This discussion was created from comments split from: University of Rochester.
Sorry to bump this thread 3 years later, but I’ve been accepted to U of R- while it was one of my top choices at first (after JHU), I’ve recently begun to have some doubts about it- acceptance rate is high compared to other good schools supposedly at the same level, and most comments on studentreview.com seem to be negative! Also, it doesn’t seem to be very well-known- I never actually heard about it until it kept showing up on my college searches- I guess I’m just looking to reassure myself- but how is it regarded? How does it compare to other institutions like JHU/Brown/Berkeley/UCLA (other schools I considered)- is the student body at par with top schools? (I know academics are) Are the students more studious, or work-hard-play-hard types? It just seems so odd, because I know somebody who turned down UCLA for U of R, but it doesn’t seem like one of the “cool” schools.
I was one of those who replied three years ago when my guy was just finishing his freshman year. He still loves the school. He also spent last summer at Stanford on a paid internship where 240 applied and 13 were accepted. Many of his peers have been accepted to grad schools and med schools. I’d say the school is academically known. (He’s not graduating this year due to having been accepted into their Take 5 program - free tuition for a 5th year if one studies something completely outside their major(s).)
He’s still not the partying type, but parties are there if you want them. He fills his extra time with clubs (Dance, Juggling, ASL, Christian, and ran out of time to continue with Chess), lab work, medical shadowing (easy to do with the hospital right there), and enjoying time with his friends.
I’ve no idea if it appeals to you or not, but last I knew the school had a 96% freshmen retention rate. This beats the vast majority of schools. Those who go there appear to like it - snow and all. You just have to figure out if it appeals to you.
@MindCastle15: Not sure what you mean by “cool” schools. The others will have more man-on-the-street name recognition, but that has zip to do with the quality of the education or the experience you’ll have.
In my opinion it gets over looked because there are few places with winters like Rochester winters
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/annual-snowfall-by-city.php
Right or wrong, this fear reduces the candidate pool. On the other hand, for those in the know, it makes for a great education in the face of all of the admissions hype.
Next time, start a new thread.
That being said, the quality of Rochester’s reputation is fairly well known among people who know about rigorous and elite colleges. If you’re looking for a “cool” school, then it’s clear that your first priority is not the rigor of a chosen school’s academic program. Is Harvard “cool?”
Acceptance rates can and do change. In my garage-sale college guide (1999), Vanderbilt’s, for example, is listed at 58%. At some point, some opinion-making students decided to test the waters there. Are those that succeeded them, and who have driven the school’s acceptance rate down to its recent 13%, all cool? Perhaps it should be considered that some of them are merely followers. At UR (acceptance rate ~36%), you still have the chance to be at least somewhat of an opinion maker.
^^this.
“Selectivity” = the # of students who apply / the # of places on offer. So all you have to do to increase how “selectivity” is hold the # of places constant and increase the # of students who apply. Which is all about marketing and creating the impression that a school is cool or selective.
Vanderbilt did a 1-2 punch of heavy marketing (they had a clear regional strategy) and giving very big merit aid for top SATs. As their average SAT score went up and students were love-bombed (by post and at regional fairs) people who had never paid attention to Vandy started noticing it. Good marketing led to more students applying and hey presto! in 15 years the school has gone from a nearly 60% admission rate to 13%. It may be a better school now than it was 15 years ago- certainly the stats of the student body have improved- but it’s certainly not 4.5x better than it was.
Ditto UChicago, which has been carpet-bombing students for the last few years to drive up ited my D’s with ‘you are who we want!!’ marketing from sophomore year of HS on. URochester (a top 20 university for physics, btw) doesn’t do any of that. It just sits up in cccccold upstate NY and does what it does, and does it well.
URoc doesn’t spend a lot on marketing and is not in a part of the world that is inherently attractive to most teenagers, so the numbers of people applying just aren’t as high.
UR’s weather, as well, should be kept in perspective:
Average January Low
Rochester: 17.6°
Burlington, Vermont: 8.8°
Minneapolis: 6.3°
(Sperling’s.)
The caliber of students at UR is topnotch. (One of D’s best friends turned down UChicago for UR’s REMS program, for instance.) They tend to be more “work hard” than “play hard” from what I can see, but there are plenty of opportunities for both. One of the things I’ve liked about my D’s experience at UR is how inclusive it is and how easy it is to become involved in ECs. She loves it. But she was not looking for a party school or one with a lot of “school spirit” associated with sports teams. And she sort of likes the idea that her school is not “trendy” or “cool”…unless you’re in the know.
I think the comment about admissions rates is right on point. UR’s admissions rate is relatively high because it’s not on the radar of students in many parts of the country, NOT because it’s not respected. Look at the enrolled student profile rather than the admissions rate, and you’ll find that the stats for students enrolled in the freshman class at UR are roughly equivalent to schools with admissions rates that half or less of Rochester’s.
Is UR as well-known outside of New York as some other colleges you’ve mentioned? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not respected. The “Chronicle of Higher Education” university peer rankings make sense to me as a way to judge relative “respectability” of a school. There were seven schools that UR chose as a “peer institution” that, in turn, also chose UR as a “peer institution” of their own: Brown, Case Western, JHU, Northwestern, USC, Vanderbilt, and WUSTL. That seemed about right to me.
And it’s not THAT cold. At least, not when you live in Chicago like we do. 
Thanks for your answers everybody! To clarify, by “cool” schools, I meant a school known by most. And on another thread I started (which was different but eventually boiled down to the subjects of this thread)- someone mentioned UR, academically, would be somewhere b/w UCB and UCLA- which are far, far better known than UR- hence why I was talking about “cool” schools 
UMich and Cornell have similar weather, and JHU and MIT are all small schools with no major sports scene, yet they all seem to be a lot more well-known than UR. Yet I did see the “peer ranking” survey where UR came out looking very good. I feel confident that I will get a good education there now, just its lack of recognition bothers me, and it may be attractive for top grad schools- which is my plan, but in case I change my mind, how do major companies in biotech/pharma look at UR?
@Creekland : If its possible, is there any list of the med schools/grad schools that UR students go to? And about your son, could it have been because of a high gpa/research that your son contributed to, or really because of UR’s reputation?
My guy is taking the MCAT today, so I’m not disturbing him right now… you might get a more comprehensive list by asking a Pre-med or grad school adviser anyway. I know one of his best friends is at Pitt’s med school, but I haven’t asked in general. I know the med schools my guy plans to apply to are high rated types, but of course, that will depend upon today’s MCAT score. Time will tell on both where he applies to and where he gets accepted at.
I’m unsure what you are asking in your second question. Could what have been due to his high GPA/research? His Stanford summer acceptance? Probably, but that GPA and research were all completed at UR. He was a homeschooler coming in with no previous research under his belt. The research he is working on is generally a joint effort with many universities world-wide. He’s spending the summer there this year to try to finish a specific aspect of it.
It’s common for students to be involved in research at UR. UR has provided my guy with oodles of terrific opportunities. It’s definitely a great school worthy of considering for top students.
@Creekland I want to take the CPA route and study accounting. However, I also want to broaden my knowledge. So, Rochester’s cluster method and ‘build your own curriculum’ caught my eye. However, I have heard very little about Rochester’s accounting. Can you please help me by giving your opinion whether rochester will be perfect for me? Thank you! 
Of course, Creekland’s son got into the Stanford program because of his own accomplishments at UR not because of UR’s reputation! No one gets into med school or grad school or competitive internships because of the reputation of their undergrad university. Med school admissions, in particular, tend to focus largely on GPA, MCAT scores, and clinical experience/relevant EC involvement. Those factors are MUCH more important to med school admission than name recognition among the general public.
At the same time, UR is a top-tier research university that is recognized as such by grad-school and med school admissions offices. Students from UR go on to postgrad programs at exceptional universities. (For example, a friend of mine has two sons who went to UR and are now pursuing postgrad degrees—one is at CalTech and the other is going to UChicago.)
Instead of focusing on name recognition, I would recommend thinking more about things like premed advising, opportunities for clinical and research experience, grade inflation, MCAT prep, etc.
@msdfan I wish I could, but that is one area of the school I know little about being the parent of a student rather than a student there myself.
If you’re an accepted student, can you get on their FB Class page and ask there? I know other knowledgeable students like my son also hang out on that page and are able to answer more questions from a BTDT perspective.
@EllieMom I totally agree with you. My guy has worked to get to where he is. UR provided the terrific opportunity. It has the name recognition enough that no one in high positions has to go “where?” but the name, by itself, is not enough to get a slacker somewhere. No school is. Students need to take advantage of their opportunities.
Other schools also represented in my guy’s summer research group include Yale, Brown, U Michigan, U Wisconsin, and Claremont McKenna. I’ll admit I don’t remember them all, but all were easily recognizable IMO. That, to me, is a peer group this study pulled from. I’m sure other years there could have been different, but similar, names.
@Creekland : Thank you so much! And all the very best to your son- I hope he rocks the MCAT To clarify, what I meant was whether your son had an edge among the other applicants, because of being from UR- which I now see that he did. I didn’t mean to offend you or your son in any way-I’m certain that he’s a top-notch student who took advantage of all the opportunities that UR offered- if however, he had managed to have done the same at, say, a CSU- would he still be accepted? That was my question.
@Mindcastle15 Good question (and much more easily understood worded that way - thank you!).
I’m honestly not certain he’d have been accepted from just “any” college with a Brain Studies program. Some just have far more in depth going on at them and his is right in the thick of things with others in this international endeavor. The students he worked with over the summer had pretty much all read the same papers and studied the same things at their own schools. They could use that foundation as a launch for what they did at Stanford. UR is NOT the only school out there at that level, but it’s right there among those at that level if you catch my meaning.
Being from the east and with the CSUs costing a bit, I’m unfamiliar with students who actually go to these schools to know what their depth is like comparatively. I learn a bit about many schools when we have graduates return and talk about their experiences there. My guy’s academic peer chose a much lower rated free ride (for him) school rather than a higher level school and regrets his decision having seen the differences at this point.
To be clear, both boys are planning on heading to med school and his peer will easily be admitted to one from his school. He may have his admittance already. I haven’t caught up with him yet. But the opportunities along the path have differed tremendously. His peer will have no debt at graduation compared to my guy’s fed loans (and we paid our EFC), but both feel (at this point) that the fed loans are worth it. We’re glad we were able to pay our EFC and have no regrets.
If it works out well, my guy might get MSTP and not have med school loans. His peer said no one at his school even thinks about that option. In the end, the one with the lower amounts in loans just might be my guy. Who knows? Regardless, to us, money is not everything. The journey counts for a lot (as long as one isn’t collecting massive loans for undergrad).
I do NOT always recommend higher level schools for all students. But for students who love the journey academics provide, they are usually “best fit” choices in what they can offer for opportunities.
@Creekland : thank you so much for your help on this thread! If you don’t mind, could I PM/talk to your son regarding some other stuff at UR I’d like to ask about? (when he’s free, of course)
@Mindcastle15 He no longer is on CC regularly - only when at home (or with us) and I let him use my login. I stay on CC since I work in a high school and often talk with kids about colleges. I like to keep up on what’s out there from various sources.
I can probably pm you his school e-mail or you could locate the Facebook page for accepted students as I know he is on there regularly answering questions.
He might not get back to you until after Wed though. He has two papers due and two tests between now and then. Due to the MCAT, he put off doing much with any of those - until this weekend. In a little less than 2 weeks he’s also performing in club dance and juggling performances.
All that to say, be a little forgiving if you don’t get immediate answers from his e-mail. It could possibly be quicker and you’d get a wider variety of responses from their FB page.