<p>Wow I am a bit surprised there are no posts for SMU. I am an alumna, feel free to email or reply with questions.</p>
<p>Does SMU have good relations with any other schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area? For example, if there was a course that SMU did not have, but say U Dallas did, would it be possible as an SMU student to take the class at U Dallas?</p>
<p>ktbird may have more to offer, as alum.</p>
<p>My son took two courses elsewhere as a continuing SMU student and successfully transferred the hours towards his degree, but he also followed all the required steps prior to applying to and enrolling in the other school.</p>
<p>You can find SMU’s “transfer credit” policy on their website. Put your mouse over “Quick Links” at the top of just about any page and click on “Registrar” in the window that comes up. From the new page, choose “Transfer Credit” towards the bottom of the list. From “Transfer Credit,” choose “Continuing SMU Students.” And there, you will find SMU’s transfer credit policy for current SMU students.</p>
<p>To ensure that you’ll receive the transfer credit, you must fill out a petition form and walk that form around to a bunch of people. When my son did it, it was a bit cumbersome. He was originally told to go to one set of people, but part way through the list of people, he was told that he was supposed to go through a different list of people instead. Part of the confusion was because he was still a freshman when he petitioned for the credit. As a freshman, you haven’t declared a major and therefore don’t have an academic advisor from your major. At least he didn’t. His major is with the Meadows School, but he was assigned to the Dedman School as a freshman. (I think all Meadows kids are as freshmen? I don’t really know.) Also, after beginning the process as instructed on the SMU website, he learned that he also had to have a photocopy of the other school’s course catalog describing the courses he wanted to take. After just a little bit of legwork, though, and a smidgeon of red tape, he was able to get the petition signed by all parties, and he was able to apply the credit towards his major.</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what you mean by “good relations” with other schools. In our experience, they seem to have a lot of respect for the other schools in the area. However, they did make my son go through all the steps and then some prior to providing advanced authorization to take the courses for SMU credit. In no way was his experience a “pencil whipping.”</p>
<p>My son likewise has several friends who have taken summer courses at other local area colleges for transfer credit. So it’s not uncommon, I don’t think.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s a limit on how many hours you can transfer. As a continuing student, I think it’s 30 hours. The exact number is on the website.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>SimpleLife is correct. It is cumbersome but it’s possible.</p>
<p>I took a night class at UT Dallas and was able to transfer it in, however, it’s very important to note that you must get PRE-approval for the course to transfer before you take it. Your advisor will be able to tell you more info. Usually departments have certain course/college combinations that they use frequently and are easily approved.</p>
<p>And yes you can only use so many transfer credits to earn a degree at SMU.</p>
<p>It is quite common for this to happen since SMU does not offer many classes at night so people who do full-time co-op terms in engineering, for example, will opt to take a class at night somewhere else.</p>
<p>For ktbird7: Was SMU your first choice university? Did you choose it because of the proximity to the Dallas area? What are the top majors? Do you feel as if SMU prepared you fully for your career? What improvements, if any, would you make to SMU? What is the racial composition of the students at SMU? Do you feel as though minorities are well represented?</p>
<p>“Was SMU your first choice university? Did you choose it because of the proximity to the Dallas area?”
SMU was my first choice. I have quite a few family members that are SMU graduates including my dad, cousin, and uncle. I also wanted to go to school in a large city because I enjoy the urban lifestyle. I am from Texarkana and SMU was the perfect distance for going home my freshman year, though honestly I haven’t been back “home” since then because my parents moved out of state after my freshman year (and that was about 5 years ago). I actually had a full scholarship offer from a smaller school but ultimately decided SMU was better for my future (I had about half paid in scholarships total at SMU).</p>
<p>Dallas is a wonderful city to go to school in. The job market is generally good and there are many major companies. I work for one of the largest defense contractors in the world now in DFW. I had internships at Verizon Wireless, Siemens, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, all while staying local. I was able to take the DART train to/from most of them. By the way you can get an annual DART pass through SMU as a student for very cheap, only $5 when I was there which is an absolute steal.</p>
<p>“What are the top majors?”
That depends on your definition of “top” and what you’re interested in. I will say that I believe the Dedman majors (liberal arts like English, History, etc) as well as the general science like Biology are probably the most generic and worst for hiring unless you’re intending to pursue an advanced degree like go to vet school. In my experience the most successful majors in the school are the business majors including accounting, marketing, etc, the engineering majors, and a lot of the arts majors like advertising and theater.</p>
<p>At my company in DFW we have quite a few SMU graduates who were electrical engineering majors. I was a computer engineering major and had at least 2 job offers before I graduated.</p>
<p>“Do you feel as if SMU prepared you fully for your career?”
Yes, in fact many of the best engineers at my company are SMU graduates and we’ve really changed the attitude of UT, TAMU, TTU etc graduates towards us in the company. I like that SMU engineering and the Honors Program improved my writing and communication skills more than other schools.</p>
<p>“What improvements, if any, would you make to SMU?”
I have never agreed with some of the ways they get and spend our money. I can’t tell you the number of bogus parking tickets I got. The landscaping budget is probably astronomical.</p>
<p>“What is the racial composition of the students at SMU? Do you feel as though minorities are well represented?”
This is a hard question. SMU is one of the whitest schools I have ever seen. I feel like the situation is quickly improving, but the general attitude is that of the old fashioned conservative south. You will see rich white girls dress up for an 8 AM class in their Prada heals and $5000 handbags. That being said you can generally find a group you fit in with. If the rich white attitude isn’t your thing, as it wasn’t for me, you can avoid it by staying away from the Greek lifestyle.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>^re: the landscaping budget … We were told by admissions staff that the landscaping budget benefits from an absolutely enormous endowment. I can’t remember the exact figure, but it was HUGE. And the family that gave the money designated it for landscaping, to include changing out the flowers for every season! It does make for a beautiful campus! Students and parents don’t have to worry that their money is being spent on gorgeous landscaping, and yet they can all enjoy a lovely, serene environment. Perfect!</p>
<p>^My SMU son would pretty much agree with everything you said, ktbird.</p>
<p>SimpleLife, that doesn’t surprise me about the landscaping endowment though I hadn’t heard that before. You know that moving statue in front of the Meadows museum? The wave one with the posts shaped like 4x4’s over water? I was told that it cost over $1 million.</p>
<p>Speaking of cheap ways to milk students for cash, make sure your dorm fridge is the correct size when you buy it. Mine was about 1 sq foot too big and not only did I have to pay a fine that was well over $100, I had to go to a class on fire safety with sad videos about people dying in fires. I had a friend that also had to go because he hung a fan about 4 inches big from the ceiling (his bed was very close to the ceiling). They will go into your room unannounced to do fire inspections.</p>
<p>^lol! You had to watch sad videos about people dying in fires?! lol!</p>
<p>Yes. We’ve noticed. SMU is VERY big into their fire codes. And the max fridge size is highly advertised these days.</p>
<p>The other big gotcha at SMU, in our opinions – PARKING. Ouch.</p>
<p>I learned my lesson about parking my freshman year. The worst was when I was leaving for Thanksgiving break, I stopped at the meter parking on my way off campus in front of the library to drop off a handful of books. I put money in the meter and walked inside, dropped the books off, and walked out. In the minute or so this took, a campus cop came and started writing me a parking ticket. I got to my car and gave her an “are you serious?” look but she tore it out and handed it to me. My ticket just said, “Metered parking is for visitors only.” I know now that that was totally bogus but didn’t at the time.</p>
<p>I didn’t buy a parking pass the years after that when I lived off campus. I took the train/bus into campus and if I was driving, I parked in the neighborhoods around campus and walked.</p>
<p>Thank you kt bird!</p>
<p>Re: on campus housing
Since SMU requires the 1300 freshman to live on campus, and only about 2000 students total live on campus, what are the chances of being able to live on campus for 3 or 4 years?
It seems that it is just expected that one moves of campus after freshman year. Is this so?</p>
<p>^Not in my son’s experience. He and most of his friends remained on campus for their sophomore years.</p>
<p>There are lots of nice apartment options around – convenient to campus – and sharing an apartment with a roommate can be cheaper than on-campus housing. So, there are plenty of people with apartments, too.</p>
<p>But there are also plenty of juniors and seniors on campus. My son hasn’t mentioned any particular stress on his part or his friends’ part about whether they’ll get on-campus housing or not. I think it’s all good.</p>
<p>(Also, I’m pretty sure – almost positive – that they’ve just settled on plans to build new dorms so they can continue to house the number of people who want to live on campus.)</p>
<p>Yes! I’ve hit the jackpot… SMU experts! </p>
<p>I was just wondering what scholarships are like (I have a 31 ACT and 3.8 UW) and also when I can expect a decision ( I applied EA about 2-3 weeks ago). I couldn’t find an application status checker online :(</p>
<p>Thanks so much in advance!</p>
<p>@rouxbo,
My older son’s EA decision came in sometime between Thanksgiving break and mid-December, two years ago. (There were two schools that came in at that time – can’t remember which was which.) At that time, there was no application status checker.</p>
<p>My next son applied EA as well. We expect the decisions will be in around the same time – by Christmas. But this year, they actually have a new status checker! Some time after he applied (maybe 2 or 3 weeks later?), he got an email from SMU Admissions called “Your SMU Application Status.” Within the body of that email, there’s a personalized link to an individualized status checker!</p>
<p>Scholarships are awesome! Very generous. Of course, there’s no way to predict what you might get, particularly with just two stats to go by, but SMU is very generous with scholarships.</p>
<p>As I recall, one nice scholarship came with my older son’s decision. Generous, but not HUGE. Then, as I’ve written on other threads, over the course of the next 3-4 months, more and more scholarships trickled in. He ended up with a super-generous package.</p>
<p>Good luck, rouxbo! :)</p>
<p>SimpleLife - good gracious I don’t know if I can wait that long 
I applied using their
Distinguished applicant form so I was hoping that it’d be a little faster</p>
<p>Oh well… Good things come to those who wait I suppose :)</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>I’m an alumna as well, now working on a graduate degree in NYC. I do have to disagree with one thing I’ve seen here: most students DO move off campus after their freshman year. Obviously some remain, but they’re in the minority.</p>
<p>^Hmmmm … maybe it depends on the major? Most of son’s peers remained on campus sophomore year. Meadows – so they have to be around a lot on weekends and evenings. Maybe that accounts for the difference?</p>
<p>I was in Meadows too, and I’d say 90% of the upperclassmen in my program lived off campus. Some people will move to a fraternity/sorority house after their freshman year, but even then, not very many compared to the number of students who move off campus. No way I would have lived in a dorm for more than one year!</p>