Should I sit on this ipad mini or no no you. You look great you can search for it. If you like will be very cozy and I don't think they hear anything until like that, which is why there's no people here, yet, I was going to ask, do we know how many they will come in here questions so these are the questions. I'll be like doing this a lot, so while you're talking.
So they can't see so that way I can like Reframe, the questions or if we have a lot of similar questions. You know what I mean that's why I think you should do right now turn off my email so we don't get that noise.
The whole presentation last Oh could I have 2 Oh no no it is real.
Hello everyone welcome if you can hear us in CS go ahead and put a note in the chat that you can hear and see us.
Brian can't hear us can anybody hear us out there and see us, Let us know.
Awesome we're hearing for Matthew that he can hear us.
Awesome and then if you want you can go ahead and type in where you're watching this from right now. Where are you from so that way we can get a sense of where you all are all around the world S Korea.
Where else is everybody from?
Adham Khalifa Eessa Khalifa
04:01:09 PM
I am from Egypt, but I am in the United States now
Teona Taseska
04:01:11 PM
I am from North Macedonia
Ada He
04:01:12 PM
Shanghai
Melody Anankul
04:01:14 PM
Hello! I can hear you clearly! and I am from Thailand.
Brian Yang
04:01:16 PM
South Korea
Mariam Mohamed
04:01:21 PM
Egypt
Son Le
04:01:22 PM
Viet Nam
Steven Hensley
04:01:23 PM
I'm from Ohio
Wooo there coming in fast now N Macedonia Shanghai, Thailand S, Korea, Connecticut. This is so exciting.
Jona Murataj
04:01:26 PM
I'm watching from Albania
Muhammad Raza Rasool
04:01:29 PM
Pakistan
Pakistan we've got a big contingent in Connecticut.
Victoria Fleming
04:01:37 PM
I'm from Nebraska
Vivian Yang
04:01:41 PM
Hi~ This is Vivian from Taiwan!!
Maya Esuako
04:01:44 PM
I'm watching from Mozambique
Matt Mcgovern
04:01:45 PM
Monroe, Connecticut
A number of different places in China, Beijing, Shanghai Indians with us from Taiwan, Mozambique.
Yueqi Xu
04:01:48 PM
Yeah,I am from China
Baotian Zhang
04:01:49 PM
Beijing, China
Alexandra Sanz Planchart
04:01:50 PM
Venezuela
Muhammad Raza Rasool
04:01:54 PM
Hello! Watching this from Pakistan.
Matt Mcgovern
04:01:56 PM
Connecticut
More Connecticut Wow, Pakistan.
More friends in Connecticut.
Love, it. Oh my gosh. I definitely missed some of you, but we're so glad that you're all with us. We're going to get started by introducing ourselves. My name is Jennifer blast. I'm the executive director of international admissions. I've been with the University for this my 13th year. Now, here in international admissions. I've traveled to 65 different countries. I just hit my 65th in SY Teeny last week, which was very exciting and I look forward to.
Ngoc Phuong Thao Ha
04:02:38 PM
I am from Russia/Vietnam
Ziwen Pang
04:02:41 PM
Seattle
Regal of your applications is fall in helping you through this process. I guess my name is orlovi hangula. I'm a junior year at University of Rochester. I am pursuing a double major one in international relations and the other in business with a concentration in intrapreneurship. Yeah, I've been working with Jen and Tim had in international admissions as a student employee for a year now.
Scarlett Lu
04:03:22 PM
i am from china hah
Awesome. Thank you so our plan today is that we're going to go through a little bit of a kind of formal presentation with some slides and give you hopefully a good overview of the University, but also what we talk about will really depend on all of you. So where you all just shared with us where you're from, and that you could hear us. Please feel free as we're talking to go ahead and put questions in there, so any questions that you have. We will do our very best to answer them throughout the time that we're with you today.
If we're not able to get to all of your questions. I will make sure that at the end, we share our email addresses, so that you can follow up with us or in case you think of questions down the road you know as you're working on your applications in the coming weeks, months or even years, depending on what year you are so that is our plan so we're going to go ahead and get started on this first slide. You can see the University of Rochester. It's beautiful camp. Oh yeah.
And this is the best time.
Gorgeous yeah, all the trees. I'm have changed colors are all sorts of colors on campus. It's really. I think we're at peak beauty on campus right now, some of you might be wondering where we're located so we are in the city of Rochester. Rochester is the 3rd largest city in New York State. Here's a little bit of a zoom in on where we are, and the distance is that we are from some other cities that you might be aware of and you can see that Toronto is kind of our closest major Metropolitan area.
Nassim Ghossaini
04:04:53 PM
I'm from Lebanon
Or you can get to all of three of these places by about a 45 minute flight. How many of those have you been to any list city? I've been to Boston and New York City. I haven't done. Toronto yet 'cause. I don't have the visa to do that when you went to Boston in New York. How did you get there took the plane both types? Yeah, I feel down too.
New York City, a couple of times over my 3 years, yet and to Boston. I want to draw eventually yeah, so that for conference at average affair number of students will take the bus to get to New York. I mean, there's the boss is the train, which is very comfortable. I've heard and also less expensive than taking a flight except it's slightly longer cannot slightly but, yeah, so that's where we are.
Here's a picture of our campus and you can see downtown Rochester in the background. So our campus in the foreground of the picture is a very traditional American College campus. So lots of green space. Red brick buildings with kind of Ivy growing up the sides very picture as you can see that we are about 3 kilometers from downtown. You can see from the skyline of downtown that we are not the size of NYC or London or Shanghai. We are a smaller city.
About 1,000,000 people in the city and the surrounding area in the city itself there. About 1/4 million people. So we are not a major Metropolitan area. But if you want to go out to eat with your friends or if you want to go to the movies or the mall or things like that were also not in the middle of nowhere, so it's really easy for you to get out and access. Those resources is this shuttle on campus. The entire time I have is zip card, so that allows me to drive myself around the city in Rochester.
There's of course available or around the residential.
Buildings here on campus, you can take bicycles that you can rent as well, and cycle down there, especially now that it's so beautiful cocycle downtown and so forth and Uber Lyft and all means of getting around here that there shouldn't be any excuse as to why you can't go out there and explore? How often do you get off campus?
Ousmane Sacko
04:07:30 PM
Good evening. It's Ousmane Sacko from Guinea (West Africa ), but currently in U.S.
I would say about 3 times a month I would I would yeah. I'd go off campus, meaning with friends to go have something done sound. We have, like Sunday brunch or something and then you know the nightlife is always is not too bad at all, so Friday nights we go down with friends as well, and good time. Yeah, awesome time allows so here's a little overview of our students so we have about 56.
100 undergraduate students here so about 1400 in our first year class and we have one of the highest percentages of international students of any school in the United States. We have a good example here. So 29% of our students are international students representing 140 different countries, so while again you're not in this major city. I think it can sometimes feel very Metropolitan very international on campus, which because you are getting a chance to hear all sorts of languages as you're walking around and get to meet students from all over the world.
Juan Gayosso Rodriguez
04:08:17 PM
Hello, I'm from Mexico, but currently in the US (Georgia)
Winston Lamptey
04:08:18 PM
Hello, I am from Ghana(West Africa)
Anything that I know yeah that's true. That's very true. This it's very international here and you could get you feel that says as soon as you get on campus that you know, everybody is very diverse and share different opinions about everything and it's so welcoming I feel. You do not feel out of place in the cause of how you are represented already sort of on campus whether it's with ethnic background religious background, you name it so.
We know from doing these presentations and also for me for doing this work for a long time and allow me from going through this process that a lot of schools have alot of things in common right there are a lot of things that you'll find that each of the schools that you're looking at but what makes Rochester really different is our high international percentage, but also our curriculum. This is the number one reason why students tell us, they choose to come to Rochester, so at most schools in the USA.
You will generally spend about a year to a year and a half taking general education classes. Some schools call them. A core courses liberal arts requirements distribution requirements, where essentially you take a series of classes across the curriculum and it usually looks something like 2 foreign language classes. A Math Class A History class. Did you see this in other schools? When you were looking? Yeah. Wow, you looked at Rochester Rochester.
Edi got in so I didn't look at other universities, but you heard I heard. I'm aware of Gen Ed Yeah, because here at Rochester. We don't have any general education requirements. We have no required subjects at all, so if you are like me and you don't like math. You don't ever have to take a math class when you come here? What were some things you really wanted to avoid math as well except now that I want to major in business there is one sort of required for us, which is the writing class.
Which is just that you know general they'll give you a bunch of options? I did religion and politics that was my writing class freshman fall and you spend the semester talking about in this case, religion and politics and writing papers on these issues and at the end, you submit a paper, which is downgraded and that's about the only required class. We have here and then everything else is really liberal like you know the liberal arts degree education. We offer here in the sense that.
When you choose a major even within that major there a bunch of different tracks that you can go down and mix and match. Your interest so you never really sort of forced to do something. You do not like there are few courses. Maybe 4 or 5 that you might have to complete to declare major but otherwise everything else. You know the remaining 8 cost is also I just upon your discretion annual work hand in hand with a bunch of advisors to help guide you and advise you on what you feel.
We work best in accomplishing your goals here right so it's also really easy for our students, as a result to double major which you've already heard a little bit about so because you're taking this year to year and a half and not spending them on general education courses. You could do more of what you want to so that whole year to year and a half gives you a chance to explore a whole. Mother Field, which is why we have such a high percentage of students with double majors. We actually graduated a few percent of students each year.
Who are triple majors there a little crazy but actually no student mirror from Egypt? She's she has for mages every once in awhile. They pop up so it is where we had a question about how is it different from a liberal education and it is a liberal arts education as you heard we very much believe in the liberal arts here, but we choose to make our curriculum more student centered than we think it used to be at Rochester and that is that many other places so.
Instead of saying, You've got to take one from this list and 2. From this list and one from this list of classes. We really give students the flexibility to find what works for them avoid the things that they're not interested in and really devote the time to the things that they are passionate and interested in learning more about definitely.
Winston Lamptey
04:12:54 PM
How different is the liberal education from Rochester's open-curriculum
Winston Lamptey
04:12:58 PM
Liberal Arts Education, I mean
Aniket Sedhai
04:12:59 PM
Actually from Nepal and studying here in the America but looking to transfer to University of Rochester.
So also a lot of opportunities for students to do more hands-on opportunities so you'll see that about 95% of our students have participated in internships and allow you know you've got a few internships while while you've been here, we had those experiences badly. My some after freshman year. I went back home and I did an internship there in the nonprofit industry. It's actually a nonprofit based in DC called left up Namibia. That does work for Namibia. So it was really nice too.
You doing, an internship for sort of AUS firm on the ground in my home country sort of fulfilling experience I did sort of a countrywide trip going around distributing resources that were donated in the US to the schools and also doing sort of mentorship workshops with a lot of schools who don't have access to sort of role model specific so that was quite fulfilling and then this last summer. I went back home as well, and I did a private equity.
Internship as an analyst so there was more complete opposite. This is small finance and I learned a lot. He was in both internships. I received a grant from a career fair 'cause if there were unpaid so Career Center office up to $2500 to do unpaid internships, so that's an amazing incentive on Top of gaining all the skills. You are gaining you also sort of a supported by by the University to gain these skills, yeah, yeah.
So and they gave you that money so that way you were still paid for this unpaid position pretty much didn't have to turn it down and take some job like in this office. For example, exactly awesome. That's great also students have lots of opportunities to do things like study abroad. I know that's coming up for you. I'm going to study abroad in London next semester. It will also be sort of a intership forward slash study abroad. I will be taking 2 classes at the University of Westminster and then doing an internship in the.
Business sector or business, or finance sector, not quite sure yet. I'm here to hear what my placement would be, but, yeah, I'm looking forward to that should be exciting as well, yeah, and about 1/3 of our students study abroad in a really high percentage of our international students even though we know you're already studying studying abroad. It's yet another experience to go experience. Even another place if you would like to do that.
Matt Mcgovern
04:15:12 PM
Is this curriculum applicable to your engineering program as well? Isn't that more structured?
We had a quick question about the curriculum that I think is a great one is this curriculum available to your engineering program and it absolutely is so all of our majors are going to have some requirements as a part of them right so if you are. For example, in an engineering major you have to take math classes right as you heard a lot of you say now that he's doing business. He's gotta take some math classes, so each major is going to have some required courses. You have to take and then. Some areas of choice right depending on kind of what you want to specialize in with.
In that Department so the engineering curriculum, definitely is more. It's just more there are more courses that you need for the major so you've got less time to take some courses that are just of interest. You and explore. Other areas than students who are studying in the Arts and Sciences. But you absolutely still have those opportunities to do that. So we have something here called the cluster system, which I see someone's asking a question about right now. This is very well timed.
Where we require all students to take at least 3 thematically related courses in the natural Sciences, the social Sciences and the humanities and we call. Those 3 thematically related courses clusters. They're kind of like mini miners or really, really many majors if you're familiar with those and they allow you to kind of focus on an area avoid things you don't want to do and really kind of go a little bit a little bit in depth into something that you are interested in learning more about and so for most of our students, we require that they major.
In the natural Sciences, social Sciences or the humanities and then they have at least a cluster in the other 2. So when you came in what was your first major you are thinking about economics right now. I ended up declaring international relations, so which is a false under social Sciences and then I cause in international relations. You have to do a foreign language. I did Spanish so I took 3 Spanish classes, which then counted towards my humanities cluster and then I'm going to be doing computer science, which will then.
Juan Gayosso Rodriguez
04:17:39 PM
Could you maybe discuss the cluster system at the University of Rochester?
So 3 classes within computer science with them, which count towards my natural science cluster and why computer sites was that just like Oh. I'm interested in you know in this day and age. It's something that I feel is very essential to learn a spell, especially at least that minimum you know coding. I know that with this introduction classes. I'll be doing is I think that I'll be learning and it's just an interesting skill to acquire especially in the competitive job market out there. Yeah, we had a question about how easy is it to switch majors, so you were someone who came in.
Muhammad Raza Rasool
04:17:51 PM
How easy is it to switch majors?
With a major which is different than the major yeah until your end of your sophomore year so until you end of the second year, you learn really have to sort of declare major most people that intended majors and then they take classes where they fill this is what they want to major in but you've got so much time or space rather to try and see 'cause. Nobody not everybody really knows what they want to do or what they want to major in so the University gives you time to sort of figure that out.
And then at the end of your sophomore year. You are not necessarily required too much expected to declare certain major you can always petition for at least a semester more so bye bye then within 2 years. Most people if not everyone pretty much knows what major they want to go with and it's very easy. You just see an advisor and you declare major that alright I'm officially going to be majoring in economics of XY and Z Yeah, awesome.
Said right and so one thing I'll mention on this slide. It tells you that we have a 10 to one student faculty ratio in our average class size is about 22 students here. We are one of the smaller of the research universities, so research is a big focus of what we do here as a school. We are in the 120 universities approximately that are in our one. Carnegie classification school. No one ever knows what that means what it basically means is that kind of the main reason for being as a University.
Is to have research done right to advance the knowledge in the world about the things that we offered here so it is the responsibility of all of our faculty to not only teach but also to be doing research in their fields of study so all of your faculty members. All of your professors will also be doing research so there's a lot of opportunities to really get to interact with people who really are on kind of the forefront of their various fields and because we're one of the smaller of the research universities.
The average research University actually has 26,000 students. We've only got about 11 and so we really need our undergrads to engage in research in order to keep kind of the quantity and the quality of research flowing out of this place. This is one of the other things that makes Rochester different is this really big focus on having students who are working on their bachelors degrees their undergraduate degrees to participate in research. I know you haven't had a chance to do research. Yet while you're here, but have you had some friends, who have had some cool experiences so a friend of mine?
Son Le
04:20:30 PM
If a student want to join a research, is there always available professors & facilities for student to do that immidiately?
Who is that he's doing research at the medical school and he's researching aging so he's trying to figure out a solution for humanity, not to grow old and he's got his card, interesting stuff, I've never thought this, but you know that's the video of the school. If you try and research. All sorts of stuff. So yeah, that's that's one of my good friends doing this research program at the Medical Center and he is having a fun time going around presenting his research as he dwells more into it over the years.
Adham Khalifa Eessa Khalifa
04:20:58 PM
What kind of facilities a student can find his undergrad research?
Awesome and we've had a few questions about like? How do you find these research experiences it happens in a lot of different ways so some students might do really well in a class and their faculty member might ask them the next semester to join their research team. Other students might formally apply for an experience through our online job portal. Other students might go and talk with their faculty members during their office hours, which is a set time that they have for just to chat with students and answer questions, they might.
Winston Lamptey
04:21:53 PM
Can anyone student, regardless of his/her major, participate in research?
And I'm talking with a faculty member expressing inches. Other students will email faculty. Other students will apply for formal programs. In other schools. Another example research phases won't that we host where students can come and talk to different departments and so forth and see what types of research opportunities already exists or how to go about creating those opportunities here and that's another thing about this University is that when something is not is not already there, it does not necessarily mean you can't.
Propose it and have it approved for it to count you know in your advantage right. Yeah, you saw you can see here 77% of our students participate in research. You all can do the math and figure out that nearly 1/4 of our students, like Oh lobby at least so far are not so it's not required. It's not that you have to do research if you're here, you might choose to. Instead, focus on a number of internships right or find. Some other ways that you think are a better use of your time and your interest.
And that's fine. We don't just kind of handout research experiences to everyone because if you are going to spend time on research. We want you to be interested in what that researches about again? What our curriculum is all about and so there are opportunities for you, if you know research is really important to me. I want to do that right away. There are first semester students on this campus that are doing research already and then there are seniors who will graduate in a few months that have never done research. So it's really up to you as to what you want out of your experience.
We talk about research right away at orientation, so students know that it's an option for them, but it's up to you whether or not you want to engage in it.
So let's move on and talk a little bit about some fun stuff, so a little bit about student life. I make you talk about most of this stuff but I'll start by sharing that we are a residential community here students have to live on campus, there first two years after that, if you want to move off campus. You can, but over 90% of our students live on campus. All 4 years. You tell us a little about your experience living in the residence halls. Yes, so I've lived in I lived in holding my freshman year.
Ngoc Phuong Thao Ha
04:24:02 PM
What is the accommodation in your school? Students prefer to live on campus or out?
After which I will move to a Brian they don't know this, but it's alright residential halls. We have here on campus and the last 2 years I've been living in a brand. I've refused to move 'cause. I fell in love with the proximity that residential Hall is to campus and just how comfortable you know the building was for me and you know the conducive environment. You provided for studying and so forth, yeah, so I have not had the opportunity of living off campus, but lots of students who choose to get a house.
No group of Muslim groups of friends go out and get an apartment or something so but only after your first two years as John mentioned so yeah, what was your could you tell them about like? What is your room like like? What was it like your first year and how is that different from where you live or what the options are for where you could live alright so my first so how was I had a lot of space. You know, and I was in a double double with my best friend? who I applied with from high school.
And I'm still living within 3 years later. So so my roommate relationship has always been amazing. I haven't had any issues up until Now 'cause. It's someone I know in love, so and then I moved to O'Brien brand, which is a newer building so it was more. It was nicer you had carpeted floors. You have air conditioning. I now have a bathroom in our double and it's just beautiful building so the newer buildings offer sort of more options air conditioning.
That you wouldn't find in the in the freshman knows. But there's always heating, so like trees and stuff, no that's not going to happen, eating is available in all residential zone campus, but both experiences were nice. I haven't had any good thing as well. I realized with living on campus is that facilities response time is so there are so efficient so if you are. I don't know you had issues with your toilet, not flushing whatsoever.
And you got facilities now when you come back to your room in the evening. It's already fixed. This is not an advantage. I think you would have if you chose to live off campus because then you'd have to figure out yourself kind of lumber or something but he takes 1 Phone calling free of charge. Everything is fixed like instantly, yeah, so do you still share room now or do you just yeah? I still share room with could you have your own room if you want it? Yeah, well so there's a lottery system so living on campus can be competitive. After your sophomore year if you want a single it depends on the time.
Locate it to you when you get on the dev choosing so lucky. You get yeah, so I sort of hard like you can. Yeah, so the single view would wanted in Brooks in Bellevue at like ran out on in the first day so the second day. We stayed we remain in our brand 'cause. We had left their sophomore year. Already said he will stay here, and we just got a bigger room center double so I guess it was the upside. It does kind of get a little bit better every year. Yes, right like kind of seniority help so yeah, right next year. Have you already thought about what you'll do so because I would have?
Better time because I'll be incoming senior I'm definitely aiming for a suite in Brooks, which which overlooks our beautiful Genesee River. It's beautiful apartment complex and I'm aiming for those let's see if it probably would workout so those are nice. 'cause you get your own bedroom bathroom bathroom window. Michelle living spaces kitchen and the living room, so that's that's an apartment and it's fully furnished, he finished air conditioning.
Air conditioning refrigeration hits, the speaker heating. Let's just talk about the weather right now alright alright so.
I'll say as someone who has lived close to here most of my life.
And we have 4 very distinct seasons, very distinct in the summer. It is hot and humid give it to me in Celsius. 'cause I'm really bad at talking being here in the summary. It 'cause I've got all summers, usually around 3636 degrees Celsius is like the hottest yeah, so it gets hot. It's humid you know you want to wear shorts and T Shirts, and go swimming and all those things it is annoying.
We recognize that some of the places you are from this is hot, but it gets way hotter. That's how this against your fall is as we said. This is the peak beauty. It's beautiful. You can see this is what you were wearing when you came outside. Yes, right, yeah, you haven't changed yesterday. Although I think I overdressed a bit today. Actually, I actually wear a coat in but then I went out at lunchtime and I didn't wear a coat walking around so it was beautiful. It's very comfortable with you know just like jeans.
And maybe like a sweatshirt for a long sleeve like something like that. It sounds like 1516 degrees Celsius. In the fold on average. That's about the area and in the morning. You want that coat and then you don't need it by the middle of the day so that's kind of how it works, and then winter welcome around mid November is you never really know. Yeah, you don't know for sure. Yeah, sometimes it's a surprise.
Around mid November to end November. It's really kicks in. That's when you start seeing snowfall. Yeah, it will so yeah, it will snow and also some more. And then it was like all melt and then it's not so we don't pretend that it does not snow in it does not get cold because it absolutely does so we do get a lot of snow here. We get meters in meters in meters over the course of the of the winter and it will be winter until.
Sometime usually in like late March it'll start to get nice and then you get tricked and then it will get nasty again, maybe for like right in April, like real touching go. You could be wearing shorts and then maybe 2 days later. You need a jacket. It really you don't know, but we love spring because we have. We have fought hard for spring. You've never met a people who are more appreciative for Flowers and sunshine.
That is true and so spring tends to be pretty short, but pretty quickly runs right into summer again. I don't know if people are worried about the snow at another thing that I don't think is publicized much unless you come and visit campuses that their tunnel systems on campus. So it's snowing outside the only walking you have to do on the outside is from your residential building to any sort of main campus building like you know the Wilson comments or sort of classrooms and from there on.
You are all you can go from class to class or to the dining halls, all within channels. You do not have to expose yourself to cold temperatures outside until you have to go back to your room right then of the day so yeah. That's another great advantage in some residential buildings also connected with channel systems as well, and you wake up and someone has like shoveled all the snow for you and put down salt so that it melts the ice and you don't fall. So it is much nicer than for people like me, who have to get up and clean my car offen.
Jona Murataj
04:31:29 PM
Do students stay in Rochester during summer?
Muhammad Raza Rasool
04:31:32 PM
How bad is the winter in Rochester/Upstate NY?
Drive here and all that so it's pretty it's pretty nice. I think since you defriend yeah. Yeah, later question about do students stay in Rochester during the summer. You have not know, but your friends that have Oh yeah, yeah. People take up jobs here over the summer. They work with facilities for events classroom management. Some students just take the classes math, 143, I know is a very popular one to do over the summer in some sense do research. I know that the University.
I guess it's in coordination with some Department offer lots of research grants to students so that's also another like financed opportunity to stay on campus and research, something of your interest. I know that it's also very popular within the engineering Department at Xerox Research garage, etc, yeah, so most students will not be here over the summer, but it's not like no ones here, yeah, most will go somewhere else but there's still a good group of students here.
I would say there's lots of students who will maybe spend like 1 summer here out of there 3. Summers weather here is a student someone Spinetti and some will be here. Every summer, but it's definitely not kind of like dead here on campus. But there is a definitely a different enerji during the school year than during the summer and during the summer and during the breaks the campus is still open, there might be more limited like dining like have you stayed over winter break? Yes. Yes, I've stayed half of a winter break before.
Melody Anankul
04:32:54 PM
Is it possible to access all the school facilities during school break/ summer?
Winston Lamptey
04:32:58 PM
Does Rochester provide all year housing?
And so I served in the student government last year and we sort of brought a solution to this problem, so winter breaks in summer breaks now provide sort of things like pantries and more dining options in more dining hours as well. So it's not as bad as it used to be its most of this is not an issue anymore. Students feel like there's enough food on campus when they stay over breaks as well. Yeah.
Limited hours would probably be you know like the shops, perhaps hillside markets that we have on campus. But you know you could also just cycle down to tops or something and get in by something as well. So it's not really like a huge concern. I believe, and the housing never closes so there's always somewhere for you to stay. We have students that are here that because of their visa. They can't leave or they choose not to leave because they have a concern that they won't be able to get back and so we do have students that come here and don't leave until they complete their studies or
Maybe can't afford to go home very often, and so we definitely have students that will be here all summer or that will be here over the winter breaks or other spring break things like that, so that's definitely an option for all of our students a little bit about our student organization. So we have over 300 different student clubs and organizations, everything from cultural groups to student government to the Chess Club, too.
What are some things that you're involved with or have been involved with 'cause I know probably has changed over yeah? Yeah, so I joined the pan African Student Association as soon as I got on campus. You know this was just sort of this welcoming family and there are lots of those similar cultural organizations. We know there's the cultural student Chinese Student Association and all other regions are also well represented on campus. So I served as the first freshman Rep 1st and then vice president. The following year and then the same second my sophomore year I served on.
The executive branch of the student government as the executive director of international student affairs. That was also very insightful experience I worked closely with the then president of the Eastern Oregon Ization and VP as well of student government story and then that's when our student government. President wasn't international physically yes. Yes, yes, there was from Spain. To actually came to the maybe over the summer I don't know.
And I apparently I'm in a fraternity leadership fraternity better. Hirabai so we focus on community service. An improving leadership skills for the Brotherhood so that's also fit so fraternity and sorority life on campus is also quite prominent lots of students do I don't know the numbers but I'm sure it's about 30% of our students involved with Greek life on campus as well, yeah, so that's that's like sort of the only extracurricular.
Adham Khalifa Eessa Khalifa
04:36:16 PM
Are jobs on-campus very competitive?
And then you know, my 2 jobs working here in international admissions as well as working as a student aid for public safety. So it was the overnight shift where I just sort of help maintain peace and security on campus there. We had some questions about like how hard is it for students to find jobs that is so, so for freshman there's a job fair like I think it's around orientation right after orientation. There's an opportunity for you to apply it to as many jobs as.
Possible after which will then interview for them and you probably get a job. Most of the freshmen are likely it becomes difficult. Once you become sort of a sophomore, and junior because more competitive. I guess this is just because most jobs at that point. I felt and everybody else is I guess looking for a job so you actually have to actively reach out to sort of Supervisors send emails write cover letters to get a job but.
In your 4 years, yeah, it's very likely that you have a job. I've had this so I work for events in classroom management for 2 years, which are then left this year to join public safety and then I've had. This job here with international admissions for a year now, so it's not impossible, yeah, if you really want. One you get one. Definitely yeah, international students do work on campus, so there's no extra barrier to that.
We actually will help you with a job actually a really quick job right away when you start working in filling out a survey for us, so that way you can get your Social Security number in the USA, which will help you.
It will make it a little bit easier for you to get additional jobs kind of down the road or internships or owns the process to get like the necessary papers for or in order for you to have a job on campus is very streamlined from orientation on sort of the international team already hands on helping you step by step as to how to get your Social Security numbers or how to get your eye lines, etc. So that's not a thing anybody should worry about.
Brian Yang
04:38:28 PM
Do students take jobs on-campus for extra pocket money, support their tuition, or just for the experience?
And the question is like do you have a job or to others have a job because you need it to pay for your tuition or is it really just like pizza money and how do you think most students are spending that money so it's very arbitrary depends some students have work study contracts. I guess I can call it with the University. This is where they have to like have a job and those students actually get priority for jobs so if you if you are expected to sort of work.
And get paged in some of your money goes towards your tuition would be given priority for most jobs of campus and other students such as myself. I'm fortunate enough to have one of the universities. Premier scholarships, so most of my tuition room and board. Everything is covered so all the money. I make I help my family back home. It so I sent some you know, probably like 3040% of my monthly income back home and other students would save up for spring break.
Trips over for winter break experiences. Some Easter is really it depends it's completely discretionary what you choose to use your manifold right. Yeah, generally you're not going to earn enough from a campus job to help you with your tuition. Usually, it is just going to be enough money to maybe help buy your plane ticket to go home for the summer or to go on that trip or to buy more winter clothes that you might need things like that, but usually you're not going to.
Learn a lot because according to USB zija regulations for an international student if you're on that visa. You can only work, a maximum of 20 hours per week and really that for many students is more than many of them can handle because you're a full time student so for some you know it's enough to maybe work 5 to 10 hours per week. Maybe that does give you a little money to help send back home and also to buy a new pair of boots or things like that, and just have a little cushion.
Minimum wage is I think in the USA here we 11:15 is the minimum wage so that's like her. At least you can get paid per hour, 11:15 and then some jobs go up to an 11:25 and Level 3 jobs go all the way to $1150.00 an hour to $12.00 an hour for like TA positions and research assistant positions so even if you working 15 hours, making 11:25 as quite a lot of money that yeah, it does, that up.
Ada He
04:40:54 PM
Could you talk about the sports teams and athletic facilities in UR? Does UR have the rugby team?
This very question to talk about sports teams an athletics here at the University. So we do have 23 Division Three athletic teams Division Three is very competitive Division One is what you often would see like on TV in the US right, those are often the people that might go on to be professional athletes. You know this is you know where they also can recruit students and provide them with scholarship funding at the Division Three level were not able to provide scholarships.
For students, however, it still very competitive an example. I use with students often is that currently on our campus. We have a student who is a member of the Greek national basketball team. He does not play on our basketball team. He was not recruited to do so. So the teams are still playing at a very high level. But what's nice is that? Maybe. You don't aren't quite at that level or you don't want the commitment associated with that. We've got club level sportswear, you still compete against other schools but.
Aniket Sedhai
04:42:07 PM
And Intramurals in U of R?
It's not as intense in terms of a time commitment but also we have Inter murals so if you want to just play football with your friends a couple of times a week or basketball or all sorts of sports are you and do you do athletics at all? No. I've had two knee surgeries away from us ports or active sports right now but I do go to the gym often just workout generally. I do it, but take in one of the clubs, we have on campus brother of my name.
Virginity steadily Meliora Fitness club so every Mondays, and Fridays for an hour. We do like you know all these body exercises. So it's it's a green cloud. Then it's it's amazing, yeah, there is a lot of research that shows that if you workout with others. You have better result. Oh definitely yeah, so even if you don't want to play like on a team, but you just want to workout or we have an awesome running trail and putting behind because it's behind me that goes along the River so if you like to run or walk or bike like there's tons of places that you can.
Baotian Zhang
04:42:57 PM
Does UR have a bowling team?
You can do that, so when asked if we have a bowling team, I have absolutely no idea idea. There is a bowling alley, though not I can't finish it, but not too far. From here, so if you want to go bowling. Bowling Club radio. Social yeah, yeah. It's an amazing place in Rochester, where you can take with friends and having a great time. Bowling yeah, it's very hip fracture would probably have a club probably we have over 300 years, it almost is like.
Adham Khalifa Eessa Khalifa
04:43:30 PM
When I am allowed to launch a club at University of Rochester?
Adham Khalifa Eessa Khalifa
04:43:46 PM
By a club I mean an extracurricular activity
Yes, is the answer to any question you could ask us and if we don't have it an you want to start it. There's a whole process you can go through to start your own club every year at new clubs get added. So absolutely that is definitely something that you can do I want to talk a little bit about the application process. So we've had a few questions about that? Which makes sense. So a little bit about that process. We are on the common application or the coalition application.
Most of our international students will use the common application, but you should use whichever works best for you doesn't matter for us as a part of those applications. You will complete an essay. We read every single one of those essays, so that's a really valuable part of our process. We also require a list of extracurricular activities that you're involved with an 2 letters of recommendation one from a school counselor and one from a teacher. We recognize that some of you may not have school counselors at your schools and that's OK in that case, it could be from a teacher.
Principle ahead of school whoever you know, kind of fits that role at your institution.
And then of course, we require a high school transcript or mark sheets, letting us know your grades over the four years of high school or your last 4 years of Education. So if for example, you're in China or another system where you know high schools. Only 3 years. We want to see that last year of middle school. In addition to your years of high school. So it's basically for years for most students. That's going to be 3 previous completed years and then one year. That's in progress. If you've already graduated that's fine will take that completed transcripts or I know we have a number of transfer students with us.
If you've completed one year or more of college study. We don't need your high school transcript. But you're more than welcome to send that in of course, then the most important thing that would be looking at was not your high school transcript. It would be her college transcript.
Mariam Mohamed
04:45:39 PM
can you offer us a deeper insight into the test-optional policy regarding international students?
Those are kind of all the required pieces. We also RSAT&ACT optional so we're test optional at the University. This is our first year with that policy so if you've taken the essay tea or the AC T or any other tests. We also accept lots of national exam scores. We will accept IB predictions. A level predictions on and on and you would like to send this those scores. Fantastic we'd love to look at them if you've.
Not taking those tests and you can't send this course that's fine, too. If you have taken that and you don't want to send them. Maybe it didn't go as well as you wanted to maybe you don't think that's the best indicator of your ability to be successful. Here, don't send them. It's entirely up to you if you do choose to send them you can self report them. That's fine. You don't need to send them officially through the College Board unless you decide to come to school here, so eventually for those students we would need official ones.
For the purposes of the application, we don't need them.
So we'll look at all of those things and we hope to have one more thing for as many of you as possible and that's an interview so interviews are available for high school seniors or transfer students that are looking to transfer in the next term. They are approximately 20 minutes. We can do them in person. But for most of you who are all over the world we could all those places that you are. You could just do it virtually so you can go on our website right now under the interviewing portion and sign up for one of those virtual interviews.
Muhammad Raza Rasool
04:47:45 PM
Do we need to report the SAT scores through College Board?
We do have a really high volume of requests right now, so it's taking us a few weeks to get them done. But we will get it done in time for your application are interviews are meant to be very casual and conversational just a chance to get to know you a little bit better, so you don't need to prepare anything for them. How was your I know you interviewed? How is your interviewing experience Oh well, I sort of had 284 so for the application process. I had we had a consular come from California, Cal Kimberly crack.
Remember correctly alright yeah, she came to sort of interview was at the Naval College. It was just like a one to one conversation about my experience at the United World College and why I would be interested in going to the University of Rochester after which I went. I got accepted I was invited to come onto campus for another interview for this scholarship, which is like a three day event, where we
Jona Murataj
04:48:26 PM
Is the interview optional or necessary for the application?
Did the bunch of different group work and presentations for the scholarship finalists program so All in all it? Was it was nothing nerve wracking or anything, it was just expressing myself and finding out more information about the school and so forth. That's right so interviews are not required. But they're highly recommended. We do see higher admission and scholarship rates for students who?
Winston Lamptey
04:48:40 PM
Could I sign up for an interview after an ED deadline?
And those who do not I would encourage you to ask for an interview sooner rather than later. If you are applying. Edu definitely want to do that immediately do not wait until after the deadline because will start reading those applications. If we see that you've already requested an interview and you are applying easy and it hasn't happened yet. We will wait to read your file until after we get that interview completed but if we if you haven't requested. One then we're not going to wait because we think that you've chosen not to do 1.
And that's OK, they're not required, but they are really helpful as we seek to better understand students and their experiences and what their interest in the University are since I started talking about the SA TS. We have lit up with questions. So I'm going to answer a few and I guess the first thing I would say is to try and do it's really easy for me to say, and hard to do to try to not stress, too much as it relates to Rochester in the SA TS. There's a reason why we're test optional. We know all of the challenges associated with them. We know that some of you may have just taken the test a few weeks ago.
And had your scores cancelled for something completely outside of your control. This is Unfortunately happens. A lot internationally. There also are very few testing gates. It can be very expensive to take an very hard to get to a testing center and so that's why we don't require them so.
Son Le
04:50:06 PM
How heavily does UR weight the SAT if a student decide to submit the SAt?
It's OK, you don't need to submit them if you do choose to submit them. They will be one piece of the puzzle question was asked about how much do they kind of cow? What's the wait. There's no magic answer. We don't have a waiting for anything in our process. So it's not like I can tell you transcripts are 30% and testing is 20% and extracurricular activities is 10%. It doesn't work like that at all. If we could computerize this process. I wouldn't have a job anymore. So instead we chose to make it very grey.
Nebulous and confusing so that I stay employed so there is no it's just kind of putting all of these things together. That's how we make our decisions, so there's no magical weight. The most important thing. For every student is going to be their academic work. Whether that's at a college or University for a transfer student or at a high school for a student applying for first year admission after that, the second most important thing really changes student by student for one student. It might be really great testing for another it might be an amazing essay.
Son Le
04:51:16 PM
What makes a perfect applicant for UR?
For a third it might be really fantastic extracurricular involvement. So it really is different for each student. There is no kind of magic perfect applicant. The perfect applicant is you being you and putting together the best application. You can because we don't want a whole lot of whole campus of a lobbies or Jenn. We want all different people because research shows that we learn best when we're learning from people different from us. If we all kind of think the same and act the same and it had the same background and experiences.
We don't actually learn very much so we really want to really diverse student body where we can learn from a lot of different people we've had a few questions about you know what are our average GPA average test scores you can find this on our website so if you go to our website the admissions page. Go all the way to the bottom. There's something called the fact sheet that way. You don't have to memorize this information, I can tell you, though, so go look at that fact sheet. Later, if you want to reference this, but our average GPA last year was about a 3.8.
Our average SAT score out of 1600 was roughly about a 1382 a 1480 and on the AC T. It was about a 32 or 33, so again. You don't need to submit those testing if you don't. If you don't want to that is entirely up to you. You also can choose to not submit essay TRACT and submit things like your Ivy predictions or a a level predictions or things like that. As I said, before we also are really interested in the quality of course work that you've taken.
So while our average GPA is a 3.8 out of a 4.0 which is mostly A's were really interested in the quality of coursework, so for example, a lobby here participate in the IB diploma program, which we know is a really rigorous high school program that as students to not just take academic coursework, but also to engage in service hours to work on a research project through their extended essay to engage in a lot of philosophical deep thinking through the TI OK right. So we know actually we have a lot of research that shows us that if you are successful in the IB diploma program.
You are likely to be successful in our curriculum here right. We have similar things that tell us about a level work and all sorts of systems around the world. So the number one indicator of success in a college environment is success in a college preparatory environment, so taking those challenging course works pushing yourself harder, taking those more difficult classes is definitely going to be viewed favorably in the application process.
We are just about out of time, we are is there anything that you think they should know you were here just a few years ago. Yeah, I know we still have some more questions and we can kind of run through them, but I want to see if you have other things that you think are really important for everyone to know. Yeah, don't like you've mentioned this as well. And it's something I was stressing about his own and applying it to the University AC T scores have notice that most applicants.
Jennifer Blask
04:54:27 PM
If you have additional questions, you can email us at international@ur.rochester.edu
All the emails received lately in the inbox RACTS 80 really like do not stress. A lot of our assets is Jen said she hasn't mentioned that there's a reason why we're just optional. We don't put much weight on them. Whether you decide to send them or not you know, rather focus on showing who you are in your application. So, your your essay in the interview resume the stuff. You've been involved in you know that's what we're looking for character.
More than you know how good you are taking a test be cause. That's what you know really SCT is about so if you can really just showcase who you truly are in your application and focus on bringing that image of Cross. That's what truly matters to us and that's what would put you at an advantage here right so I know we don't have enough questions to get enough time, I'm sorry to get through all the questions. I did just in the chat feature include our email address.
So if we didn't get to your question I'm very sorry or if you think of things in the coming days. Weeks months please. Feel free to email us. We have a whole team of awesome. Students who are ready to answer your questions and also to add some things on to us if there's questions, they can answer, though they can answer most of them and if you have other questions, please. Feel free to send them our way we thank you. All so much for joining us today.
And we look forward to reading your applications in the coming weeks, thanks everybody have a great day.