At a Glance
RIT admits 71.1% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
66.6%
receive need-based grant aid
$44,969
average debt at graduation
RIT graduates carry an average of $44,969 in debt.
Merit Aid
3,620
students received merit aid
$20,030
average merit award
Getting In
RIT admits 71.1% of applicants.
Rochester Institute of Technology's Early Decision applicants are admitted at 1x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 73.2% vs 71%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 41% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 8% of the class submitted
40% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Rochester Institute of Technology considers your essay Important — a strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
48.8% of RIT classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At RIT, 48.8% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
13:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
56.5%
Live on campus
50.5%
Men in fraternities
3.8%
Women in sororities
2.2%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
RIT's student body is 52.8% white.
Popular Majors
Majors data isn't reported yet for this school.
Will They Graduate?
RIT graduates 28.8% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
RIT graduates 28.8% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
RIT
28.8%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $74,626
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
72%
Overall 6-yr rate
68.1%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 3.9 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
88.5%
88.5% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Rochester.
RIT's 1,300-acre campus sits in suburban Henrietta, about 15 minutes south of downtown Rochester — a mid-size city (metro population around 1 million) built on Kodak, Xerox and Bausch + Lomb's optics and imaging industries, which left behind a photonics and imaging cluster that still ranks among the country's largest. Cost of living is low for a city this size, winters are long and genuinely snowy off Lake Ontario, and the compact metro means downtown, the Eastman Museum and the Finger Lakes are all a short drive rather than a day trip.
Notable Alumni
Koo Kwang-mo
Chairman and CEO of LG Corporation, one of South Korea's largest conglomerates, after earning a bachelor's degree in computer science here.
Austin McChord
Founded the data-backup company Datto in his RIT dorm room, took it public in 2020, and later gave the university a $50 million gift after a bachelor's in bioinformatics.
Class of 2009
John Resig
Created jQuery, the JavaScript library that once ran on a majority of the world's websites, after studying computer science here.
Class of 2009
N. Katherine Hayles
Literary and critical theorist known for her work on digital media and posthumanism, and a longtime professor at Duke and UCLA.
Class of 1966
Robert Duffy
Served as Lieutenant Governor of New York (2011-2014) and Mayor of Rochester (2006-2011), after a degree in business management, criminal justice and communication here.
Class of 1993
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Mid-size city
Rochester, NY
Best For
Traditions
Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend
A mid-October weekend of alumni, family and student events, running since the first Brick City Festival in 1998. The name comes from the brick buildings of RIT's current campus, built when the university moved from downtown Rochester to Henrietta in 1968.
Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival
A campus-wide, public showcase of student and faculty projects spanning engineering, computing, art and design — hundreds of exhibits in one day, open to the surrounding Rochester community.
Hockey at the Gene Polisseni Center
RIT competes in NCAA Division III for most sports but plays Division I men's and women's hockey, and games at the 4,300-seat Gene Polisseni Center — nicknamed for its student section, the Corner Crew — regularly sell out, a rare thing for a school this size.
NTID and a mainstreamed deaf community
The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, one of RIT's colleges, makes RIT the largest mainstreamed deaf and hard-of-hearing program in the world. ASL interpreting is a routine part of ordinary classrooms, and many hearing students pick up some ASL simply from sharing campus life with deaf classmates.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Rochester
Letchworth State Park
1 hourCalled the "Grand Canyon of the East" — a 17-mile gorge on the Genesee River with three major waterfalls, popular for hiking and fall foliage.
Finger Lakes wine country
45 minutesCanandaigua Lake is the nearest of the eleven Finger Lakes, with vineyards, hiking and lake towns spreading south from Rochester's suburbs.
Niagara Falls
1.5 hoursOne of the most-visited natural landmarks in North America, straddling the US-Canada border.
Toronto, ON
3 hoursThe nearest international city by road, far enough to be a long-weekend trip; a passport is required to cross the border.
New York City
5.5 hoursReachable by car or by Amtrak from downtown Rochester, for a longer weekend away.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Toronto Pearson International (YYZ) — about 3 hours by road, including the border crossing.
Pro sports nearby
- Rochester Red Wings MiLB
- Rochester Americans AHL
- Rochester Knighthawks NLL
Career Proximity
Rochester's economy still carries the imprint of Kodak, Xerox and Bausch + Lomb's optics heritage, and that legacy grew into a photonics and imaging cluster that RIT's own programs feed directly. RIT's co-op program, dating to 1912, is one of the oldest and largest in the country, and the university places students with employers across the region and beyond as a normal part of the degree rather than an optional add-on. Beyond optics, the region's other major employers span grocery, payroll technology and consumer goods.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Wegmans
- Paychex
- Constellation Brands
- Xerox
- Eastman Kodak
Downtown Rochester — about 15 minutes by car; the region's optics and imaging employers are spread across the suburbs, including Henrietta itself
Who Thrives Here
RIT's 1,300-acre campus sits in suburban Henrietta, a short drive from a Rochester built on Kodak, Xerox and Bausch + Lomb's optics industry — RIT's own strength in imaging science and engineering grew up alongside it. The single fact that defines the place is NTID, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf: RIT is home to the largest mainstreamed deaf and hard-of-hearing program in the world, with ASL and interpreting built into ordinary classrooms rather than offered as a standalone accommodation. Co-op is the other structural fact worth naming: RIT's program dates to 1912, one of the oldest of its kind, and it is why only 28.8% of students graduate in four years against 72.0% in six. That gap is not a sign of struggling — a fifth year here usually means a semester or two spent on paid, major-related work, not falling behind. Greek life is a minor part of campus (3.8% of men, 2.2% of women), and about half of undergraduates (50.5%) live on campus. The aid picture holds up too: 92% of demonstrated need met and merit awards averaging $20,030 to 3,620 students, against $44,969 in average debt for those who borrow. Admission itself is broad rather than selective — a 71.1% overall admit rate — so the case for RIT rests on its community and its career model, not on how hard it is to get in.