UW Madison or Rochester

shennie
Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:15:03 +0000

I, too, am familiar with both schools. I think your son needs to decide if he is going to like the huge school party sports Big 10 university atmosphere or the smaller more focused university atmosphere. Both have their plusses and minuses. Madison is a nicer city than Rochester and if he is into college sports, UW sports are wonderful. Classes at UW tend to be very large at the into levels. Students have to be diligent to access professors as much of the discussion and labs is handled by graduate teaching assistants. Most students are living off campus by junior year.

UR doesn’t have a Div. I sports scene and the frat scene is smaller. Classes tend to be smaller and professors are more accessible. While UR has grad programs, most of the grad students are in the medical, business, or education programs which do not involve undergrads. So there are some TAs at the undergrad level, but not a lot.