<p>So I am thinking of applying to the University of Rochester's graduate program. I know they are a very high research oriented school, with most Professors being leaders in their field. However, whenever I speak to any advisors - they say they haven't heard anything about their program. The two programs at U of R I was considering were the Biology PhD program and the PhD in gentics, genomics and development.</p>
<p>Any idea as to how good/bad this school is? I know very little about it besides its research capacity. But how does it rank up against UC Berkeley or Caltech for example?</p>
<p>U of R is ranked 28th worldwide on the RPI scale (I think it stands for research productivity index) which is primarily based on the number of citations/paper and therefore is an assessment of quality and impact of the research being done there. Caltech is ranked 37th and UC Berkeley is ranked 5th.</p>
<p>I’ve heard good things about Rochester… I think what throws a lot of people off is the location. Not many people I know want to live in upstate New York. If you can look past that, I think it’s a great school to consider.</p>
<p>Can’t tell you exactly how they compare with the other top programs in Biology but from the interviews I went on (at the top programs), I didn’t see much (if any) overlap with Rochester. Maybe someone else might have had a different experience though.</p>