I can’t believe our visit was two weeks ago, but finally here are my thoughts from our Rochester trip during which we visited Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Rochester.
One great thing: Both schools are very close to the airport. What a relief after all the driving on our spring break trip. We visited downtown on our second day and really enjoyed walking along the river and eating at Tony D’s Pizza. Buses/shuttles are available to go downtown from both schools and it seemed like a nice city to explore.
Oh wait! One more thing that was intersting on the flight home: I don’t usually talk to people on airplanes, but toward the end of our first leg the man next to me asked if we lived in Rochester or were visiting and when I told him what we’d been doing, turns out he graduated from RIT and his son from UofR. He thought both schools were excellent and knows faculty members from both. He asked about D’s major and when she said engineering, he said (with no hesitation) “RIT! For engineering go to RIT and you will not regret it.”
What D is looking for:
Electrical engineering program with a concentration on renewable energy
Pro-“green” and sustainable atmosphere overall
Co-op program preferable or strong internship program
Small school with small class size
Collaborative rather than competitive atmosphere
Experiential/hands-on work emphasized
Casual, relaxed campus atmosphere
Liberal atmosphere
Nerdy atmosphere
Not dominated by sports or Greek life
RIT
Co-op education is highly emphasized and required for several majors, including engineering. Studies in major are emphasized with gen ed given wide choices. Double majors are common. Unlike many schools, PE is required but there are tons of options including horseback riding and Jedi training. (Nerd school? Check.) At the info session, the adcom specifically described the atmosphere as collaborative and relaxed, not cut-throat like some tech schools. Labs are taught by professors with grad TA’s to assist. Recitation sections are run by TA’s, but no new material is taught and they are usually not required.
They mentioned that they will be converting the new SAT, but they didn’t specifically say if they were using the CB concordance. If there isn’t further info on their website by application time, I’ll contact them to see what the actual process is.
Most of the academic buildings are connected by tunnels and all the dorms are connected by tunnels, but unfortunately the two systems don’t connect together. (Something about swampland…) Being summer, it was pretty quiet, but there were students around and it didn’t feel dead like the one school we visited on spring break. We toured the dorm tunnels and it’s pretty cool. You can even buy food there! The tunnel walls are filled with mural panels, most of which were sufficiently nerdy for D. The dorm rooms were small (well, I guess average since most of them have seemed small!). But they were nice. We didn’t eat on campus.
Irrelevant, but this was so strange – Near the end of the dorm tour, D and I were in the back with just two boys behind us. The tour guide mentioned something about their Quidditch team and one of the kids behind us said to his friend (brother?) “A quidditch team, man that really pisses me off!” and the other boy responded “Yeah, that’s so PC it makes me really mad.” Or words to that effect with some more grumbling. I can understand a kid having a “whatever, that’s just dumb” response to quidditch, but these guys were actually pissed. :-??
As D and I were walking back to the car D said, “It’s not exactly the prettiest campus…”
Me thinking: Oh no, I really like this school!
D – “but I don’t care about that. It’s the nerdiest school we’ve looked at yet. Definitely #2 on the list.” YAY!
Looks-wise, I would say it’s on the utilitarian side, but not ugly. It certainly had that college campus feel to me. We drove around the campus the next day and boy is it bigger than it seems from the tour. There is a lot of housing for upperclassmen on the further reaches (suites and apartments) that look really nice and they have frequent shuttles. At least from what we saw, there’s not much of anything right off campus, just one little shopping center area. Luckily there seems to be a lot to do on campus and of course downtown is just a shuttle away.
There is a spectrum support program for ASD kids and that is like some delicious icing on the cake.
What can I say, I love this school! It might even be first choice on my version of the list.
UofR
Most classes are taught by research professors. Personally I think that is not necessarily always positive. One thing my D loves here is the open curriculum. My understanding is that outside the major requirements, students pick two topics of three classes each. I did get a little confused on this, but it seems that they have specific clusters (like sustainability for example) that are usually inter-disciplinary. I think the student can also make up their own clusters. At any rate it’s very open! “Accidental” second majors are common and most students at least have a minor or two. 8/10 students do undergrad research, which sounds pretty impressive to me.
D loved the sound of the “Take 5” program. Any student who finishes their major in 4 years can apply for this program and can take a 5th year at UofR WITH NO TUITION and study anything that is different from their major. The way it was described, it is not competitive, but they can be a bit strict on what is considered “different” enough from the major. I guess because the whole point is to encourage students to branch out in a big way.
The interview is very important and personally I would consider it “required.” 80% of admitted students interviewed (and I’m betting those who didn’t had some pretty impressive apps). D interviewed and felt like this was her weakest interview of the three she’s done, but not bad. Good practice anyway, since her top school requires an interview and she hasn’t done one there yet.
The campus is prettier than RIT, but not what I would call beautiful. More of a traditional “college-look” than RIT. We didn’t drive around the campus, but the huge thing on one end is the associated medical center. And it does seem like there is more “stuff” right off-campus, but nothing too interesting that we noticed.
D also liked UofR and it is now #4 on the list. This is a reach school though (certainly in terms of merit), so it seems unlikely where she would end up. But it seemed like a great school and I would suggest that those interested take a look.
More irrelevant stuff – I just can’t help myself: many moons ago I took a web design class that emphasized how important it was to break up your content because people don’t like to scroll down the page for a long time. They had a little chart showing what kind of reader would scroll down for how long. There were some boring labels like “mildly interested” for just how far a reader might be wiling to scroll. The final label after scrolling about a mile was “Mad dogs and Englishmen.” So I would like to say to anyone left, “Cheerio! And please don’t forget your rabies shot.” :o3