RPI "S" or "D" at RPI.. please respond

Parents Corner
1

<p>Hi- Taking my “DD” on a tour to RPI soon. I was wondering if you RPI Moms and Dads might answer or relay the answers to me from your “sources” a few questions. </p>

<li><p>This seems like an INTENSE academic enviorment. How many hours per night does your “S” or “D” study? Do they find it MUCH, MUCH, harder than HS?</p></li>
<li><p>“DD” is an athlete. Did you get the impression, or do you know, if varsity athletes opt for less demanding majors? Again, biophysics and a varsity sports… hmmm …do they mix?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>3.“DD” has very good stats and EC’s but our EFC is high… too high. Did (RPI Admissions) work with you in the form of merit/grants?</p>

<p>I have in my minds eye a picture of kids with slide rules and calculators stuffing sandwhiches in thier mouths as they scurry to one of thier many incredibly difficult classes. Please tell me I’m wrong. I’d love to send “DD” there. she is a hard worker but, I worry about her being overwhelmed.</p>

2

<p>My d was accepted there. Offered very good aid and a laptop. (you are required to buy it but we did meet other kids who also got the offer of a "free" one.)
Campus was beautiful, great facilities. They are D3 so I do not think the athletics would be too much with the studies.
My d decided against RPI (found them a bit too techy).</p>

3

<p>What will the major be? My D doesn't go to RPI but she's a Comp Sci major at UCSD and it certainly is rigorous. It requires quite a bit of work - especially compared to a lot of other majors. She likes to be busy though.</p>

4

<p>A friend's daughter is there. She's enjoying it and doing well. Majoring in environmental science has a job this summer with one of her professors doing research out west somewhere.</p>

5

<p>A very good friends' son just graduated from RPI, though actually left a year ago for Albany Med since he was in their 7 year med program. He really had a great experience and did fabulously academically (he's a superior math/science student). He joined a frat, which his friends and family would definitely not have predicted. The one thing his mom told me when they visited is that there seemed to be a very high level of student satisfaction there, despite that the area (according to her) is not that desireable.</p>

6

<p>Hopefully originaloog will see this or you could PM him. He has a son there, who is very happy and doing well.</p>

<p>RPI is my son's first choice at the moment (although he's only looked at 2 schools so far). When we visited the kids seemed to be fairly ordinary. We were in the student union, and, yes, lots of them had their noses glued into a laptop, but when we looked at what they were actually doing on the laptops it was a mix of school work, shopping, music downloading, facebook...the usual.</p>

<p>Personally the frat presence bothered me. It seems excessive - maybe because without many girls the frats serve as an even more important social thing. But I'm pretty anti-frat, and this son is even more anti-frat than me!</p>

<p>Hockey seemed to be the only big sport on campus.</p>

<p>I think RPI is pretty good with merit aid - but if your daughter could snag the RPI Medal from her high school that would be the best plan. That's $15,000 a year (which still makes RPI pretty pricey...)</p>

7

<p>I'm sorry if I'm hijacking the thread but, I'm concerned about the frat scene at RPI. Is it a huge part of social life there? I was put under the impression that if you are not a member of a frat/sorority you have no social life. I also heard drinking is very common? I know there is drinking on just about every college campus, but are there things for people who are "dry" to do?</p>

8

<p>For our family, even with the RPI medal, they looked to our family for twice what other schools asked. We thought it was my son's safety school and while he did get in, it was not a financial safety in fact it would have been a financial reach.</p>

9

<p>Nightingale, you may want to look through the threads under "Colleges", then look through those under "Rensselaer". There are several previous threads there dealing with both financial aid and stress. My son was a medal winner, and did not receive additional aid. He has a female friend who received similar merit aid (not a medal recipient) with much lower stats than his, so they seem to be more generous with females. We live in New England, so we did not find them to be out-of-range of other New England schools. Cost-wise, of the five schools that he was accepted to, RPI came in right in the middle. The only lower cost schools were a huge state university, but there is no way he would survive there, and a real safety school, which would not have been a good academic fit. I have heard from several parents that adjusting to college will depend on how well the high school prepared the students for the workload, the amount of reading, writing papers, etc. Do you know any students who graduated from your daughter's school who attend RPI? We found talking with some of the students who are currently in college very helpful to learn whether our high school prepared them for the rigors of the college.</p>

10

<p>I might just add that if you want to see ALL the posts under RPI in the alphabetical listing, you need to go to "My Control Panel"," click on "Edit Options," then scroll down to "default Thread Age Cut Off" and Choose "Show all threads." Then click "Save Changes" at the bottom.</p>

<p>Otherwise you only see posts that are less than 30 days old - which might be fine for schools that have hundreds of posts, but for most of the schools you don't see enough.</p>

11

<p>I guess there is a move on the part of campus officials to do away with the frats. Yes, I've taken a look at the thread specific to RPI. Thanks for the additional tip weenie.</p>

12

<p>The gist of what I'm hearing is that the "Medal" is substantial at 15k per year. But, higher EFC kids, it seems, get only the medal. Not to sound ungrateful but the remaing 28K which probably works out to 32K in a COA scenario is a tough nut to crack.. even with the medal in your pocket.</p>

13

<p>Our son will be a junior at Rensselaer next year and my wife is an alum so we have a lot of first hand knowledge of the "Tute".</p>

<p>Yes, the academic environment is significantly more intense than hs and many other colleges. One reason is because most students are engineering and science majors. The average gpa is 3.04 so there seems to be little grade inflation, thus adding to the reality of the "Tute Screw". In addition RPI offers a number of academic programs which are unique and can be found at very few other colleges, Product Dev & Innovation, Minds and Machines(AI), power engineering, experimental media to name a few. Our son has found the faculty to be quite engaging and most seem to prefer to be on a first name basis with their students. While he was a very good hs student, he has really blossomed academically during his 2 years at RPI and we couldnt be happier.</p>

<p>Participation in varsity athletics presents a challenge to most college students because of the time committment required. However this should not be a reason for a student to change his/her academic aspirations. It almost always boils down to a matter of time management. And travel is rarely an issue because most colleges it competes against are within an easy driving distance from Troy with the exception of its Div 1 hockey team.</p>

<p>Regarding finaid, each student experience will be an individual one. Our son received a great package of merit aid totalling $25,000/year consisting of the Rensselaer Medal, leadership scholarship and legacy scholarship and all are guaranteed regardless of gpa. However RPI is an expensive college and most student will not be offerred the finaid package our son was fortunate to get. </p>

<p>Regarding cost, about 50% of student choose to live off campus after frosh year and there is lots of private student housing within eas walking distance of the campus. Our son saved over $4500 last year by moving off campus, paying $400/mo for room, board, utilities, cable tv and internet hookup. It was a great experience for him and he was actually closer to the academic quads that most upper class houlsing.</p>

<p>About 25% of female student and about 35% of male students participate in Greek life so it does not dominate the social scene as at some other colleges. In addition only a few fraternity houses are on or near the campus, further reducing their profile.Our son pledged frosh year but decided not to join. He has had a good time socially nevertheless, taking occasional "road trips" to Boston, Providence, Montreal, NYC, Philadelphia, etc. There seems to be good interaction between RPI and other area colleges like Sage, UAlbany, Sienna, etc. Like most colleges today, RPI offers many clubs, performance groups etc for its students. These things allow students to have a full social life outside of the Greek system.</p>

<p>With freshman retention at 92%, if your daughter is accepted I would not worry about her ability to handle the academic work. She will almost certainly figure out how to succeed even if she chooses to paricipate in a varsity sport. However it is somewhat unique place not suited for many college students.</p>

14

<p>People do not use slide rules anymore.</p>