Actually, the correct association might not have happened quite yet; the slope of a line is 'delta Y over delta X'
College tour questions: Notre Dame, Carnegie-Mellon, & RPI
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Actually, the correct association might not have happened quite yet; the slope of a line is 'delta Y over delta X'
ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Actually, the correct association might not have happened quite yet; the slope of a line is 'delta Y over delta X'
You're right (of course)! (what, no more 'embarrassed' emoticon?). Ummm, it was a typo, yeah, that's it. No, No, wait, it was really ''daslobadalion' that equals delta Y over delta X. ''daslobadalyne'' was the INVERSE, yeh, that's it. And, the sun was in my eyes, I had a flat tire and ummm, it was a long time ago?
thanks - ERD50
Nords,
I'm late to this thread, but have this to add - you know my background - AFROTC scholarship to state school - BS in mechanical engineering 1985 - did my active duty stint and then MS in biomedical engineering 1991 from RPI in CT (special program which was essentially a scholarship/work study). Have very fortunately not paid a personal penny for my education - all been done with scholarships. Some miscellaneous facts regarding being a woman in engineering:
I belong to SWE - they published some statistics regarding how many women are getting engineering degrees today -not very many. There weren't many when I graduated and it hasn't increased too much: (this is broken down by race - SWE has gone crazy in that way towards the diversity profile - but I think the stats are interesting)
BS engineering - 12% awarded in 2003-4 to white women - 56% to white men
MS engineering - 7% to white women - 29% to white men - largest percentage is to temporary resident men (39%)
PhD engineering - 6% to white women - 23% to white men - largest % is to temporary resident men (52%)
Anecdotal info -I spoke with someone's daughter who was going back for her masters/PhD in mechanical engineering - the good research universities were slobbering all over her to get her to attend - scholarships/work-study - etc.
Bottom line - go shopping for your daughter only see what they will pay, especially is she wants to go to graduate school. Women are considered a minority in the engineering and science fields and are courted. If your daughter is interested in the non-biological aspect, the more she can make. You said she liked environmental engineering right now - that's basically a branch of chemical engineering. She could also major in civil with a minor or emphasis in chemical plants or environmental design for civil purposes. At my undergrad college, you could have an aero degree with a mechanical emphasis or a mechanical degree with aero emphasis - same class set if you worked it right.
As for the maturity aspect of Academy grads - I have to second some of the comments here. In my career, I've found them to be either very hyper and ambitious or very laid back. This at times has been coupled with an entitlement attitude regarding what their particular service 'owes' them for their '4 year prison term - err college experience.' It takes quire a few years for them to mature and sometimes they don't.
Disclaimer - my father is a West Point Grad - I wanted to go to USAFA very badly and wasn't picked up (at that time in my life a very disappointing experience - however, in retrospect, I could have taken my ROTC scholarship and gone to some very good private schools if I'd applied - long story, but suffice it to say, I did a much better job choosing my master's experience and now consider myself one of the leaders in my chosen profession).
Have a great time visiting - wish I'd had the opportunity - I know your daughter will do very well, no matter what she chooses or receives.
Bridget
I'm late to this thread, but have this to add - you know my background - AFROTC scholarship to state school - BS in mechanical engineering 1985 - did my active duty stint and then MS in biomedical engineering 1991 from RPI in CT (special program which was essentially a scholarship/work study). Have very fortunately not paid a personal penny for my education - all been done with scholarships. Some miscellaneous facts regarding being a woman in engineering:
I belong to SWE - they published some statistics regarding how many women are getting engineering degrees today -not very many. There weren't many when I graduated and it hasn't increased too much: (this is broken down by race - SWE has gone crazy in that way towards the diversity profile - but I think the stats are interesting)
BS engineering - 12% awarded in 2003-4 to white women - 56% to white men
MS engineering - 7% to white women - 29% to white men - largest percentage is to temporary resident men (39%)
PhD engineering - 6% to white women - 23% to white men - largest % is to temporary resident men (52%)
Anecdotal info -I spoke with someone's daughter who was going back for her masters/PhD in mechanical engineering - the good research universities were slobbering all over her to get her to attend - scholarships/work-study - etc.
Bottom line - go shopping for your daughter only see what they will pay, especially is she wants to go to graduate school. Women are considered a minority in the engineering and science fields and are courted. If your daughter is interested in the non-biological aspect, the more she can make. You said she liked environmental engineering right now - that's basically a branch of chemical engineering. She could also major in civil with a minor or emphasis in chemical plants or environmental design for civil purposes. At my undergrad college, you could have an aero degree with a mechanical emphasis or a mechanical degree with aero emphasis - same class set if you worked it right.
As for the maturity aspect of Academy grads - I have to second some of the comments here. In my career, I've found them to be either very hyper and ambitious or very laid back. This at times has been coupled with an entitlement attitude regarding what their particular service 'owes' them for their '4 year prison term - err college experience.' It takes quire a few years for them to mature and sometimes they don't.
Disclaimer - my father is a West Point Grad - I wanted to go to USAFA very badly and wasn't picked up (at that time in my life a very disappointing experience - however, in retrospect, I could have taken my ROTC scholarship and gone to some very good private schools if I'd applied - long story, but suffice it to say, I did a much better job choosing my master's experience and now consider myself one of the leaders in my chosen profession).
Have a great time visiting - wish I'd had the opportunity - I know your daughter will do very well, no matter what she chooses or receives.
Bridget
Thanks, Bridget, you're one of the reasons that our daughter heard about RPI in the first place!
Those are interesting stats. I think env eng is just the teen flavor of the month but it gives her a focus for the tour. She also "expects" to get a master's degree someday but I don't know if she understands the level of effort required to do that-- just following her parents' example on the path to ER.
Spouse is going to a class this week with a USNA alumnus who has a daughter at USNA and another one at Notre Dame ROTC. Daughter #2 attended USNA's Summer Seminar and was offered an appointment but had decided by then that the yelling wasn't working for her. Notre Dame was quite happy to have her attend on ROTC's dollar.
My wife is learning a lot...
Bridget has made some great points. I want her to know I was a member of SWE when I was an undergraduate. There were 6 legitimate females and me at the University of Washington in the early 70's. I became a member because I was the president of a club that had the rights to a room. They didn't have enough members to qualify so I lent them "my" room for their meetings/activities. I came close to marrying one of them but my (smart)sister didn't like her and I trusted her instinct.
I see a lot more women ChE graduates than in the other disciplines. Women seem to gravitate towards the biomedical and environmental areas. I've noticed women tend to "deselect" from plant jobs which probably documents a superior intelligence. I say this because I worked in plants for almost 30 years.
On degree selection I advised my children to avoid specialization with an undergraduate degree. I encouraged the choice to be based on what they are "best" at and enjoy the most. Civil typically pays terrible so I immediately discount it but in all honesty its an easier version of mechanical engineering. The remaining key engineering disciplines are electrical (math), mechanical (physics) and chemical (chemistry). Every branch of engineering will happily grab one of these grads for a masters program but I have to warn you that they are seldom cost justified even when "free." Employers are also happy to jump on these degrees to fill the more specialized degree opening. I have personally moved between "specialized" industries on the strength of my ChE degree.
If your daughter gets an environmental engineering degree that is all she will ever be considered for.
BTW -- If your daughter goes to the UW, I can guarantee her she'll have the opportunity to do undergraduate research. My ex-advisor is still there and I did 2 years of research with him. I had a published article and many other opportunities I was too stupid to realize I had at the time.
I see a lot more women ChE graduates than in the other disciplines. Women seem to gravitate towards the biomedical and environmental areas. I've noticed women tend to "deselect" from plant jobs which probably documents a superior intelligence. I say this because I worked in plants for almost 30 years.
On degree selection I advised my children to avoid specialization with an undergraduate degree. I encouraged the choice to be based on what they are "best" at and enjoy the most. Civil typically pays terrible so I immediately discount it but in all honesty its an easier version of mechanical engineering. The remaining key engineering disciplines are electrical (math), mechanical (physics) and chemical (chemistry). Every branch of engineering will happily grab one of these grads for a masters program but I have to warn you that they are seldom cost justified even when "free." Employers are also happy to jump on these degrees to fill the more specialized degree opening. I have personally moved between "specialized" industries on the strength of my ChE degree.
If your daughter gets an environmental engineering degree that is all she will ever be considered for.
BTW -- If your daughter goes to the UW, I can guarantee her she'll have the opportunity to do undergraduate research. My ex-advisor is still there and I did 2 years of research with him. I had a published article and many other opportunities I was too stupid to realize I had at the time.
I think I speak for the entire board when I say that I don't want to know the criteria of an illegitimate female...
Wise advice.
I think that we're getting down in the weeds. Pretend that you're 15 years old with hormones surging through your body and you have not yet developed the brain-cell networks required to be capable of displaying electrical activity in portions of the cerebral cortex generally associated with rational evaluation & decision-making. Deduct an additional 50 points if you're a guy.
I don't think we're going to get much further than "Cool labs!" and "What's the food like?"
OK, I've already been led astray by my assumptions on the "St. Johns" thread. You're referring to the University of Washington in the state of Washington, right? We might make west-coast & southern tours at a later date, and I'm compiling another list for that. Same criteria, though-- ~8000 or smaller, engineering curriculum, ROTC unit, women's basketball. She seems pretty firm and uncompromising on those and that's good enough for us.
Notre Dame-- wow.
Land in South Bend seems to be pretty cheap (a topic for another thread) so the campus is really spread out compared to other schools I’ve seen. Parking still sucks, though, and bicycles are the preferred transportation.
Religion is very much at ND if you want it but a significant minority of the students ignore the entire culture. OTOH there are priests & nuns available to live in many of the dorms and the school is not ranked high on the “party hearty” lists. Programs seem split fairly evenly among engineering, pre-med, and liberal arts but the students seem more interested in achievement than in messing around. Of course the student body isn’t on campus right now to check whether that’s actually the case.
Many grateful alumni have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the campus. It almost seems to be a status competition (one bequest required “the largest building on the campus”). I expected piles of old granite (established 1842) but the classroom & lab buildings are actually fairly new. Most classes are smaller but the classes that have to be big (freshman chemistry) are in modern auditoriums with stadium seating, huge large-screen projection systems, and good audio. If you can’t be in a small class then this is the best alternative. The faculty building was actually built in a multiple-wing design so that every professor could have an office with a window. The entire campus is networked & wireless; students have a printing budget of ~$100/year but most of them submit their work online.
Competition is keen. Most of the freshmen turned in SAT scores above 1300 (ACTs around 34). The selection rate has been lower than the service academies but 98% of the freshmen finish their first year and 96% of the students graduate in four years. Profs seem to actually teach their students and TAs are less common. There were a lot of tour questions about validating ND’s course requirements with AP exams… not many remedial students in this crowd. Also lots of questions about the new application coming out next month—many schools seem to be moving toward a common online application with less paper shuffling.
The NROTC program is one of the nation’s largest, along with big Army & AF programs. Much of the program & structures funding is provided by grateful alumni rather than the recruiting commands, so the ROTC staff have a brand-new building and (by military standards) very nice offices. The ROTC lieutenant we spoke with is a submariner who’s finishing up his executive MBA program and leaving the service but he says he’s really going to miss Notre Dame. He’s amused by the Navy’s requirement to start up a Notre Dame sailing program—Lake Michigan is the nearest major body of water.
Oh, yeah-- $46,000/year.
The question was asked “What’s the coldest it’s ever been here?” The admissions staff launched into a discussion of how the winter weather brings people closer together in the dorms, how much people enjoy seeing the snow, and how many winter activities there are near South Bend. She never actually quite got around to answering the freakin’ question, but another parent assured me that it was 15 degrees below zero. Classes had also been cancelled one day a few years back when the windchill got down to 60 below.
The place was pretty empty but there were a couple hundred students scattered around. (There were far more high school & middle-school kids at summer sports camps and a national baton-twirling competition.) Yes, Dan, the few co-eds that are still on the campus are major babes. I was assured that the same was true of the guys.
If I’d been able to visit places like ND 30 years ago then I doubt I would’ve applied to USNA. We’ll see if that’s true at CMU & RPI.
I have never seen so much flat terrain and cornfields in my entire life. Too many clouds & too much pollution, too, even an hour outside of Chicago.
Back to Chicago tonight, CMU tomorrow.
Land in South Bend seems to be pretty cheap (a topic for another thread) so the campus is really spread out compared to other schools I’ve seen. Parking still sucks, though, and bicycles are the preferred transportation.
Religion is very much at ND if you want it but a significant minority of the students ignore the entire culture. OTOH there are priests & nuns available to live in many of the dorms and the school is not ranked high on the “party hearty” lists. Programs seem split fairly evenly among engineering, pre-med, and liberal arts but the students seem more interested in achievement than in messing around. Of course the student body isn’t on campus right now to check whether that’s actually the case.
Many grateful alumni have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the campus. It almost seems to be a status competition (one bequest required “the largest building on the campus”). I expected piles of old granite (established 1842) but the classroom & lab buildings are actually fairly new. Most classes are smaller but the classes that have to be big (freshman chemistry) are in modern auditoriums with stadium seating, huge large-screen projection systems, and good audio. If you can’t be in a small class then this is the best alternative. The faculty building was actually built in a multiple-wing design so that every professor could have an office with a window. The entire campus is networked & wireless; students have a printing budget of ~$100/year but most of them submit their work online.
Competition is keen. Most of the freshmen turned in SAT scores above 1300 (ACTs around 34). The selection rate has been lower than the service academies but 98% of the freshmen finish their first year and 96% of the students graduate in four years. Profs seem to actually teach their students and TAs are less common. There were a lot of tour questions about validating ND’s course requirements with AP exams… not many remedial students in this crowd. Also lots of questions about the new application coming out next month—many schools seem to be moving toward a common online application with less paper shuffling.
The NROTC program is one of the nation’s largest, along with big Army & AF programs. Much of the program & structures funding is provided by grateful alumni rather than the recruiting commands, so the ROTC staff have a brand-new building and (by military standards) very nice offices. The ROTC lieutenant we spoke with is a submariner who’s finishing up his executive MBA program and leaving the service but he says he’s really going to miss Notre Dame. He’s amused by the Navy’s requirement to start up a Notre Dame sailing program—Lake Michigan is the nearest major body of water.
Oh, yeah-- $46,000/year.
The question was asked “What’s the coldest it’s ever been here?” The admissions staff launched into a discussion of how the winter weather brings people closer together in the dorms, how much people enjoy seeing the snow, and how many winter activities there are near South Bend. She never actually quite got around to answering the freakin’ question, but another parent assured me that it was 15 degrees below zero. Classes had also been cancelled one day a few years back when the windchill got down to 60 below.
The place was pretty empty but there were a couple hundred students scattered around. (There were far more high school & middle-school kids at summer sports camps and a national baton-twirling competition.) Yes, Dan, the few co-eds that are still on the campus are major babes. I was assured that the same was true of the guys.
If I’d been able to visit places like ND 30 years ago then I doubt I would’ve applied to USNA. We’ll see if that’s true at CMU & RPI.
I have never seen so much flat terrain and cornfields in my entire life. Too many clouds & too much pollution, too, even an hour outside of Chicago.
Back to Chicago tonight, CMU tomorrow.
Webzter
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How about my alma mater - Northern Michigan University. Student population of about 8,000... the CEO of Starbucks graduated from our school of business, [-]one of the professors there found an atomic element[/-] one of the greatest chemistry minds of this centure was a native to the area (was confused since we've named one of the science buildings after him), women's BBall team. The school is too small to have TA's. Shores of Lake Superior is like living near an ocean but with more dangerous weather and it's always too cold to swim. Oh yeah, there's an ROTC program there.
But, best of all, average snowfall of 200 inches a year and they cancel classes if the windchill gets down to -60. We missed an entire week of classes one year when it never got above -100.. but usually the winters are much milder than that.
edit: Almost forgot. It's been a few years since I've been in school (10), but it was $1600 a semester, flat-rate tuition when I graduated.
p.s. This entire post was mostly tongue-in-cheek. But, on a serious note, good luck with the campus tour! ND is a great school, as are the others on your list
edit 2: Corrected misinformation. Oh, I should mention hockey... huge hockey following there. I'm not sure about the new arena, but the student seating at the old one was the best in the house. Talk about some wild games.
But, best of all, average snowfall of 200 inches a year and they cancel classes if the windchill gets down to -60. We missed an entire week of classes one year when it never got above -100.. but usually the winters are much milder than that.
edit: Almost forgot. It's been a few years since I've been in school (10), but it was $1600 a semester, flat-rate tuition when I graduated.
p.s. This entire post was mostly tongue-in-cheek. But, on a serious note, good luck with the campus tour! ND is a great school, as are the others on your list
edit 2: Corrected misinformation. Oh, I should mention hockey... huge hockey following there. I'm not sure about the new arena, but the student seating at the old one was the best in the house. Talk about some wild games.
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tightasadrum
Full time employment: Posting here.
college tours
Nords,
As long as you’re in the area considering schools in some of the most inhospitable weather, you might want to visit Rose Hulman in Terre Haute, IN. It’s an excellent engineering school, and small enough to meet your requirements.
My daughter made three separate trips to visit schools: one with her private school class up the east coast; one with her mom and I as far north as Princeton; and a mid-west tour with her mom. The school trips gave her more of a feel about where she DIDN’T want to be than it gave her a definite destination. There was an immediate dislike for University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, don’t think she cared for the big city feel of the places. She wouldn’t even stay for the campus tour at Penn. Your daughter also sounds pretty independent and headstrong.
She ended up at Washington University in St. Louis and stayed one year. Transferred to UNC where she is deliriously happy now as a junior. Why she went to WU and not UNC to start with? Here’s my guess. Went to WU because, a) here mom pressured her, b) rated a little higher in the polls, and c) received more scholarship money. Bottom line, it was her decision, but she felt more comfortable at UNC with the people, climate, distance from home (GA), at 12 hour drive vs 6 hour drive, neither one close enough to come home for the weekend.
In retrospect, I think there was far too much obsession over the school thing. It was fun up to a point. DW pumped in hard. My college choice was much easier. Dad said I could go anywhere I wanted to, as long as it was University of Georgia or Georgia Tech. UGA allowed me to leave town.
Nords,
As long as you’re in the area considering schools in some of the most inhospitable weather, you might want to visit Rose Hulman in Terre Haute, IN. It’s an excellent engineering school, and small enough to meet your requirements.
My daughter made three separate trips to visit schools: one with her private school class up the east coast; one with her mom and I as far north as Princeton; and a mid-west tour with her mom. The school trips gave her more of a feel about where she DIDN’T want to be than it gave her a definite destination. There was an immediate dislike for University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, don’t think she cared for the big city feel of the places. She wouldn’t even stay for the campus tour at Penn. Your daughter also sounds pretty independent and headstrong.
She ended up at Washington University in St. Louis and stayed one year. Transferred to UNC where she is deliriously happy now as a junior. Why she went to WU and not UNC to start with? Here’s my guess. Went to WU because, a) here mom pressured her, b) rated a little higher in the polls, and c) received more scholarship money. Bottom line, it was her decision, but she felt more comfortable at UNC with the people, climate, distance from home (GA), at 12 hour drive vs 6 hour drive, neither one close enough to come home for the weekend.
In retrospect, I think there was far too much obsession over the school thing. It was fun up to a point. DW pumped in hard. My college choice was much easier. Dad said I could go anywhere I wanted to, as long as it was University of Georgia or Georgia Tech. UGA allowed me to leave town.
That's funny - I'm planning on telling my daughters the same thing, except their "any" schools will be either UNC or NC State University.
Nords - I grew up less than 10 miles from campus. Took my SAT's there. Still, it was/is always a treat to visit.
Were you wearing your shades and keeping the spouse from [-]smelling the testosterone[/-] reading your mind?
Former Lurker
Nords
We have gone through the college quest for two of our three kids so far. One school that surprised us was Georgia Tech, in particular for an Undecided engineering type. Our oldest daughter went to Cornell and is now at Michigan for a Phd. Middle son was interested in Carnagie Mellon, Michigan, Cornell, & Georgia Tech and although he was very impressed with the program and caliber of students a Carnagie Mellon, his overnight campus visits to both schools, caused GA Tech to go from last choice safety school to first choice. Most of Ga Techs engineering programs are in the top 5 in the Nation. Note, at least for school of computer science, Carnagie Mellon Average SAT math / verbal were above 1450 /1600 with better than half the students with 800 on the math side. Ga Tech / Notre Dame used to be closer to 1380 on average and RPI is a bit lower. Point being test scores can limit top tier choices even with strong GPA's. Also the lower the "tier" of the school, the higher the probability of merit based aid. Our middle kid would have been just an average enrollee at Carnagie Mellon and would have received zero merit based $. At schools where your child is in the top 5 or 10% of the applicants, non need based aid is much more probable. Our challenge with be with our youngest daughter (soon to be in 11th grade) who wants to be a musician. Her education costs will likely be economically "illogical", but it is hard to discourage a youngster from chasing their dream. The best I can hope for is to temper it with reality.
Good luck with the rest of the visits and a very exciting time in your daughters life.
Pura Vida
Nords
We have gone through the college quest for two of our three kids so far. One school that surprised us was Georgia Tech, in particular for an Undecided engineering type. Our oldest daughter went to Cornell and is now at Michigan for a Phd. Middle son was interested in Carnagie Mellon, Michigan, Cornell, & Georgia Tech and although he was very impressed with the program and caliber of students a Carnagie Mellon, his overnight campus visits to both schools, caused GA Tech to go from last choice safety school to first choice. Most of Ga Techs engineering programs are in the top 5 in the Nation. Note, at least for school of computer science, Carnagie Mellon Average SAT math / verbal were above 1450 /1600 with better than half the students with 800 on the math side. Ga Tech / Notre Dame used to be closer to 1380 on average and RPI is a bit lower. Point being test scores can limit top tier choices even with strong GPA's. Also the lower the "tier" of the school, the higher the probability of merit based aid. Our middle kid would have been just an average enrollee at Carnagie Mellon and would have received zero merit based $. At schools where your child is in the top 5 or 10% of the applicants, non need based aid is much more probable. Our challenge with be with our youngest daughter (soon to be in 11th grade) who wants to be a musician. Her education costs will likely be economically "illogical", but it is hard to discourage a youngster from chasing their dream. The best I can hope for is to temper it with reality.
Good luck with the rest of the visits and a very exciting time in your daughters life.
Pura Vida
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Carnegie-Mellon: pretty good.
CMU’s campus is physically smaller than Notre Dame and in downtown Pittsburgh (population ~1.5 million) but it still has adequate green space and it’s right next to Schenley Park. The architecture and the public art is just about as impressive as Notre Dame. CMU is also the nation’s first wireless campus, with coverage of Schenley Park and an extension down to the Forbes Ave. Starbucks. Of course many campuses are wireless today, but CMU prides itself on its bootstrap computer geekiness almost as much as MIT. Maybe more, with a scrappy underdog street attitude.
The admissions staff opened their presentation on a Mac laptop with one of the smallest LCD projectors I’ve ever seen. The introduction was set to an orchestral version of Van Hagar’s “Right Now” whose opening chords immediately had our kid and me banging our ponytailed heads in unison (much to the audience’s amusement and my spouse’s consternation). Very cool.
The campus isn’t as well-funded as Notre Dame and the “stadium” is smaller than our kid’s high school. However CMU does just fine from various Carnegies, Mellons, and other local titans of industry & philanthropy. The Gates Foundation also just dropped $20M for their new computer center where construction is proceeding briskly. The Electrical & Computer Engineering degree fills up so quickly that freshmen have to declare this major when they accept the school’s enrollment.
There’s plenty to be happy about—good degrees & profs, strong connection to local industry (both research & internships), very strong arts & drama programs to balance out the engineering geeks (I can only imagine the turbulence in the gene pool), and a nice urban community atmosphere. On a scale of 10, CMU is about a 9.8 and Notre Dame is maybe a 9.85.
The Pittsburgh ROTC unit is a little smaller than ND and it’s spread out among CMU, Pitt, & Duquesne U. However its 23 graduating mids included seven nukes, two headed for medical school, and a civil engineer. This is an extremely high proportion of technical commissions straight out of an undergrad program—especially considering that it also included four Marines. Our kid is really excited by the opportunities here, although ND’s ROTC unit is better funded. The CMU unit is run by Gumby’s USNA classmate Keith Bowman (a submariner) and one of its lieutenants is another submariner. I’ve never seen so many nukes at ROTC units, and I certainly don’t remember that happening when I was a junior officer.
Spouse and I are pretty sure that USNA instead of today's ROTC would be a mistake. But we could be seduced by the marketing, so when we get back we're gonna have a few pointed questions for our local Blue & Gold Officer and a friend at USNA. It'll be interesting to hear their rebuttals.
Admissions casually mentioned that tuition is $49K. That’s nearly 10% more than Notre Dame, although CMU claims that their “average” student aid is $23K. The staff used enough weasel words that if they gave the financial-aid data to this board then our auditors would soon shoot holes in it.
So today our kid’s feeling like a CMU engineer, but there are no losers in this competition. Tomorrow we fly to RPI.
Boy does Mainland construction use a lot of bricks, granite, limestone, and sandstone.
Damn is it cold here. In the 50s in the middle of freakin' July!
I haven’t seen a rice cooker or a decent grain of rice all week. But I’ve seen plenty of potato products... and gosh, a lot of us Americans are fat.
We've decided that it's well worth the effort to invest the bucks in SAT prep courses and to take the tests at least twice. CMU requested several additional SAT supplements but so far both schools will take the highest of the math & verbal scores. So our kid's going to start early, test often, and game the process to the max.
CMU’s campus is physically smaller than Notre Dame and in downtown Pittsburgh (population ~1.5 million) but it still has adequate green space and it’s right next to Schenley Park. The architecture and the public art is just about as impressive as Notre Dame. CMU is also the nation’s first wireless campus, with coverage of Schenley Park and an extension down to the Forbes Ave. Starbucks. Of course many campuses are wireless today, but CMU prides itself on its bootstrap computer geekiness almost as much as MIT. Maybe more, with a scrappy underdog street attitude.
The admissions staff opened their presentation on a Mac laptop with one of the smallest LCD projectors I’ve ever seen. The introduction was set to an orchestral version of Van Hagar’s “Right Now” whose opening chords immediately had our kid and me banging our ponytailed heads in unison (much to the audience’s amusement and my spouse’s consternation). Very cool.
The campus isn’t as well-funded as Notre Dame and the “stadium” is smaller than our kid’s high school. However CMU does just fine from various Carnegies, Mellons, and other local titans of industry & philanthropy. The Gates Foundation also just dropped $20M for their new computer center where construction is proceeding briskly. The Electrical & Computer Engineering degree fills up so quickly that freshmen have to declare this major when they accept the school’s enrollment.
There’s plenty to be happy about—good degrees & profs, strong connection to local industry (both research & internships), very strong arts & drama programs to balance out the engineering geeks (I can only imagine the turbulence in the gene pool), and a nice urban community atmosphere. On a scale of 10, CMU is about a 9.8 and Notre Dame is maybe a 9.85.
The Pittsburgh ROTC unit is a little smaller than ND and it’s spread out among CMU, Pitt, & Duquesne U. However its 23 graduating mids included seven nukes, two headed for medical school, and a civil engineer. This is an extremely high proportion of technical commissions straight out of an undergrad program—especially considering that it also included four Marines. Our kid is really excited by the opportunities here, although ND’s ROTC unit is better funded. The CMU unit is run by Gumby’s USNA classmate Keith Bowman (a submariner) and one of its lieutenants is another submariner. I’ve never seen so many nukes at ROTC units, and I certainly don’t remember that happening when I was a junior officer.
Spouse and I are pretty sure that USNA instead of today's ROTC would be a mistake. But we could be seduced by the marketing, so when we get back we're gonna have a few pointed questions for our local Blue & Gold Officer and a friend at USNA. It'll be interesting to hear their rebuttals.
Admissions casually mentioned that tuition is $49K. That’s nearly 10% more than Notre Dame, although CMU claims that their “average” student aid is $23K. The staff used enough weasel words that if they gave the financial-aid data to this board then our auditors would soon shoot holes in it.
So today our kid’s feeling like a CMU engineer, but there are no losers in this competition. Tomorrow we fly to RPI.
Boy does Mainland construction use a lot of bricks, granite, limestone, and sandstone.
Damn is it cold here. In the 50s in the middle of freakin' July!
I haven’t seen a rice cooker or a decent grain of rice all week. But I’ve seen plenty of potato products... and gosh, a lot of us Americans are fat.
I like ND's landscaping & amenities better than CMU. OTOH CMU is in the middle of it all, which may or may not be a good thing.
Ahem, speaking of amenities. Spouse & kid were almost as busy checking out the guys, and my discreet observations were frequently interrupted by their calling my attention to the competition... maybe there's something about that "Catholic school" mystique, or maybe it's because they're in the middle of the cornfields.
Thanks, we'll add GT to the list. The weather certainly can't be any colder than what we've seen so far.
We've decided that it's well worth the effort to invest the bucks in SAT prep courses and to take the tests at least twice. CMU requested several additional SAT supplements but so far both schools will take the highest of the math & verbal scores. So our kid's going to start early, test often, and game the process to the max.
"We've decided that it's well worth the effort to invest the bucks in SAT prep courses and to take the tests at least twice. CMU requested several additional SAT supplements but so far both schools will take the highest of the math & verbal scores. So our kid's going to start early, test often, and game the process to the max.[/quote]
Note: Many of the top tier schools will require two or three SAT 2 (subject) exams. My kids found those easier (in terms of scoring) than the regular SAT. Commercially available test prep books from your local book store for $20 or $30 should be sufficient for prep if your daughter is a good tester and a self starter. If you haven't found the forum "collegeconfidential" online yet there is useful discussion there for student and parent.
Note: Many of the top tier schools will require two or three SAT 2 (subject) exams. My kids found those easier (in terms of scoring) than the regular SAT. Commercially available test prep books from your local book store for $20 or $30 should be sufficient for prep if your daughter is a good tester and a self starter. If you haven't found the forum "collegeconfidential" online yet there is useful discussion there for student and parent.
figner
Recycles dryer sheets
Nords, have you considered Caltech? Maybe not the first place one would think of for basketball or ROTC (though they do have a womens team, and have some kind of ROTC agreement with USC). But as far as engineering/science geekdom, it's world class, and the undergrad student body numbers under 1000. If applying, would definitely recommend a visit in person to check out the unique/intense student culture - it's rare to find such a concentration of brilliant, creatively subversive folks, and people generally love it or hate it, or both.
donheff
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Nords - no suggestion about schools, but I am curious about your kid(s). I remember you were out here a couple of years ago visiting the Academy. Was that the same daughter's first visit or does she have an older sister already enrolled?
On our college tour DD showed no interest in the great state schools we visited all of which would garner a $10k/yr tuition offset from the DC government. Naturally, she fell in love with NYU - expensive and no offset. I was ready to retire to either Boulder or U of Vermont and enroll in classes. DD viewed them as tree hugging hippy schools.
On our college tour DD showed no interest in the great state schools we visited all of which would garner a $10k/yr tuition offset from the DC government. Naturally, she fell in love with NYU - expensive and no offset. I was ready to retire to either Boulder or U of Vermont and enroll in classes. DD viewed them as tree hugging hippy schools.
Thanks, we'll add it to the list for the next trip.
We only have the one kid, who visited USNA last July on our Wash DC trip, but we have lots of shipmates with their kids at USNA and an old friend is on the faculty. We also had dinner last night with a high school classmate whose oldest son just hit the halfway mark of plebe summer.
So our daughter's been hearing all the stories. She starts 10th grade next week and she'll go to USNA's Summer Seminar in two years to help her make her final decision. But so far she's looking at applying to Notre Dame, CMU, & USNA with the possible addition of RPI. We'll know more after tomorrow's RPI visit.
We're on our third rental car in a week. It's getting to the point where I just go to the parking lot, push the button on the key fob, and see what lights up...
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (yes, that’s spelled correctly).
Not a bad school, but it’s our third in eight days and I’m getting a little punchy. (“It’s Monday so this must be New York.”) RPI is a small school in a small town in a very cold part of the state. (Notre Dame: big school, small town. CMU: small school, big town.) Last February RPI’s lake effect delivered over a foot of snow in two days. When A/C is not necessary in the dorms and the tour guide brags about how much salt goes on the sidewalks after the snowfall then it’s time to think about a warmer clime.
RPI is one of the "New Ivies". However Business Week just published an article about rotting university infrastructures at a time when donors want to build new facilities, not fix the old, and RPI is also the poster child for this problem. They just received an anonymous $360M donation for a new high-tech performing-arts center (with acoustically-perfect sound-mounted theaters) yet the student bookstore was flooded out after today’s rainfall. But RPI’s President, Shirley Ann Jackson, is a heavy hitter who’s going to boost this school even higher than it’s already come. I can’t even tell you who’s running CMU or ND.
Like the other two schools, competition is keen. The admissions speaker cheerfully admitted that he could switch out all 1300 of the freshman class with the waiting list—twice—and no one would notice the performance difference (except for their parents). RPI doesn’t crow about its engineering & computer accomplishments as much as CMU, but RPI has been around since 1824 and isn’t going to be fazed by 20th-century upstarts. Engineering reigns supreme among RPI’s degrees but they have a six-year BS-->MD program and an electronic arts department. There are still no losers in this competition.
Once again the NROTC staff is impressive. RPI’s NROTC gets their money from the Navy, not from Notre Dame’s grateful alumni, so RPI’s NROTC building is pushing 100 years and their cramped offices smell of old steam heat. However the staff has a lot of unit cohesion & pride and the CO/XO work out alongside the mids at every drill period. (Other unit’s CO/XOs are not so present in their leadership.) The CO is a USNA grad (like CMU) but five of us USNA/ROTC alums couldn’t come up with a significant advantage of USNA over ROTC. IMO there’s no longer a difference except for the fact that ROTC delivers the same benefits at a much lower cost.
RPI wants $49K/year for all tuition, room & board, and fees. Scholarship money seems to be about $15K/year on merit but many weasel words were spoken. Unlike other units, RPI’s ROTC scholarship covers room & board as well as tuition. I didn’t know there was a difference and we’re going to have to dig into that question with ND & CMU. Not a major issue.
Our kid is going to change her mind two dozen times over the next 30 months but her new priority is 1) Notre Dame, 2) RPI, 3) CMU, and 4) USNA. Everyone wins, although she’ll be filling out four applications and taking 2-3 math/verbal SATs plus some special-subject SATs.
For you parents wondering about the written-essay section of the new 2400-point SAT, all three schools have admitted that they have no idea what to do with it. They focus on the math & verbal sections. CMU wants additional science tests of the SAT which I had no idea existed. All three schools will use the highest math/verbal scores from all tests, as RPI explained they wanted to see their applicants show their best game. However RPI also cautioned that taking more than three SATs was probably an indication that a student could make better use of their time.
One gutsy high-school rising senior wore a t-shirt proclaiming “MIT” in a huge font on his chest. When the RPI admissions staff started teasing him about it, he turned around so that they could read “... because not everyone can go to CalTech!” on the back. They know his name now, but there will be no RPI scholarship money for this candidate.
Next time I visit the northeast in July I’m bringing more long pants, hooded sweatshirts, a windbreaker, and an umbrella!
Not a bad school, but it’s our third in eight days and I’m getting a little punchy. (“It’s Monday so this must be New York.”) RPI is a small school in a small town in a very cold part of the state. (Notre Dame: big school, small town. CMU: small school, big town.) Last February RPI’s lake effect delivered over a foot of snow in two days. When A/C is not necessary in the dorms and the tour guide brags about how much salt goes on the sidewalks after the snowfall then it’s time to think about a warmer clime.
RPI is one of the "New Ivies". However Business Week just published an article about rotting university infrastructures at a time when donors want to build new facilities, not fix the old, and RPI is also the poster child for this problem. They just received an anonymous $360M donation for a new high-tech performing-arts center (with acoustically-perfect sound-mounted theaters) yet the student bookstore was flooded out after today’s rainfall. But RPI’s President, Shirley Ann Jackson, is a heavy hitter who’s going to boost this school even higher than it’s already come. I can’t even tell you who’s running CMU or ND.
Like the other two schools, competition is keen. The admissions speaker cheerfully admitted that he could switch out all 1300 of the freshman class with the waiting list—twice—and no one would notice the performance difference (except for their parents). RPI doesn’t crow about its engineering & computer accomplishments as much as CMU, but RPI has been around since 1824 and isn’t going to be fazed by 20th-century upstarts. Engineering reigns supreme among RPI’s degrees but they have a six-year BS-->MD program and an electronic arts department. There are still no losers in this competition.
Once again the NROTC staff is impressive. RPI’s NROTC gets their money from the Navy, not from Notre Dame’s grateful alumni, so RPI’s NROTC building is pushing 100 years and their cramped offices smell of old steam heat. However the staff has a lot of unit cohesion & pride and the CO/XO work out alongside the mids at every drill period. (Other unit’s CO/XOs are not so present in their leadership.) The CO is a USNA grad (like CMU) but five of us USNA/ROTC alums couldn’t come up with a significant advantage of USNA over ROTC. IMO there’s no longer a difference except for the fact that ROTC delivers the same benefits at a much lower cost.
RPI wants $49K/year for all tuition, room & board, and fees. Scholarship money seems to be about $15K/year on merit but many weasel words were spoken. Unlike other units, RPI’s ROTC scholarship covers room & board as well as tuition. I didn’t know there was a difference and we’re going to have to dig into that question with ND & CMU. Not a major issue.
Our kid is going to change her mind two dozen times over the next 30 months but her new priority is 1) Notre Dame, 2) RPI, 3) CMU, and 4) USNA. Everyone wins, although she’ll be filling out four applications and taking 2-3 math/verbal SATs plus some special-subject SATs.
For you parents wondering about the written-essay section of the new 2400-point SAT, all three schools have admitted that they have no idea what to do with it. They focus on the math & verbal sections. CMU wants additional science tests of the SAT which I had no idea existed. All three schools will use the highest math/verbal scores from all tests, as RPI explained they wanted to see their applicants show their best game. However RPI also cautioned that taking more than three SATs was probably an indication that a student could make better use of their time.
One gutsy high-school rising senior wore a t-shirt proclaiming “MIT” in a huge font on his chest. When the RPI admissions staff started teasing him about it, he turned around so that they could read “... because not everyone can go to CalTech!” on the back. They know his name now, but there will be no RPI scholarship money for this candidate.
Next time I visit the northeast in July I’m bringing more long pants, hooded sweatshirts, a windbreaker, and an umbrella!
Nords,
I just have to comment on all this. I think you're definitely going the distance with this but I'll make a few comments (and forever hold my peace).
I just have to comment on all this. I think you're definitely going the distance with this but I'll make a few comments (and forever hold my peace).
- You don't know what your daughter is going to get on the SAT (unless I missed something) and I would definitely recommend her not going anywhere where she wasn't "above average."
- Is she wanting a navy career or an engineering career? I would think the USNA would have a higher percentage of admirals than any other program. Academy engineering degrees don't get much respect in industry from what I've seen.
- Engineering salaries are very slightly impacted by the school attended but all of this disappears in 2 years. Texas A&M has a ROTC that would rival any torture administered by the USNA and would cost about $14K per year. If your daughter can breathe she'll get a $1K to $10K scholarship from the Corps plus be granted in-state tuition. It's mostly warm but cold enough to make her want to visit you over Christmas. My comments are meant to encourage you to look at state schools and not just TAMU.
Darryl
Full time employment: Posting here.
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Nords -15 sounds about right and with the exception of a week or two last winter the last few years have been fairly mild. Webzter found the cold weather up in Marquette (NMU).
Notre Dame is fairly tame on the party scene as colleges go.
$46,000 a year sounds painful.
Notre Dame is fairly tame on the party scene as colleges go.
$46,000 a year sounds painful.
Webzter
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The price of admission to God's country is pretty low... just a few short months of cold.
True story (thread hijack alert), in the ten years that I lived there, I personally saw it snow every month except August. I know this sounds like a horrible lie, but our fourth of July fireworks were cancelled once due to snow. Mother's Day that year rang in 30" of snowfall in one weekend. Mother's Day for crying out loud; that's summertime for most people.
The thing is, it never feels that cold there. Cold air comes down from Canada and hits Lake Superior. The water warms the air up, which causes the air to draw moisture out of the lake (warmer air holds more moisture). The air then hits the land, cools off, and dumps that moisture as snow. The one time that it was really horrible was the year the lake froze completely over. The frost went down 11' that year and busted mains all over. That was the year with -100F windchills.
And, through it all, we just said "Glad I'm not living up in Houghton!" I guess you always want to feel someone is in more severe conditions than you.
The UP is a beautiful place..get to drive through it whenever I visit my people in Traverse City..I stop for a pasty at just about every shop along the road....UPers are great people and it sure is beautiful there (only been in summer
)...we now return you to the college thread!No, no, these are all good points and that's why I put this thread up.
Talking about distance, we did over 10,000 miles... we got back today (Wednesday afternoon). On one hand we probably would've done better with visiting just one or two colleges, but OTOH it takes five hours to fly to the Mainland. I've about had my fill of airplanes with hyperactive screaming children and their blissfully ignorant parents.
True, but we do know that this whole trip has been a hypothetical waste of time if she doesn't score at least a 1400. 1500+ would be better. We have the typical SAT prep software and she's been working with it on the usual "20 minutes a day" regime.
I think getting your doors blown off in college can be a beneficial experience. I loafed through a small high school with a high class rank and was shocked by USNA. They preach "Excellence without arrogance" and I arrived as "arrogance without excellence". It took me four years to claw my way back up the rankings, which turned out to be a useful experience when I reported to the submarine force and found myself at the bottom of a pile of smart nukes.
So I'd rather see her struggle at college than afterwards.
Not a clue. Right now she knows she wants an engineering degree and a Navy commission but at her age it'll change at least monthly. She's looking for a BS and a 4-5-year obligation and then she'll make a new decision about a graduate degree and a Navy career.
USNA's "flag advantage" started to disappear in the 1970s and is believed to be non-existent today, but I can't quote a study.
I don't know how her engineering degree would translate to a civilian job. A lot of Navy officers take the transition as an opportunity to do things other than engineering... usually some sort of management track but maybe back to school for a master's in their engineering field or a MBA.
I only know one officer who sought an engineering job in his undergraduate field, and he finished his MSEE in Pearl Harbor (distance-learning from U of W) before getting a job with an Oregon EE firm. They got him to sign by agreeing to pay for his EE PhD, and he's the kind of guy who five years later is deliriously happy with how it all turned out.
Same with the commission, only the "USNA advantage" has been quoted as short as six months. About the only USNA advantage I've seen has been the ability to remain cool, calm, & focused while being screamed at, and I've seen a few USNA grads who lacked that advantage too.
Agreed, although she's focused on small schools with engineering degrees, NROTC, and women's basketball. Public or private is irrelevant to her.
We talked a lot about how to choose a school before she started sorting for those criterial. It was hard enough to get her to stop obsessing over whether the school would be better with Div I sports instead of Div III. Or whether they had a Hawaii club. Or whether she'd be able to study architecture in Rome, have to go to Catholic mass, or be downtown. Hey, she's making decisions like a 14-year-old.
The important results of this trip are that she's learned what to look for and she's able to see herself going to any of those schools.
From what the ROTC staffs indicated, if she can get into her chosen schools then the tuition will be covered. RPI's ROTC program might also cover room & board, although in retrospect that seems too good to be true.
Blue skies, sunshine, no pollution or even haze, 82 degrees and 15-knot trades with tonight's low in the low 70s. Surf forecast includes south shore 2-4. Once again when we saw the Ko'olau from the aircraft window we knew we'd returned home!
Nords - It sure seems like you have a sharp kid (what with the genes I'm betting the DW is smarter than you too) and will probably do really well on the SATs ( take them often, ours started freshman year) no ACTs needed?....and stating I'm sure the obvious - class rank, grade point, extracurricular activities, references, essay (especially if she can come up with a heartwarming story like overcoming growing up with a father that doesn't work and surfs (waves and internet) all day) and coming from an under-representative area or ethnic group, etc. It will probably also help if you make a big donation like for a building... For USNA - does she get a legacy or do you need a Senator/Representative to nominate her? It won't be long and you'll be at the graduation ceremony!
