<p>Emailed RPI admissions, yes it is fine.</p>
<p>Yes, the yellow circle <em>is</em> an annoyance!</p>
<p>How does the non-engineering female ‘fit’ in at RPI? Does engineering dominate campus life?</p>
<p>I was told that the campus is 60% engineers, which is not too bad considering some engineering schools are a lot more. Lots of business majors as well. </p>
<p>ED question - has anyone had their CA status updated to “Downloaded” or received an email from admissions? RPI seems to be behind the two schools my son applied to EA. </p>
<p>My son applied to 3 schools using the Common App about 3 weeks ago. He heard from the other 2 schools within a few days, that they received his application - nothing from RPI. DS called RPI this past Friday and was told that they had not downloaded any of the Common Apps (he applied Regular Decision). They said he should be getting notification in the next 7-10 days.</p>
<p>OP here. Sorry I’ve been a bit inactive but I’ve been pretty busy at school; finals week is almost upon us! Anyway, I’m glad people are chiming in and helping each other, especially for the CommonApp questions that I can’t answer because I’ve long forgotten everything to do with it. </p>
<p>@Iwonderwhere I think you’ll fit in just fine. I’m not technically engineering and I’m a girl as well and I’ve found a perfect circle of friends here. Just because you’re not an engineer doesn’t mean that you’re always gonna be spending time with non-engineers or all engineers either. I have a ton of engineer friends obviously and nothing is really too different. Some classes most of them have in common and talk about them all the time and share stories, but I have a good group of friends who have similar majors so I can share my stories there. Also, some of the departments that aren’t engineering have a close knit group of people so you’ll definitely find friends there. I’m half an IT major and the IT department is small enough that most everyone knows everyone and you can easily make friends that way. Business, while most are athletes, still have a good amount of people, as @rhandco pointed out, so you’ll definitely find friends there as well if you’re gonna be a MGMT major. Same thing should apply to majors like CogSci or Architecture. Good luck!</p>
<p>My son is not an engineering major, and he has made many friends at RPI. He has become much more social than he was in high school. </p>
<p>What are the other popular non engineering majors? How would you describe campus life on the weekends. I have a senior daughter.</p>
<p>GSAS is quite popular. As is Business Management. Technically, CS would be a non-engineering major as well. Architecture as well.</p>
<p>Weekends are great at RPI. There’s plenty to do around campus and also around Troy. Lots of clubs may have activities on weekends, sometimes plays at the Playhouse. I can’t speak too much on it since I usually spend my weekends with my boyfriend in my room or out at Crossgates or the surrounding area. But my friends have never complained about a lack of stuff to do on weekends. Most like to catch up on homework or the like. It’s usually just a time to slightly relax so staying in your room, watching some Netflix is definitely an option too. There are movies at DCC too for cheap. She’ll definitely find something to do. </p>
<p>How flexible is RPI with academic curriculums? How easy is it to double major?</p>
<p><a href=“Office of the Registrar | RPI INFO”>http://registrar.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=14</a></p>
<p>I saw some previous posts about dorms, and I saw on RPI’s website that they are closing down two dorms. Any advice for freshmen in terms of picking dorms?</p>
<p>I saw one had a music room “in the basement” - is that a real opportunity or just another room essentially.</p>
<p>My son is RPI '19 :)</p>
<p>We had trouble with the FA package, it was lower than expected and we were pretty upset he’d have to reject it. But luckily we had some other FA packages to compare to, and the upshot is that we’ll have to really tighten our belts and deal with it. It will really hurt some of our plans, and there is still a chance if the finances go south, he’d have to drop out and go to the local state school.</p>
<p>By the way, my son is looking at a possible double major too, but I’m trying to help him figure out if he can do a minor in Math as he wants to instead of a double major.</p>
<p>@hungryteenager I apologize for the very late post. I was extremely busy around that time with finals and studying. I’m glad @rhandco pointed you in the right direction with that link. Just to add a little, I’m have a dual major and it is a lot easier because RPI gives you a lot of the templates for typical duals. For example, for me (IT & Business), there was already a template on the website. Most humanities courses obviously only needed to be taken once for both majors and most dual major templates that are on the website are there because the two chosen dual majors are very compatible with each other. In order to dual, you do not have to take every single course required for a single major. It’s a lot easier that way. Double majoring is a different thing and much harder since I think the two majors chosen don’t have much of a similarity and you’re required to take a lot more courses, thus increasing your time spent at RPI. The choice is yours! But dual majoring has been very helpful to me, I’ve found.</p>
<p>@rhandco The two dorms they’re closing down (North and E) are not freshmen dorms. Enough upperclassmen move off-campus (me included) each year that I don’t think this will affect anything regarding housing. I had Barton freshmen year and I loved it. It really is “Hotel Barton”. It looks so much nicer than the other dorms and the only downside was that we didn’t have a kitchen. To cook a pot of ramen, I had to get my friends to let me into their kitchens. Of course, ramen could always be made with a microwave too. 
Of course, getting into Barton means you have to be pretty lucky. Or you could just have a roommate who got in RPI ED and chose Barton as top choice (which was my case). They’re all located in the same area so distance is not really an issue. Davison (upperclassmen-turned-freshmen dorm) is the only one that’s a couple steps further from Commons than the others but still not a big issue. I stayed in Davison during Orientation and didn’t like it because the beds’ frames were metal. Small issue to some but I just liked it better when there was wooden bedframes. “Music rooms” in the basement could either be Sharp or Barton. Barton has an air-hockey table on the 2nd floor that doesn’t work and a small TV on the wall. Sharp used to have a gym but that apparently didn’t get a lot of traffic and is now just a lounge place. </p>
<p>Congrats on your son getting into RPI! It’s a great place to be and I love it here. Regarding financial aid, I didn’t dispute mine but I know that it is definitely a possibility. I assume you’d talk to the FinAid office and tell them about your other better options but that your son would really love to go here. Also, like I just said above to the other poster, double majoring is a lot harder and more time-consuming than dualing. Are the two majors he wants compatible with each other? You might want to take a look at the website and see if there are templates ready-made that you could follow instead of having to come up with something yourself. Minors are relatively easy as you only need a few courses. I’ve heard of someone dualing in two majors and then minoring in another one but I’m not sure exactly how plausible that is. :/</p>
<p>This is almost exactly what he is looking for:
<a href=“RPI Mathematical Sciences: Undergraduate Dual Majors”>http://www.rpi.edu/dept/math/ms_undergraduate/dual_majors.html</a></p>
<p>I’m forwarding the link to him now :)</p>
<p>Hi I am a high school senior from China. I just got admitted to RPI, and I am quite interested in the Design, Innovation and Society major. So is it hard to switch to this major? (I chose undeclared engineering on my Common App) I heard that this major only enroll limited number of students. Also, is it easy or possible for international students from this major to find jobs after graduation? </p>
<p>I was also concerned about the predominance of engineering majors… I’m really interested in a Biological/Biomedical Science track w/ research and I’m not sure if RPI would provide me with enough depth in that sort of field. So, my question is - is it worth it to apply if I want to pursue a Biological Science major?</p>
@wwwwwwww I have a few friends in DIS/PDI and I actually almost switched to it myself. You’re right, it’s a competitive major and there are only a few spots available. I think there were only around 20 in my year. As for switching, I think it may be easier for you to switch after already choosing a major to apply to RPI. I only say this because I think if you applied directly to it, you might need a portfolio. I could be wrong here because unfortunately, I don’t know much about this major.
@hotforcollege Good question. I would say that as a engineering school, the strictly engineering disciplines would be more in depth than the non-e ones. But that doesn’t mean the other ones are left out or aren’t fully explored. RPI is still a great school but if you think you might only be interested in the biology part rather than something like BME or BCBP, you could definitely explore other options. I know more BMEs than strictly Biology majors but there are a few and they seem to be enjoying it just fine. If you come on campus for a visit, you could try emailing the professors in some of the classes and seeing if you could speak to them. Or just email and see how it is.
Thank you so much!
A bit of a weird question (well, I’m weird, so…) but would you say that RPI has weed-out classes in its programs?
I have a few friends who went off to a bunch of different schools, and some of them have had backbreaking weed-outs.
In the CS/IT program, there’s a class called Data Structures. People usually take it second semester and it’s infamous as the weed-out class for CS/CSE majors. Even non-CS people know it as a weed-out class. When I was taking it, I know so many friends and friends of friends who ended up dropping the class. Obviously, they dropped because they were getting bad grades in it and frankly, so was I. But I was half too proud to drop the class and half scared of taking the first half again when I retake it. Already halfway through, I thought I might as well get it over with. Still my worst grade so far. 
I don’t know much about any specific engineering courses that are known as weed-outs. All engineers have to take a course called IED. It’s pretty much a semester long project class, and hard in general (with papers, meetups, etc.), but not “weed-out” enough that people drop the class and retake it again later.