Our college short list--anyone familiar with these?

[Musicmom]

We’re planning a trip in June to visit colleges, and we think we’ve narrowed them down to the following:

Carnegie Mellon

Cornell

MIT (for fun; it’s dh’s alma mater, but the chance of admission is sooooo small :()

University of Rochester

Lehigh

Washington University in St. Louis

Since we’re in MN, this is going to be one HUGE trip! :tongue_smilie: Trying to fit it into 2 weeks is proving difficult, what with the driving involved and weekends getting in our way!

Ds is interested in engineering/computer science (hoping to get into robotics) so we’re looking for schools that are excellent in these fields. And, he’s a violinist, so access to a good music program/orchestra (as a non-major or a minor) is going to be very important also. All these schools seem to have this combination.

Anyone have experience with any of these colleges? In particular, is anyone familiar with University of Rochester or Lehigh? We heard about UR because of all the email they sent after the PSAT, and we heard about Lehigh from a friend of ours who went there (years ago.) But, here in the Midwest, these schools don’t have the name recognition that Carnegie, Cornell, MIT and WashU have. Are UR and Lehigh more well-known out east?

I’d welcome any input you have. Most of what we know at this point is from the college websites. Thanks in advance!

[Brenda in MA]

I sent you a PM.

 

Brenda

[Ria]

I"m familiar with Lehigh; dh's brother and sil went there, and our ds was admitted. I didn't like it as much as some schools, probably because I favor a liberal arts education for my children. Lehigh is great, no doubt, but it really depends on what your child wants; it's a research university.

 

Ds decided on Lehigh's rival, a liberal arts school nationally known for engineering.

 

Cornell...my dad's cousin was chairman of the board of trustees. He and all his kids went there. It's a great school, but too far away for us to really consider it. Funny, though...one of the buildings is names for my dad's cousin (I have the same last name). Competition is very tough.

 

Ria

[Musicmom]

Thanks Brenda and Ria!

 

Brenda, I replied to your PM. Hope you received it--I'm newer to PM's than to posting!

 

Ria, thanks for the info about Lehigh and Cornell. Out of curiosity, which school do you mean by "Lehigh's rival"? I'm not too familiar with schools in PA. That's interesting about Cornell too. When you say the competition is tough, do you mean it's difficult to get into (which is what I'm expecting anyway--sigh), or do you mean there's a lot of competition within the school (if that makes any sense!) Feel free to PM me if you prefer.

 

Anyone else have more insights to share? I welcome any and all input! :)

[Amy in TX]

and loved it. I was an English major--and was given a very solid math background as well. No one gets out of CMU without taking a fair amount of math, lol.

 

I liked that it was a small private school. Everyone more or less knew everyone else after a couple of years, at least by sight. Only a couple of huge auditorium-style classes freshman year, then mostly smaller classes. Professors (not just TAs) were very available for help.

 

Financial aid was excellent; I couldn't have gone there otherwise. (That was 25 years ago, so ymmv!)

 

It's not known as a "party school" like most of the large state schools, although of course that kind of thing does go on.

 

The campus is mostly self contained, but is in the city; all kinds of shopping/food/houses of worship withing walking distance. There is also an excellent bus system in Pittsburgh. Your ds will not need a car.

 

If you have specific questions, feel free to post them or pm me.

 

Amy

[Sandra in NC]

I went to the Univ. of Rochester my freshman year (1977). I think your son would love it - esp. if he had an opportunity to continue violin at Eastman.

 

I liked Univ. of Rochester - beautiful campus, good teachers, nice size, tunnels connecting many of the classrooms. I only attended one year and then returned to a state school because of finances.

 

The negative features of the school are obvious: It snows a lot, so it's cold and gloomy.

[Kathy in Richmond]

I went to U of Rochester for undergrad as a chemical engineering and math double major, then to CMU for graduate PhD in applied math. My homeschooled son is a rising senior now at MIT (also accepted at CMU).

 

U of Rochester: Back when I was applying in the mid-1970's, U of R was extremely well-endowed financially. I chose it primarily because I received a large scholarship, but also because I found it so much more friendly than the other places I was accepted at (including Cornell and CMU). Like Sandra said, it has a pretty campus, accessible to downtown by bus (Eastman School of Music IS downtown, by the way), but hemmed in by the Genesee River and parkland. I thoroughly enjoyed my four years there. It does draw a regional crowd - most of my classmates came from NY state or nearby; lots from NYC environs. It has a LAC feel - lots of biology and political science majors. Engineering is small but top-notch. I loved the small class size; there were only 25 or so kids in my chem eng class and we got to know each other very well. The professors were mostly great teachers and very accessible. After my sophomore year, I was able to do a research project with one of them. I M Pei designed the student union, which was built when I was there. And I love the new Rochester Curriculum with its freedom from strict distribution requirements and the Take Five program with its free tuition for a fifth year for students who wish to pursue studies outside their primary major. Both of those might be attractive to your son with his dual interests. My own junior dd is thinking of applying next year. I think it's a hidden gem of a school!

 

Carnegie Mellon: It also has a compact and green campus, though not quite so pretty. It's very easy to catch a bus from CMU to most city destinations, and several universities including U Pittsburgh are neighbors - lots for college students to do nearby in Squirrel Hill and Oakland! Very pre-professional feel here; definitely not toward the LAC end of universities. The high enrollment of engineers & computer types and also the artist & theater crowd makes for a fun combination. The engineering departments are larger than those at U of R, and the robotics in the School of Computer Science can't be beat - lots of funding from Bill Gates & friends. Another advantage for your son would be that the music and engineering are on the same physical campus. When my ds applied a few years ago, we learned that the computer science majors all had to declare a minor and some did minor in musical performance. One other note: they required homeschoolers to interview on campus (don't know if that's changed in the last few years, but if it hasn't you'd want to take care of that during your upcoming visit).

 

MIT: My son couldn't be happier. He's an EE/Computer Science major with a heavy leaning toward computer science side. Many of the intro EE/CS courses involve hands-on robotics lab work now. The EE department is huge! It's the most popular major on campus. They are required to take eight humanities/social science/fine arts classes over four years, including a minor concentration in one of those fields. My ds is taking his concentration in music - but in mostly theory and music history courses. I do know of one incoming freshman who will be taking some musical performance courses at Berklee School of Music (just across the Charles River from campus), so it can be done.

 

Good luck with your upcoming trip! I'd be glad to answer any additional questions if you have any.

 

~Kathy

Edited May 21, 2009 by Kathy in Richmond

[Musicmom]

Hi again, everyone. Thank you so much Kathy, Sandra, and Amy… and everyone else too! Your input has been so helpful! So far, CMU and U of R (and MIT of course) are looking really good.

We’ve pretty much decided to drop Lehigh from our list at this point. After reading a number of student reviews and other college rankings online, I get the distinct impression that Lehigh is quite the “party school.†In fact, I was really surprised to find that every review of Lehigh’s social life I read, whether positive, negative or neutral, painted a very consistent picture: social scene dominated by Greek life, fraternity parties, and very heavy drinking. The positive ones like it and think it’s fun, the negative ones are horrified by it and hate it, and the neutral ones warn you about it. I’m sure this goes on to some extent at every school, but evidently it’s pretty prominent at Lehigh. Not our cup of tea. Lehigh may be a very good school, but I can’t imagine sending ds into that environment.

I’m now in the process of calling admission offices and getting appts set up—sure takes a long time! The info sessions and tours are easy, but getting appts in individual departments involves a lot of phone tag!

Thanks again to everyone, and if anyone has more comments to share, I’m still listening! :001_smile:

[Michelle in MO]

Since you're in Minnesota, have you thought of St. Olaf College, if your ds is interested in violin? St. Olaf has an excellent music program (choir, orchestra), and I know they have a good pre-med program (thus must be somewhat strong in the sciences), but I have no idea about the robotics.

[Musicmom]

Thanks, Michelle. Yes, St. Olaf does have a great reputation for music. In fact, ds's violin teacher is an instructor there. :) He lives in Mpls, though, and we go to Mpls for lessons. A friend of ds's is looking to major in music (vocal) and he has St. Olaf on his short list.

 

We hadn't really considered St. Olaf, thinking it's pretty much a liberal arts college. After reading your post I went back and checked to make sure. They do have some sciences, including computer science, but no engineering... sigh. T'would be nice, though. It's not very far away.

[Blue Hen]

We did a college tour to Lehigh last month and I posted about our visit here

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93999

 

Carole

[OLCH]

Hi Carole,

 

I attended Duquesne also in Pittsburgh & just wondered if you've had a chance to visit CMU?

[Blue Hen]

We haven't made it to CMU yet. We should be ther either in Sept or Oct.

 

Carole

[Carol in Cal.]

We pretty much decided to drop Lehigh from our list at this point. After reading a number of student reviews and other college rankings online, I get the distinct impression that Lehigh is quite the “party school.†In fact, I was really surprised to find that every review of Lehigh’s social life I read, whether positive, negative or neutral, painted a very consistent picture: social scene dominated by Greek life, fraternity parties, and very heavy drinking. The positive ones like it and think it’s fun, the negative ones are horrified by it and hate it, and the neutral ones warn you about it. I’m sure this goes on to some extent at every school, but evidently it’s pretty prominent at Lehigh. Not our cup of tea. Lehigh may be a very good school, but I can’t imagine sending ds into that environment.

:[/font]

 

It is hard for me to imagine anyone in engineering really having time to seriously party. It's the liberal arts and business majors, IME, that can fit that in. It's worth checking if Lehigh is an option that you would consider otherwise.

[Catherine]

Several of my classmates had been undergraduates there and many of them took music lessons at Eastman in voice, piano, flute and strings. I got the impression that it's fairly common for undergrads to do that.

 

Rochester is a nice city, very friendly and medium sized. As an upstate NY native, it's a city I'd very definitely consider returning to if I went back to NY. Rochester is a hidden gem, IMO, because it has small classes (for a large university) and some excellent schools-engineering and music in particular. I'm going to encourage my now-junior to consider it. Yeah, the weather can be cold and VERY snowy-but think of it this way-where else could your child witness 3-5 feet of snowfall and no school closings?

[Janice H]

Second generation Cornellian here. I do not have current information, but do check on housing if you do not want your sophomore living off campus. It used to be that only freshmen had on-campus guaranteed housing.

[Sharon in MD]

Our ds is headed for Drexel in just a few short days. We considered many of the schools that you have mentioned and visited a couple of them. We dropped Lehigh because we felt that it was too rich for our blood. I really liked the campus, but felt that our son would be skiing the local PA hills while his dorm-mates would be skiing the Alps....we saw a lot of designer, $$$$ designer clothing on the students there.

 

We were supposed to visit CMU....but dropped it from our list because ds decided he wanted to stay closer to the metro DC area where we live.

 

We chose Drexel for a couple (okay 4) big reasons.....1. really great engineering school and ds wanted the co-op type of program. 2. Honest to goodness experience for undergrads in engineering...they don't care if you are just a freshman who wants to learn how to use the scanning electron microscope...they will teach you.(compare that to most big research schools!) 3. Tiny Music department....no majors, not really even a minor....but for ds who is a classical pianist, he can be really involved and they are thrilled to have him. Think Big fish, little pond.... 4. Most importantly, this is THE school that ds lit up over...KWIM?

 

Now, admittedly, if Music is a big part of the program your kid wants...this probably would not fit the bill, but for us, where Music is important, but not like a minor, this was just right.

 

HTH