azisb

Cheaper but Not Always Convenient.

Rensselaer likes to keep its students on-campus. Period. They're rather penny-pinching at times like these, certainly, and as such they want to keep you paying for room and board for as long as possible. If you decide to live off-campus, say goodbye to that housing grant you have- not even Greek life students can have that.

There are plenty of apartments only a few blocks from campus, and the RPI shuttle and CDTA to ferry students to and fro, but the farther from campus you are, the less secure you are in Troy. While it's not all bad, don't expect the police to be much help if something does happen. If you're near enough to campus, Public Safety will usually patrol around there anyway- always a good thing.

Price-wise, it's definitely cheaper off-campus if you don't have a grant. And it's fine if you can deal with Troy and the distance to campus.

Geeky at Its Heart

Despite the downsides of cost and an administration that doesn't listen well to its students and faculty (they disbanded the faculty senate, by the way), RPI has tons of culture.

There's over 160 of clubs around campus, I believe Princeton Review ranks RPI at the top in terms of that, so you'll undoubtedly find something that piques your interest.

RPI is primarily an engineering school, as you should know, so we are mostly geeks and nerds here. Though some of us are more sociable than others, there are certainly a select few misfits, and they find their group of friends, too.

Unlike the stereotype of Ivy Leagues and upper-league schools a lot of us were turned down from, we have a very active social atmosphere with a student union that's always busy, a campus that's always alive, and in a city with a great little downtown, despite its reputation. And of course we all keep our balance between this and our academic life, just as our campus is divided between dorms and academic buildings.

While it sure would've been nice to be at MIT, I don't know if I could imagine myself at any other school now.