University of Rochester

The University of Rochester is a private research university in Rochester, New York, founded in 1850. It grew from a Baptist college into a research university whose River Campus opened in 1930 beside the Genesee River, with the Eastman School of Music in downtown Rochester and the medical center to the south. The Institute of Optics, founded in 1929, and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics are structural facts of its scientific identity.

Schools include Arts, Sciences and Engineering, including the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Eastman School of Music, the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the Simon Business School, the Warner School of Education, and the School of Nursing. Optics, physics, music, economics, and biomedical science are the graduate fields most associated with the university. Strong Memorial Hospital and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics are working sites for many doctoral students.

Enrollment is about 12,000, with undergraduates and graduate students in roughly similar numbers once Eastman and the medical school are included. International students form a large share of graduate enrollment and come from more than 90 countries. Faculty number more than 1,000. Alumni include Nobel physicist Steven Chu, Nobel physician Arthur Kornberg, and poet Galway Kinnell.

Graduate degrees include the PhD, DMA and MM at Eastman, the MD, MBA, and master's in engineering and science. Doctoral work is supervision- and laboratory-based; Eastman uses conservatory studio teaching. The calendar is two semesters. PhD students are typically funded by assistantships and research grants; Eastman and medical students follow conservatory and medical-school patterns. Rochester is a mid-size industrial city in which the River Campus, Eastman, and the medical center sit a short bus ride apart.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, University of Rochester lists 190 graduate programs across 36 subjects: 113 master's programs and 76 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in education, music and biology. University of Rochester holds rank 61 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.