At a Glance
Rochester admits 41.9% 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
51.1%
receive need-based grant aid
$30,785
average debt at graduation
Rochester graduates carry an average of $30,785 in debt.
Merit Aid
1,304
students received merit aid
$16,569
average merit award
Getting In
Rochester admits 41.9% of applicants.
University of Rochester's Early Decision applicants are admitted at 1x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 41.8% vs 41.9%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 16% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 6% of the class submitted
84.6% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
University of Rochester considers your essay Important — a strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Demonstrated interest is Important — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
69.7% of Rochester 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 Rochester, 69.7% 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)
10:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
44.4%
Live on campus
71%
Men in fraternities
8%
Women in sororities
11.2%
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."
Rochester's student body is 38.2% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Rochester graduates 71.1% 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.
Rochester graduates 71.1% 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.
Rochester
71.1%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $85,962
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.
83.4%
Overall 6-yr rate
77.3%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 6.1 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
90.7%
90.7% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
4-year graduation rate from College Scorecard (2024) — not reported in Rochester's 2025–26 Common Data Set.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Rochester.
Rochester's River Campus sits on a bend of the Genesee River about two miles south of downtown, in a mid-size Rust Belt city of roughly 210,000 that made its name on imaging and optics — Kodak, Xerox and Bausch + Lomb all grew up here, and the university's own Institute of Optics is a direct descendant of that industry. The city is affordable and workable rather than flashy, with real winters (Lake Ontario's lake-effect snow is a fact of life from November into March) and a downtown that's smaller than the university's own enrollment. What it lacks in size it makes up in density of institutions: the Eastman School of Music, the Memorial Art Gallery and the university's own medical center are all within a few miles of the undergraduate campus.
Notable Alumni
Steven Chu
Shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and served as U.S. Secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2013, after earning a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in physics here.
Class of 1970
Donna Strickland
Won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for chirped pulse amplification, developed as a Ph.D. student at the university's Institute of Optics.
Class of 1989
Josh Shapiro
Governor of Pennsylvania since 2023, the first University of Rochester graduate to lead a state, after a political science degree here.
Class of 1995
Renée Fleming
Opera soprano and National Medal of Arts recipient who earned her Master of Music at the Eastman School of Music.
Class of 1983
Chuck Mangione
Grammy-winning jazz flugelhorn player known for ‘Feels So Good,’ who trained at the Eastman School of Music.
Class of 1963
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
Dandelion Day
Known as D-Day, a late-spring carnival and concert held as a study-break tradition, named for the dandelion — the university's official flower, chosen by the Alumni Association in 1893 for its abundance on the original campus grounds.
Meliora Weekend
An early-October weekend that folds homecoming, family weekend and class reunions into one, built around the university's motto — Meliora, Latin for ‘ever better’ — which also tops the crest on the university seal.
The Rochester Curriculum
No core requirements and no fixed distribution list: past one required writing course, students complete faculty-designed three-course ‘clusters’ outside their major's own academic division, and choose which clusters from hundreds on offer.
Yellowjackets and Rocky
Athletic teams have competed as the Yellowjackets since the 1930s; the mascot Rocky has represented the university at games since 2008.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Rochester
Niagara Falls
1.5 hoursThe falls and the Canadian border crossing, both to the west.
Toronto, ON
3 hours, including the border crossingThe nearest major international city — a passport turns it into a routine weekend trip.
Finger Lakes wine country
45 minutesCanandaigua and Seneca Lake's wineries and lake towns, the closest genuine getaway from campus.
Letchworth State Park
50 minutesCalled the ‘Grand Canyon of the East’ for its gorge and waterfalls on the Genesee River, the same river that runs through campus.
New York City
5.5 hoursA full day's drive rather than a quick trip — most students save it for a long weekend or a break.
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 own metro carries the legacy of Kodak, Xerox and Bausch + Lomb — an imaging and optics cluster that still employs heavily and lines up directly with the university's Institute of Optics. The university's own medical center, Strong Memorial Hospital, is one of the largest employers in upstate New York and sits inside the same institution as the College, which makes clinical shadowing and research placements unusually accessible for undergraduates. Wegmans, the regional grocery chain regularly ranked among the best companies to work for, is headquartered a few miles from campus, and Paychex, the payroll and HR company, is headquartered in the same metro.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- University of Rochester Medical Center / Strong Memorial Hospital
- Wegmans Food Markets
- Paychex
- L3Harris Technologies
- Xerox
Downtown Rochester — about 10 minutes from River Campus
Who Thrives Here
Rochester's defining fact is academic, not architectural: past a single required writing course, there is no core and no distribution requirement, and students build the rest of their program around faculty-designed ‘clusters’ — three-course sequences outside their major's own division. The same institution runs the Eastman School of Music, one of the country's most selective conservatories, which puts a working conservatory inside a research university most schools this size don't have room for. Housing is genuinely residential for a research-heavy school — 71.0% live in university housing — and Greek life stays modest at 8.0% of men and 11.2% of women, so Dandelion Day (a spring carnival named for the university's official flower) and Meliora Weekend, built around the school's ‘ever better’ motto, carry more of the social calendar than a house system would. Classes run small for 6,096 undergraduates — a 10:1 ratio and 69.7% of sections under 20 students — and international students make up 20.6% of the class, an unusually global mix at this size. The aid is real: 97.0% of demonstrated need met and an average package of $70,593 against a $73,372 sticker. The trade-off is who that aid reaches evenly — Pell recipients graduate within six years at 77.3% against 83.4% for the class overall — and the standard timeline already runs long, with only 71.1% finishing in four years despite 83.4% finishing within six.