More than 1,400 first-year and transfer students joined the University community to start the 2024–25 academic year.
They’re here—and we couldn’t be more thrilled. The newest members of the University of Rochester student body—including more than 1,400 undergraduate students and nearly 1,600 graduate students—kicked off their academic journeys. In the week or so before classes officially begin, our campuses saw renewed activity as the incoming students moved in, got oriented, and experienced several Rochester traditions.
Welcome home, Yellowjackets!
We like to move in, move in…
Over the course of two days—and with the help of family members, friends, current students, administrators, staff, and faculty—members of the incoming class set up their new homes away from home in the campus residence halls.
Harrison Candelario, a jazz vocal performance major from Floral Park, New York, was one of the more than 140 new first-year undergraduates who moved into the Student Living Center at the Eastman School of Music.
Room with a stadium view
Genesee Hall on the River Campus boasts some of the best seats in the house for views of Fauver Stadium, where several of the Division III varsity teams practice and compete. Many of the returning student-athletes moved back to campus earlier in the month.
All hands on deck
The giant boulder in front of Susan B. Anthony Halls is painted anew each year to greet our rock star students when they arrive on the River Campus at Rochester.
A presidential welcome
The Convocation ceremony marks the start of the academic year for our incoming and transfer students. “I am confident you will find many moments of joy in your time at the University of Rochester,” President Sarah Mangelsdorf told the audience of new students who were joined by family, friends, and supporters.
On a (class) roll
After Convocation, more than 1,200 undergraduate students from the College signed the class roll, a Rochester tradition since 1996. The document is preserved in Rush Rhees Library and displayed at Commencement and class reunions.
A fitting start
The first-year students at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry marked their entry into the medical profession with the symbolic act of donning a new white coat during the 19th annual Robert L. & Lillian H. Brent White Coat Ceremony.
- Read more about the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Class of 2028.
It’s (candle)lit
The annual Candlelight Ceremony convenes the incoming class on the Eastman Quadrangle in the evening to learn about the University of Rochester’s history and traditions.
Eastman Quad City DJs
That is indeed Vice President for Student Life John Blackshear—joined by Courtney Thomas ’18—on the turntables during the Candlelight Ceremony afterparty. “I love DJing parties and events on campus,” Blackshear told us earlier this year in a Q&A for the alumni magazine.
Community connections
For more than 30 years, the annual Wilson Day of Engagement has provided our newest students with the chance to get to know the Rochester community through service. Incoming students joined local artist Shawn Dunwoody of Hinge Neighbors in preparing sites for artists to add murals to Bohrer Alley, and worked at the urban farm along St. Paul Boulevard with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County.
Framing frenzy
As part of MBA orientation, the Simon Business School’s Class of 2026 grabbed hammers and nails and then teamed up with Habitat for Humanity volunteers to construct the frames for homes that will be built in the Rochester community.
All the world’s on stage
First-year students from the College and the Eastman School of Music came together in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre to celebrate the University of Rochester’s global community in an evening of music, dance, and poetry. Among the student groups that took the stage was Rangoli, a Bollywood fusion performance group.
R is for Rochester ready
The Class of 2028 and incoming transfer students for the School of Arts & Sciences and the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences posed for a photo on the Wilson Quadrangle—another time-honored tradition marking the start of the new academic year.
