Nivolumab in Treating Patients With Localized Kidney Cancer Undergoing Nephrectomy

Inclusion Criteria: * ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR RANDOMIZATION: * Patients must have a renal mass consistent with a clinical stage \>= T2Nx renal cell carcinoma (RCC) or TanyN+ RCC for which radical or partial nephrectomy is planned * Patients must have no clinical or radiological evidence of distant metastases (M0) unless the presumed M1 disease is planned to be resected/definitively treated (e.g., thermal ablation, stereotactic radiation) at the same time or up to 12 weeks after the date of the initial procedure such that the patient is considered "no evidence of disease" (M1 NED) * Liver, bone, or brain metastases are not permitted * No more than 3 metastases are permitted, and all must be able to be removed or definitively treated within 12 weeks of the primary tumor resection * If histological confirmation of RCC has not been done within 12 months prior to randomization, patient must be willing to undergo a core biopsy for this purpose if randomized to Arm A * NOTE: This histologic confirmation can be a (1) standard of care diagnostic biopsy or (2) a research biopsy or a planned metastasectomy. Tissue must be obtained with results available prior to the neoadjuvant dose * Patients randomized to Arm A: core tumor biopsy must have demonstrated RCC of any histology, including sarcomatoid, unclassified, or "unknown histology" (if preoperative biopsy was uninformative) with exception below for non-diagnostic biopsies * If the biopsy performed following randomi…