<p>I think my son should at least visit RH, but his comment is, "Why wouldn't I just go to Worcester or RPI?" </p>
<p>Just wondered what everybody else thought about that.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Here's a thread about RHIT v WPI v RPI. </p>
<p>Drusba's post is good:</p>
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<p>That's a good quote.</p>
<p>My answer to your son's question would be to bring up a similar point and to mention the awesome community that's created here. Rose is incredibly challenging, but we also have a very tight knit community here on campus that makes it very hard to fail, both socially and academically. You really have to try to not get help in any of your classes. The professors here are also top-notch and always willing to go out of their way to help students.</p>
<p>I would encourage him to visit all 3, if possible. It's a big decision and shouldn't be rushed into blindly.</p>
<p>I think that the big reason difference between Rose and RPI or WPI is that Rose is a undergraduate focused school and RPI and WPI are graduate focused schools.</p>
<p>You are going to find that RHIT's facility is all about teaching. They aren't there because of research but to facilitate students getting undergraduate degrees. I might be wrong but I don't think that RHIT has TA's, I know that RPI is known for it's graduate programs (I don't know that much about WPI).</p>
<p>I really felt that RHIT was a very nuturing school, that if a student was falling between the cracks, someone would know and talk to the kid. For instance your S decides to spend all of his time playing WOW, it would soon be apparent and the RA would talk to him and might even alert you.</p>
<p>How's the FA coming out for RHIT? Is it on the radar, moneywise?</p>
<p>deb: We have too many schools all the same price! So RH is more or less still on the list. But now my son caught wind that the student body there is very politically conservative and Greek. That might put him over the edge. (He isn't anxious to make the trip - it's an 11-hour drive.) I still think it's worth a look-see. (Truth be told, I'm looking for him to step on a campus and shout THIS IS IT! I'm totally dreaming on that one.)</p>
<p>I did think that the campus was Greek. But it's not Greek in the traditional sense AT ALL. Abandon all preconceptions that you have ever had about the Greek system and that seemed to be what it was like at RHIT. I really felt that it was a campus that included everyone. I did not get a feeling about the political tenor, if it's like most tech schools that I've visited, yes it is probably conservative. But most engineers don't seem to really care one way or another about politics. I'd love to see a campus that was a tech school and liberal, but I just don't think that they care enough.</p>
<p>Keep dreaming about that "This is it". Didn't happen for my S. I told him he had to make a decision and he did, on April 26!</p>
<p>Based on the other schools that he's liked, I think that he would really like RH. It's a very nice school, I loved it. One thing I esp. liked was the personal interaction and the fact that interships seemed easy to get and plentiful. It is a terrible drive though, hours and hours of cornfields!</p>
<p>What deb said is true. In general students are conservative, but it's not that overwhelming of a trend. There are a few zealots who join the College Democrats and Republicans, but most of the rest of us are too focused on school and enjoying our free time to concern ourselves with politics. I can't remember ever having a political conversation or confrontation with anyone on campus. Sure, you're not going to find many hippies holding war protests outside the administration offices, but that's because those hippies have calculus at 8 o'clock, physics at 10, and a chem lab all afternoon.</p>
<p>It goes along with the whole treating everyone else like adults thing that we do here at Rose. You can have your beliefs, but you won't win many fans handing out fliers in the dorms or something advocating some political issue. I don't recall there being any real tension here on campus around the midterm elections. The College Democrats and Republicans had a debate, so the opportunity for advocacy is there, but it's not really prevalent.</p>
<p>When you say Greek, I assume you're talking about fraternities? In that case, what deb said is also true. Roughly half our population is in a fraternity of some sort (many of them are professional fraternities, such as AXE, a fraternity for chemists and ChemE's and anyone interested in chemistry), but they are nothing like your typical fraternities. Most students come here with preconceived notions about fraternities and are negatively biased against joining them, but once they get a feel for what it's like, they consider joining.</p>
<p>I know that's how I was and many of friends also. They figured they weren't big enough party animals for fraternities, but once they looked into it, they saw that it's not like that so much. Sure fraternities party and have fun, but they're still engineers and scientists, they still do homework, and all that good stuff. A fact that might surprise people is that the average GPA for males in social fraternities is actually higher than that of males not in fraternities (don't know about females) I think that stems from the fact that people who are enjoying themselves and have that support network will tend to succeed more often than those who hole up in their room all the time and whose only pursuit is the day-to-day drudgery of school. When the fraternities rushed us, they really emphasized that so that people would realize that they're serious about academics and grades. I didn't end up joining a fraternity, but I was very, very close after coming to college very negatively prejudiced against the idea of joining a fraternity.</p>
<p>I didn't realize that RPI and WPI have graduate schools also (not my area of the country), but that is definitely a huge advantage that Rose-Hulman has over them. I have lots of friends at bigger schools who have graduate programs and their college experience has been completely different, in a negative way. They don't have personal relationships with their professors. I mean, it's only 3rd week and I know already that all of my professors know me by name. It's just totally different. If the opportunity arises over a break or something, I would definitely encourage your son to come on out.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and the "This is it" definitely happened for me while I was at Catapult. It made my senior year a lot easier.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for your thoughts nic. My son has read some of the posts on here -- which is more than I can say for the other schools' forums. lol</p>
<p>Weenie--
I dragged my son kicking and screaming to see Rose last year, and he surprised himself and really liked it. I was actually surprised at how much I liked it. We must have visited 12 schools--and I've been a student at least 7 others--and I would put Rose (and Olin) at the top of my list. </p>
<p>I think Rose is a hidden gem. If it were on the east coast, it would be impossible to get in.</p>
<p>Having attended university in Ontario just north of upstate New York, I would caution that you think carefully about location unless your son really loves winter. I grew up in the midwest and didn't think that weather would make a big difference, but I found the winters in that area to be harsh and depressing. </p>
<p>If there is any way that you can visit, I strongly encourage you to do so.</p>
<p>Update:</p>
<p>My son and husband are back from their RH trip. It went well. I guess my son liked Rose quite a bit. They even caught the performance of their musical and thought it was great. Tap dancing engineering students!!! LOL</p>
<p>I hope they enjoyed their trip. I was out of town this weekend, otherwise I would've liked to show them around (I give campus tours at the open houses normally)</p>
<p>Yeah, the musical was really good and that's something that I really like about Rose. If you want to do something like newspaper or drama you're not going to be competing with journalism majors or fine arts majors to participate. It's very open to participation.</p>
<p>I hope they enjoyed themselves and good luck in the next month.</p>