Brandeis vs Rochester: VERY tough choice

Chedva
Sun, 13 Apr 2008 14:58:25 +0000

We looked at Brandeis while my d was looking for schools. She didn’t want to apply to Brandeis in the end. She didn’t like the campus as much (and the caveat may have also been that we live too close!). Rochester’s campus is beautiful. As far as the student body is concerned, she feels that Rochester is much more “laid back” than Brandeis. Kids work just as hard, but there’s less competition.

Having gone to school in Boston myself, I will say that there is often an air of “inferiority” among schools that are not Harvard or MIT. (I went to BU, and we referred to H simply as “the school across the river.”) That may lead to a more intense experience.

Rochester, though, as you say, cannot compare to Boston. D complains about the lack of top-flight art museums in Rochester, while her friends at Northeastern and BU spend their art history classes at the MFA or the Gardner Museum.

Jewish life - Rochester has a significant Jewish population, a very active Hillel and an active Chabad. There’s no lack of “slightly geeky intellectuals”, although the school as a whole may be less politically active. That could also be because it’s bigger than Brandeis (4200 undergrads at UR, 3200 at Brandeis).