<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I was recently accepted at the university of Rochester and I was just wondering what the kids at Rochester were like overall and how easy it is to find you "niche" there. Personally, I would describe myself as very academic, friendly, and relatively interesting.</p>
<p>UR students are smart, friendly, engaged and not at all cut-throat. Students are willing to work together to help each other. Students tend to work very hard, but are not “all work, no play” types.</p>
<p>Finding your niche takes time. I think it often takes a year or more to find your place at college because you as a person change and mature so much during that first year. D2 found a circle of people to hang with relatively quickly, but as their interests diverged they tended to drift apart. She now has a solid group of friends drawn together by common interests, values and goals–some she has known since the first week of school, some she’s only met recently.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help WayOutWestMom, it is much appreciated as this college decision is such a difficult one.</p>
<p>I think U of R is fantastically friendly. I did time at a different college first, and never really found any close friends there. By contrast, here at U of R, I have a group of some of the best friends I could ever imagine. Part of it is because I live in special interest housing, so I’m guaranteed to be with people who share my interests. Part of it is because everyone’s really thrilled to be here. There was a sense of competition in some majors at my prior school. Here, there isn’t. I’ve been confused about something and had classmates devote an hour to explaining it to me. There was a passionate discussion in one of my English classes where the six of us who didn’t have a subsequent class all got together and went down to a dining hall to eat and continued to debate the issue for another hour or so. There’s a sense of friendliness, helpfulness, and community that I really enjoy here.</p>
<p>Normal. UR is full of relatively normal people who tend to be nice and interested in learning. They dress normal. They work pretty hard but it’s not a wonk / weenie / nerd school. </p>
<p>I live in Boston, surrounded by schools of all kinds. Kids dress up more here.</p>