<p>Hi, i looked at previous threads about the reputation of rochester, but they are all outdated (mostly before 2010). also, many threads on cc argue that rankings shouldn't be taken seriously, even though rochester ranks well for some departments. what is the reputation of rochester in the us (for IR, political science, econ)? thanks! </p>
<p>bumping (I would like to know too)! </p>
<p>I visited the UofR campus with my daughter. It is a nice mid size school, very pretty campus. It has a good reputation here in the Northeast. The tuition is very high, I think close to $60,000 with room and board. </p>
<p>Reputations of specific departments I’m not sure I would want to guess at. However, whenever I’ve talked with anyone (knowledgeable) about URoc (or my son did), there was a universal “That’s a VERY good school!” response. We didn’t always get that with other colleges he/we inquired about. Considering the school isn’t very well known locally by “the man on the street,” I was impressed that it had such a decent reputation. Of course, to the “man on the street” around here a college is only as good as its football (or maybe basketball) team.</p>
<p>I think it is a great school with a solid reputation. </p>
<p>Those who do not know UR think it’s a SUNY. But those who know UR know it is a great small research university. Believe me, your health care professionals know UR. My ophthalmologist did his post-grad work there, our pediatrician (from the past) did his residency there. Don’t let people’s ignorance dissuade you from considering UR.</p>
<p>D was not involv</p>
<p>What it would take for the UofR to move into the top 20:
<a href=“Ralph Kuncl’s study in Research in Higher Education explains the significance of U.S. News & World Report rankings and how to move up to the top 20.”>http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2014/06/ralph_kuncl_s_study_in_research_in_higher_education_explains_the_significance.html</a></p>
<p>I go to Cornell but live in Rochester (I was actually born at the university’s medical center) and I can truly say that the UofR is one of the best universities in the country. While it does not have the alumni prestige of the Ivy League, it certainly has a very large budget, strong student body, and great academics to back it up. It’s Poli Sci and Econ departments are fantastic while it’s Med program extends throughout up-state</p>
<p>I’m unsure what this kind of thing means.</p>
<p>If you want to work in South Carolina, you’re better off going to Clemson or U of South Carolina - or maybe UNC or another regional school. If you want to work in Texas, UT, etc. In other words, most people live and work where they grew up. I know from MA that there’s relative “prestige” between a wide variety of schools but that doesn’t make much difference in real life: BU versus BC and all that is mostly a bunch of water cooler talk.</p>
<p>As for earnings, most earnings are determined by where you live - you make more in NJ so you can go to Rutgers - and what you do. Civil engineers make $x, etc. </p>
<p>In this context, I’m not sure what “prestige” means. There’s Harvard and Yale and Stanford and MIT but if you don’t go to one of those what exactly does it matter in life? Not much. In terms of academic jobs, that’s pretty clear: your grad school’s ranking matters because your job in academia lasts a relatively long time. You can certainly move up (or down) as life progresses but first hires are based more on your grad school’s rank than anything having to do with undergrad. </p>
<p>There has been what I call a “prestige bubble” which went hand-in-hand with justifications for more and more debt. As in, x school is “more prestigious” than y school so I can take on z debt to go there. A bad idea in general unless you’re really comparing apples and bricks, not relatively similar items in the “fruit” category. You don’t earn a ton more money because your undergrad was ranked 32 versus one ranked 42, especially when the ratings are words that can’t be used on CC. For a while there was this idea of a “magic key”. It’s nonsense. Life is all up to you.</p>
<p>Let’s say you want to move to New Mexico - where one of the best posters in CC history lives. Will going to UR hurt? You may have to explain what it is and where it is but odds are that if you’re smart and you’re working in a smart company the people there will be smart enough to figure that out. </p>
<p>In terms of anecdote, my kid got a job in her field a week after graduation - having interviewed earlier in the year with their recruiter. The other UR grad in my life works for a big name tech company. So it doesn’t hurt.</p>
<p>As for helping, I think UR made a huge difference. Why? Because both these kids were not only smart but worked at getting something out of UR. The stories about research opportunities are real. My kid stayed for the summers and that led to one job and then to another and ended up producing real research that has been presented at a major conference. This kind of thing happens more often at UR because it is a small research university, not a big college with a bit of research but a full scale research university with a relatively small undergraduate enrollment. </p>
<p>Rochester has a very good academic reputation among those insiders. Our high school counselors highly recommend it from the positive experiences of those students who attended Rochester. Great research opportunities for undergraduates. However, academics is not the only factor to many students in choosing college. I knew two students who do not like Rochester because of the social atmosphere does not fit them.</p>
<p>I think that academically, some of Rochester’s peers are:</p>
<p>Tufts
BU
Northeastern
Case Western
Brandeis</p>
<p>My alma mater is UW-Madison. I think UW is strong (and stronger) in more programs than Rochester… but Rochester has overall smarter students. So it’s a wash in terms of undergrad quality. UW blows Rochester away in graduate programs, of course. Hehe </p>
<p>Other peers of U.Rochester include:</p>
<p>Tulane University
Johns Hopkins University</p>
<p>The Journal of Higher Education recently did a study of which schools each school in the country rated as its peers. They got the information from filings made with the Deprtment of Education. There were seven schools that U of R rated as a peer where the peer also rated U of R as a peer. The seven schools were: : Brown, Case Western, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, USC, Vanderbilt and Wash U. Therefore you can consuder these schools as peers of Rochester. </p>
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<p>Glennu - Can you please provide the source? I’d like to read more.</p>
<p>It’s in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Article is from 2012</p>
<p><a href=“Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are?”>http://chronicle.com/article/Peers-Interactive-Data/134262/</a></p>
<p>Schools that UR ranks as its peers are: </p>
<p>Brown U
Case Western Reserve U
Columbia U
Cornell U
Duke U
Emory U
Harvard U
Johns Hopkins U
New York U
Northwestern U
Stanford U
Tulane U
U of Chicago
U of Pennsylvania
U of Southern California
Vanderbilt U
Washington U in St. Louis
Yale U</p>
<p>Schools that ranked UR as its peer are:</p>
<p>Bowdoin C
Brandeis U
Brown U
C of New Jersey
Case Western Reserve U
Clarkson U
Dartmouth C
Johns Hopkins U
Lehigh U
Northwestern U
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst
Rochester Inst of Tech
Southern Methodist U
St. John’s U
U of Miami
U of Michigan, Ann Arbor
U of Notre Dame
U of Southern California
U of St. Thomas
U of Virginia
Ursinus C
Vanderbilt U
Washington U in St. Louis
Wellesley C</p>
<p>And these 7 universities all mutually recognized each other as peers:</p>
<p>(Rochester identified them as a peer, and each of them recognized Rochester as a peer)</p>
<p>Brown U
Case Western Reserve U
Johns Hopkins U
Northwestern U
U of Southern California
Vanderbilt U
Washington U in St. Louis</p>
<p>Those surveys had some howlers revealed. It came out that some schools only listed Harvard as a peer though none of them would be listed as a peer by any Ivy. The cross-peer information is of course more useful but all these rankings are silly.</p>
<p>FYI, an interesting article about how much it would cost Rochester to raise its ranking to get into USNWR’s top 20:
<a href=“What would it really take to be in the 'U.S. News' Top 20?”>What would it really take to be in the 'U.S. News' Top 20?;
<p>As a parent of a rising senior, here is my honest opinion on the school:</p>
<ol>
<li>Outside of the northeast and in a few academic circles, the school is an unknown. RIT is much more widely known. </li>
<li>Tuition and Financial Aid: The tuition is utterly ridiculous. 46K per year for tuition. For 10 classes, that works out to be 4.6K per class, and more than $1100 per credit hour. My other child is going to a state school that is ranked within a few spots of Rochester and the tuition for an entire year is the same as 1.5 courses at Rochester! When you consider that many of the undergrad courses are taught by TA’s, it is even more frustrating. The financial aid office is like a used car lot, once they have your kid, then there is no re-negotiation. Make sure you get the right amount of aid up front. Overpriced and not even close to a value in my opinion. We cannot even get the financial aid office to apply a student loan to our account, that is how ridiculous and unhelpful they are.</li>
<li>Job Market: The job market in that part of the country is not good, not that many would stay there. </li>
<li>Academic Advising and Career Center: I would say they are average at best. I believe that some of the majors have demand for their grads, but the non-specialty majors do not in my opinion have any sort of distinct advantage in the marketplace because of the name.</li>
</ol>
<p>Summary: If you can a full ride, or at least enough aid in order to align the out of pocket cost to something close to a state school, then it is probably worth it. I believe the school typifies the issue in higher education, costs that are spiraling out of control and value that is just isn’t there. </p>
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<p>What major is your senior in where classes have been taught by TAs? My guy will be a junior and hasn’t had a TA teach a class yet - other than the recitations for some of the classes (the one hour “extra help” class some offer).</p>
<p>BankofDad—no school, even ivies, are worth going into crazy debt. What you said is exactly what we told our kids–if you can get into a private school for the same $$ as our state flagship, then go for it. Two did (one graduated from UR), while the 3rd is at our state flagship and loving it.</p>