gingeralelover

Could someone please help me compare and contrast these two schools. Besides Greek life they seem very similar.

B77

I'm a Brandeis alum who sought a small university and chose Brandeis over Tufts, Colgate and other relatively small schools. Rochester was not on my radar screen because of its location. I feel passionately about Brandeis and have shared my views with others on CC.

In terms of education and prestige, I believe Brandeis is the easy choice.
Brandeis is truly an amazing school. It's a special combination of small liberal arts college and world-class research university-with the smallest student body I believe (around 800 in a class) of any top tier national research university matched with high-powered professors who actually teach in small classes. So, the research opportunities are tremendous. While not huge, Rochester's undergrad enrollment is at least 50% larger than Brandeis's and overall it's about twice as large.

Brandeis's intellectual environment is comparable in many ways to its University Athletic Association sister school, U Chicago (perhaps no coincidence that the President of U Chicago is a Brandeis alum). Yet its students are down-to-earth, friendly and non-competitive with one another. With respect to success rates in admissions to the best graduate schools, including med school , it would be hard to beat Brandeis. Plus it's located just outside of Boston, the world's greatest college town, but on its own suburban campus.

The kind of person who would feel comfortable at Brandeis is an intellecutal and/or creative sort who is friendly and comfortable with himself or herself and not competitive or pretentious. Intellectual but down-to-earth and friendly I think is an apt description of the student body. Unlike some preppy place or frat-oriented environments where social interraction is based on the "exclusivity" of the frat system, Brandeis has a welcoming, relatively-nonjudgmental environment--yet there are some off-campus frats for those who like what they have to offer. There is no pressure to party, but parties are there if you want them. Often social interaction centers around the numerous clubs and other terrific extracuriculars like theater and music. Rochester is a good school as well, but my impression is that it is more frat oriented. Candidly, I'm not familar with Rochester's culture, but, since it's in Rochester, NY, that in of itself would be a deal breaker for me.

Despite Brandeis' small size and relative youth, its alumni are very distinguished--to name just a few: Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Rod Mackinnon, Fields Medal winning physicist Edward Witten (often called "Einstein's successor"), 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman of the NY Times, The Earth is Flat etc; Mitch Albom of Tuesday's with Morrie (about his Brandeis professor), the Creators/Producers of Friends; actress Debra Messing; Robert FX Sillerman (billionaire businessman--currently owner of American Idol and Graceland) and Christy Hefner, former CEO of Playboy). Friedman returned to teach not long ago and I understand that Hefner may be teaching as well. Also, if you're into social justice (FYI Angela Davis and Abbie Hoffman are alums) or theater/music/art, Brandeis is a very active and exciting place to be.

Finally, the school is very diverse both among undergraduate and graduate students, with a strong international flavor (in fact the majority of The Brandeis International Business School is international students).

Hope this view is helpful.

bookmama22

I am the parent of two, one a graduate of Brandeis and one a senior at the University of Rochester. While these schools are in many ways very similar in that they both enjoy an outstanding reputation, are similar in student profile and size, there are differences, not the least of which is that Brandeis is located right outside Boston which offers so much as opposed to Rochester which is a fine place but does not offer as much as Boston. I have been impressed with certain features of each school and one might offer a bit more than the other but for us, it is specific to department and to individual experiences that are sort of the luck of the draw situation,one living in a forced triple and one not, having a key professor depart for a different university or another on an extended sabbatical. Rochester does have more of a Greek presence for sure but it does not dominate campus. Rochester also has the connection to Eastman, it does have a football team if either or both are important. Neither of mine had work-study, but Brandeis had many more work opportunities for students than Rochester does. Brandeis has more suite-style housing for sophomores/juniors than U or R. Both have good study abroad options. We have had better success with advising and curriculum flexibility at Brandeis, despite Rochester's claim of it's open curriculum. I did feel that there was more succesful mentoring at Brandeis but again that is department specific. I've been more impressed with the career center at Rochester and certainly, I've been very impressed with President Seligman at the U of R, as compared to President Reinharz and the Rose Museum debacle.

gingeralelover

That was incredibly helpful; I might have to reconsider my options now (in a good way)! Thank you so much!

Zobasity

have you tried posting this in the University of Rochester forum. It will be nice to get the story from the other side. Of course there is going to be bias in favor of Brandeis in their forum!