What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$9,678 to $46,801 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $85,962 a year. Average need-based aid package: $63,352.Aid and debt
51.1%
receive need-based grants
$30,785
average debt at graduation
1,304
students got merit aid
about 21% of undergraduates
$16,569
average merit award
Getting In
Admit rates
41.9%
admitted overall
41.8%
admitted Early Decision
41.9%
admitted Regular Decision
Early Decision
Early Decision applicants were admitted at 1x the Regular Decision rate, and Early Decision is binding: you commit to attend if admitted.
MoreLess
Some of that gap reflects who applies early (recruited athletes, legacy applicants and highly committed students concentrate in that pool), so it isn't proof that applying early would raise any one student's own odds.
Key dates
Transfer Deadlines
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1400–1510 · 16% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 31–34 · 6% of the class submitted
84.6% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Extracurriculars
- Character
- Important
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Special talent
- Demonstrated interest
- Considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- In-state residency
What this means for you
Rochester rates course rigor and your activities as Very Important, and your essay and your recommendations as Important.
MoreLess
Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. Depth in a few activities beats a long list. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. And recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps.
Rochester rates demonstrated interest 'Important' — real weight in the decision.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Rochester just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Rochester essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
69.7% of Rochester classes have fewer than 20 students.
69.7%
under 20 students
19.7%
20 to 49
10.6%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Rochester CDS 2025–26, I-3.
10:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
44.4%
first-years from out of state
71%
live on campus
8%
of men in fraternities
11.2%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White38.2%
- Asian18.1%
- Hispanic9.4%
- Black6.4%
- Multiracial4.7%
- Unknown / other3.1%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Rochester CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
71.1% of Rochester students graduate in 4 years.
71.1%
finish in 4 years
83.4%
finish in 6 years
90.7%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
77.3% finish in 6 years, against 83.4% of all students.
A 6.1-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
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.
MoreLess
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.
The City
Mid-size city
Rochester, NY
Best For
Notable alumni
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.
Traditions
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 from Rochester
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 and game days
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
Internships and jobs nearby
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
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: 96.0% of demonstrated need met and an average package of $63,352 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.