<p>There’s a parent on CC who’s had a child at Rochester and at Brandeis. Those two schools are compared a lot - do a search using Rochester and Brandeis as keywords and you’ll get several threads to read through.</p>
<p>I have two sons at UR and they both love it. Neither is stressed, although one became much happier sophomore year once he had his own room in a suite instead of a shared double - loved his roommate, but is a guy who needs privacy. </p>
<p>It may depend on what triggers stress for your D. As others have mentioned, courses can be very difficult, but the vibe among students is collaborative and the vibe with faculty is supportive. There’s lots of help with academic stress - approachable faculty, TA’s, study groups, etc.</p>
<p>If she gets stressed about comparing herself to other smart students, at least there isn’t overt competition, and to be honest, there really do seem to be enough opportunities for any student who wants to get into some research, so the fact that there’s enough to go around eases the stress.</p>
<p>Administratively, I can’t imagine a school doing a better job at not being stressful. Science and math classes don’t fill up, pre-requisites are easy to get, and if a student feels prepared, skipping a pre-req or co-registering in the same semester is easy. They have a very late drop/add deadline (4 weeks into classes, compared to most schools being a week or 10 days), and a very late deadline to switch a class to pass/fail, so there’s a feeling of limiting the risk in trying a hard class or overloading. The philosophy of the school seems to be to allow students to take on as much as they can or want to, and make it possible to extricate themselves if they get in a little too deep. </p>
<p>I can say, my kids and I would all feel stress if registration was a panicked mess trying to get into classes they need and getting on waitlists, etc. I’d also feel a lot of stress if it were difficult to find on campus housing (or off campus, if that’s what they wanted), or if there were frustrating bureaucratic red tape at every turn. The courses themselves being difficult is not a source of stress for my sons.</p>