those.</p>
<p>[How difficult is it to get to and from the Indianapolis airport without your own car?]</p>
<p>You used to have to find your own ride, but just recently they’ve started organizing things campus-wide. There are increasing numbers of international and out-of-state students that need transportation, so the Rose staff is coordinating shuttle buses to and from Rose for the breaks. $20 each way. A lot of people carpool as well.</p>
<p>[Do you feel you will have good job opportunities when you graduate?]</p>
<p>I do. For example, take a look at this past Fall career fair: [Companies</a> Attending the Rose-Hulman Career Fair](<a href=“404 | Rose-Hulman”>404 | Rose-Hulman)</p>
<p>I’m a EE…this year, 90 companies were at the fall career fair looking at EEs for full time positions. There are currently 36 senior EEs. 2.5 companies per senior EE. Not bad!</p>
<p>[Are you encouraged even as a freshman to look for summer internships?]</p>
<p>Yep. One of the first classes you take as a freshman is called “College and Life Skills”, in which you write a resume and get introduced to the career services office. Freshman are as welcome to the staff at career services and to the career fairs as everyone else.</p>
<p>[Do you get tired of the one cafeteria on campus?]</p>
<p>I personally didn’t mind…I just ate cheeseburgers every day anyway :-). Some people do tire of it a little bit - but there is a Noble Romans pizza place and a Subway on campus as well, to add a little variety. The cafeteria does have a fairly wide selection of food, so it isn’t like you’re eating the <em>exact</em> same thing every day. But, it is still cafeteria food.</p>
<p>[Do most people use the mandatory computer issued to each student or do they use their own computer?]</p>
<p>Most people use the laptop that you have to buy. It’s a top of the line laptop, so it suits 99% of your needs. Some people bring desktops as well, but most people’s primary computer is the laptop. It’s just more convenient.</p>
<p>[How do you feel about the limit on the use of the internet? Are you able to watch Netflix without going over your limit?]</p>
<p>I live off campus now, so I don’t really mind the internet limits :-). It has gotten in the way with some of my friends, but mainly just when they try to do a huge download (like a 9GB game). Really, 3 GB in 3 days is a lot of data, so most people don’t run into problems with it. I’m not sure about netflix…if you’re streaming full HD content over netflix you might hit the cap in a couple of hours - but that’s probably a little extreme.</p>
<p>[What if a student doesn’t have exposure to computer programming? ]</p>
<p>Not a problem. If the student is a CS major and doesn’t have any exposure to programming he might be in the minority, but he wouldn’t be alone. And it definitely wouldn’t be a disqualifier or anything. I would say most students outside of CS probably don’t have any previous programming experience.</p>
<p>[Do you suggest taking AP credit for Calculus I if you got a 5 on the AB exam?]</p>
<p>Yes. I had credit for Calc I and II coming into Rose, and it was nice to have a couple free slots in my schedule freshman year to get a little bit ahead or explore some areas I was interested in. The professors of Calc II and III understand that a lot of people come in with credit from high school, so you don’t really have any problems with being behind students that took it in college. As a freshman 95% of the people in your math classes will have come in with the same credit you did, so they have similar backgrounds.</p>
<p>Hopefully that answered everything. If I missed anything or you thought of something else to ask, fire away!</p>
<p>[ I keep hearing “we’re all geeks” and that makes me a little nervous…S likes computer games and robotics, but is also an athlete and, ya know, not totally uncool! Does that still fit your student definition of geeks (like not necisarily “totally nerdy” but just on the techy side??)]</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think my definition of “geek” has changed a lot since coming to Rose. One of my roommates is a two-sport athlete. I’ve got a EE friend here who is in track…says he loves circuit analysis because “you can just look at a circuit and know everything about it. How cool is that!” Only a geek would say something like that :-D. </p>
<p>There are your “hardcore geeks” who do nothing but play video games all day and there are also the people that play sports for Rose, go longboarding in their spare time, etc. But, if they didn’t like engineering/science/problem-solving they wouldn’t be at Rose. So, in that sense they are “geeks”…but there’s lots of athletes and socially capable people here. :-D</p>
<p>[Freshman20112012 mentioned a limit on the internet … what is that?]</p>
<p>If you live on campus, there’s a internet usage cap. I think it’s 3 GB over 3 days. After that you get throttled down to a slightly slower speed for 500 MB, and then after that you get throttled down to 160 kb/s. Your downloads don’t count toward the cap in off-hours, though, so you can do your large downloads over night. It sounds bad, but 3GB of data is a lot of data.</p>
<p>[Percentage wise, how many students would you say continue to live on campus after Frosh year?]</p>
<p>I’m not sure…if I had to make some guesses, I would say maybe 60-70% of sophomores are on campus, and maybe 30%-40% of juniors and seniors are on campus. Maybe someone in Rose admissions could provide some actual numbers here. Whatever year you are you have options.</p>
<p>Just to add another note about the “geeks” at Rose:</p>
<p>[2010</a> Freshman Profile](<a href=“404 | Rose-Hulman”>404 | Rose-Hulman)</p>
<p>Over 260 participated in performing arts
117 participated on academic teams
44 were members of newspaper or yearbook staffs
291 played varsity sports</p>
<p>Out of 559 total freshmen. <em>Over half</em> played varsity sports. Your son wouldn’t be alone.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Close to 60% of the Rose-Hulman student body were varsity athletes in high school…close to a 90% participation rate in at least 1 intramural sport activity (there are 25 to choose from throughout the year). Much more athletically minded than most expect.</p>
<p>At this point I’m thinking S will be thinking, “is this heaven?..Nope, it’s Rose-Hulman” 
Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate it. Truth is, I think I’m a lot more concerned about finding the “perfect fit” for my S than he is! Your comments have just provided great comfort to a mom sending her firt-born off to college 
</p>