<p>I was recently accepted to MIT and was wondering if anyone could speak about CPW? Was this experience a tipping factor for anyone in terms of matriculating? I live close to the school and have already seen it briefly, so I'm not sure if it's worth missing school, finding someone to cover my shifts for work, etc? Should I just visit for a day instead? Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>It’s on a weekend, and if you live relatively close, why would you need to miss school?</p>
<p>College is a big decision–I would go to the Campus Preview Weekend. Yes, it is worth missing work and/or school.</p>
<p>CPW is amazing. Looking at a campus isn’t enough - CPW gives you the chance to spend nights in a dorm, see all the activities people are up to, and feel the energy/excitement people feel while doing them.</p>
<p>It’s definitely a big factor for a lot of people - though not for me personally, as I knew I wanted to come all along :)</p>
<p>sorry lilacfrost, I’m going to hijack this thread (btw, since you live nearby, I would go unless you’re missing a major event or something, and work isn’t really major)</p>
<p>talking about major events, CPW is at the same time as the state competition for brain bowl here in FL. I already registered for brain bowl (not 100% sure if I can back out, I’m not e-mailing the coach unless I’m sure I’d rather do CPW). The competition is in Disney World (we get Hopper Pases and everything). However, I was offered fly-in to MIT (they’ll help pay the costs of travel) and that makes CPW much more appealing than I had expected. MIT is first choice, so it won’t be about picking a school, more to get a feel for the school, my classmates, Boston, and getting discounts on MIT gear. However, brain bowl states can be one of the last great harrahs of high school.</p>
<p>So, finally I get to the question, should I go to CPW or this state competition?</p>
<p>One thing worth noting - orientation is a lot like CPW, except there’s even more going on. And you’ll have 4 years to explore Boston and get a feel for the school and such.</p>
<p>So if you’ve already picked MIT and have something else awesome happening that weekend, that’s worth noting ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, the primary reason to go to CPW is if you aren’t sure about your college choice.<br>
If you’re already sure about MIT and there is something else that’s important to you going on that weekend, then CPW may not be the best thing. But it’s kind of cool after trying to impress these colleges, to have them trying to impress you.</p>
<p>CPW is awesome, you should go. Even if you’re already 100% sure that you want to go to MIT, CPW is a useful time to get a feel for the school / explore dorms / meet people. It’s definitely way different than just visiting on a weekend.</p>
<p>CPW was a tipping factor in our family. I recommend going, if you can. Take your parents, if you can – you will stay in the dorms, do your own thing, and not see much of them, but they may need to see MIT.</p>
<p>Our daughter was accepted to a bunch of top schools four years ago, and we did not qualify for any need-based aid at MIT. My husband did not understand why he should pay full freight at MIT versus a school like Yale, which was about $6,000 per year less at the time. A not-insignificant difference. He had never visited the MIT campus, so he took our daughter to CPW.</p>
<p>CPW offers a wide variety of sessions for parents. My husband really liked the sessions about the undergraduate research experiences (UROP), travel abroad, the lectures by professors, visits to the labs, etc. etc. What was also valuable was a sit-down meeting with a financial officer, who basically said, eyeball to eyeball: “We believe your family can afford to send your daughter here. Here’s the amount we think she should contribute to her education, each year. Here’s the amount we think you should contribute.” That conversation was sort of like a bucket of ice-water over the head — bracing; shocking; needed.</p>
<p>By the time they visited Yale, several days later, my husband was sold. It didn’t hurt that he’d seen how much our daughter loved MIT. He was taken out to dinner by two members of Yale’s alumni society or board of trustees, and the wife said something like, "Don’t send your daughter to MIT; they’re all “tools.” And he said something back like: “Technology is more and more important in the world, and I’d be happy to have her study at the top-most university for science and engineering.”</p>
<p>I may be mis-remembering some words, but not the spirit.</p>
<p>Four years later: Best decision we ever made, to support our daughter’s choice of MIT. The undergraduate research experiences she’s had have been absolutely astounding. Along the way, she’s learned to race a sailboat, ice-skate, and take wonderful photographs. She’ll graduate this spring, but she’ll still be nearby…probably just a bit up the road at that other Cambridge university.
:-)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses! I’ll definitely be attending CPW! Initially it seemed a bit of an inconvenience, starting on a Thursday and all, but seems like it’s worth it. Also a good excuse to miss school :)</p>
<p>I’ve decided to attend CPW too, if MIT really helps me afford the flight.</p>
<p>Just to offer a different perspective, I attended CPW in the past and the experience was a huge tipping factor for me too, but in the other direction. </p>
<p>I didn’t have a very good time from the very beginning for silly reasons that have little to do with the school itself. First of all, my host never informed her roommate beforehand that they would be expecting a visitor for the four day period, so her roommate made it very apparent from my initial appearance that she did not appreciate my presence. Really, if you have too much work and are feeling stressed out, don’t host. It gives the pre-frosh a bad impression of the friendliness of the student body. </p>
<p>This was somewhat resolved when my host, in order to appease her roommate, arranged for me to move to another room in the same dorm, but this other room was a medium sized double that already had three other pre-frosh! So it was two college freshmen and four pre-frosh, all cramped up in the tiny little space meant for two. This wasn’t something I minded too much - in fact, it was very nice of the girls in this new room to provide a place for me to stay - except my two new hosts were working on their problem sets till almost four in the morning for all the nights I stayed with them :eek:! On top of that, they had this loud alarm clock that started to go off every ten minutes from eight o’clock in the morning. So, I came to MIT after hours of traveling, not feeling welcomed, tired but couldn’t get any sleep. So if my impressions of CPW and MIT ever sound too negative, this is probably partially the reason. </p>
<p>Even though I’m a science person, I enjoy writing, literature, and subjects in the humanity and was very much turned off by the disregard of many of people I met for humanity courses. Everybody seemed to be majoring in some sort of engineering – I was left with the impression that the harder the particular branch of engineering, the more impressive it is, until all the pre-frosh started declaring that no, of course they aren’t interested in some “soft” subjects like biology, they, too, were all into only engineering :rolleyes: ! After talking to upperclassmen, I found out that MIT also had very stringent general education requirements that mandate high level math courses for virtually students of every major. In terms of social life, I wasn’t going to join a sorority and therefore didn’t want a school where the social scene revolves around Greek life. CPW left me with the impression that MIT social life is too much dominated by the frat party scene, which was very off-putting. Etc, etc. </p>
<p>In the end, you definitely want to visit at least once the school you’re serious about attending, to make sure that the college you choose is somewhere where you will be happy, both academically and socially. What I don’t like about the college is oftentimes what someone else like about it the most. CPW was fun overall but not the kind of best experience I had expected. It did show me, however, a view of MIT life that I was not able to perceive from a distance.</p>
<p>I think CPW is a must for any prospective student. Whether you have a reaction like CalAlum’s daughter or like Calico, you are going to know for certain whether or not you should be at MIT after attending CPW. </p>
<p>I really can’t stress it enough. It is like no other accepted students weekend in the world. Period. End of story. Not saying that as an admissions officer, saying that as a person who applied to 10 schools and visited various ASWs myself back in 2005.</p>
<p>Whether you are certain that you will attend MIT or are on the fence, if you’ve been accepted to MIT, you should try to attend CPW because MIT is so different from any other University or College in many ways.</p>
<p>For those that are certain, it’s important to visit the dorms to see where you want to live in the fall. MIT doesn’t have any freshmen only dorms – all undergrads from freshmen to seniors live together. And unless you move to an independent living group your sophomore year, it is highly likely that you will stay in the same dorm all four years. You have to rank the dorms in early June and in the past most students were temped in one of their top four choices. Of course you can try to change over REX, but it’s a good idea to explore your choices before June at CPW. All dorms are open on Saturday from 2-5pm for official tours, but if you are a pre-frosh, you can tour any dorm at just about any time.</p>
<p>For those that are uncertain, CPW is a great time to see all that MIT has to offer. Fit is very important and attending CPW will help you decide whether you fit at MIT or not. And, just like those that are certain that they will matriculate to MIT in the fall, you should visit all of the dorms because the cultures in them are vastly different. You may be turned off by the dorm or independent living group (ILGs which include national fraternities and sororities as well as other independent living groups) that you are being housed in over CPW only to find that some other dorm or ILG is a great fit for you.</p>
<p>Also, while the thread that ties MIT students together is a desire to major or maybe eventually work some way in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) field, each student has different outside hobbies and interests. There are clubs or groups for just about everything and you can learn more about them over CPW.</p>
<p>It is important to remember that CPW is a condensed snapshot of everything available at MIT, and is not what a real weekend is like.</p>
<p>Things to think about when visiting or deciding to attend MIT:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects are hard everywhere, but a little harder at MIT because they cover so much in each semester. I compared the chem. E requirements at MIT to another University and there was NO ROOM in the other university’s schedule of four classes per semester to get a minor in management (which my daughter is doing), but there is lots of room in the MIT schedule. I think that is because they cover so much more per semester in each subject that they get through the required curriculum faster. This is good and bad. Good because you can take more classes. Bad because you may not understand the material as well because you are rushing through it. My neighbor from MIT who transferred into MIT as a junior said that she felt that getting a S.B. at MIT is like getting a masters elsewhere. I had one class at MIT where the TA said that he took an entire semester to study something that we were going to spend one week on. He said that MIT must consider us to be 12 times smarter than everyone else! In the short run I did feel that we rushed through stuff. In the long run I felt that I had been exposed to a lot and how to think.</p></li>
<li><p>At MIT you will be living with everyone who is also majoring in a STEM subject or at least having to take the GIRs in math and science which are very rigorous even if they choose something else. EVERYONE will be studying hard and killing themselves to get the work done. At another university, you will probably be living with only a few STEM majors and many other people who are majoring in non-STEM subjects. While you are studying, they may be partying or at least enjoying life a little. That means that it is easier to “melt out of” a STEM subject and major in something else. If you really think that you want to do a STEM subject, you will have people surrounding you and supporting you to stick with it at MIT. That may not be the case elsewhere. They may actually talk you out of majoring in a STEM subject.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are an athlete considering a degree in a STEM subject, you should be aware that Division I sports at other schools are like a job. You will have to decrease your work load during your sport in order to practice and travel. In Division I sports the sport comes first and academics second. At MIT, most sports are in Division III, so it’s the other way around.</p></li>
<li><p>Interest in Music and STEM subjects seem to go together. Many MIT students are very talented musically.</p></li>
<li><p>Whether you are an athlete, a singer, an actor, or anything else in your spare time at MIT, EVERYONE at the entire school will understand Maxwell’s Equations by the end of their freshman year, which means that technical jokes are told and laughed at by everyone. You might have to hide your inner nerd somewhere else because almost no one else will understand what you are talking about. I LOVED that about MIT.</p></li>
<li><p>MIT is practically in downtown Boston surrounded by many other colleges and universities. You don’t need a car. It’s a cool place to spend four years!</p></li>
<li><p>MIT has MISTI so students do RESEARCH abroad. My daughter will be spending next summer in Aachen Germany doing research on biofuels. Most other schools have a STUDY abroad program. Trying to do study abroad while studying a STEM subject can be very difficult. Another MIT student that we know and runs on the MIT cross country team that just placed third in the Nationals in Division III, is getting a mechanical engineering degree in biomedical engineering. She studied Japanese for her first two years at MIT and spent last summer doing research in Japan.</p></li>
<li><p>MIT was the first school to offer UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) They say that 85-90 percent of undergrads do research during their time at MIT. My daughter started her UROP in January 2010 and is now so fully involved in her lab that she is designing her own experiments. Some of what she is doing she will be able to use in the research she will be doing in Germany because it’s all about genetic manipulation. She also got paid during the semesters and over the summer (some 900 students or almost a quarter of the student body spend the summer at MIT working on UROPs), which helped pay for her food and extras. She received credit over both IAPs (January Independent Activities Period).</p></li>
<li><p>President Hockfield started the MIT Energy Initiative when she became president. About a quarter of the Institute is involved in energy research. My daughter is involved in the MIT Energy Club which puts on an energy conference every year in the spring. She worked on a workshop that educated undergrads about Start-ups. She is now very excited about the possibility of someday starting her own company (which is another reason that she is minoring in management). I know that other schools are also getting undergrads involved in energy, but at MIT, it involves the entire school!</p></li>
<li><p>MIT has pass/no record first semester freshman year and ABC/no record second semester freshman year so that students can get used to living away from home and MIT. Also there is sophomore exploratory, which my daughter has taken advantage of during her sophomore year. She just wants to understand how computers work so she intends to take a lot of computer science courses even though none of them are required because she is majoring in Chemical Biological Engineering – Course 10-B. She is taking the courses under sophomore exploratory, which means she could drop it until six weeks AFTER the semester was over. This encourages students to take subjects outside their major without the stress of grades. The concept worked because she always did the problem sets last, always thinking every week that if she didn’t do well, that she would drop the class. She ended up getting a B! And LOVED the class. I told her that to understand computers, she needed to take a class on algorithms, and one on data structures, and then one where they have to put it all together and build a large project. She intends to take all those classes under junior/senior pass/fail. She won’t get a minor in CS, but will end up with a really good understanding of how computers work when she graduates.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>MIT is not for everyone. But for those really intense individuals who want to learn a lot and LOVE everything STEM, it’s the perfect place.</p>
<p>How different would it be if I just visited MIT but not during CPW? I really do want to visit MIT but due to a conflict and travel convenience, it does not seem like I’ll make it to CPW.</p>
<p>If you absolutely can’t visit during CPW, you should try to go another time while the term is still in session. Pick a couple of different dorms to try to get tours of especially one outgoing dorm on West Campus such as Baker, a quieter dorm such as Macgregor or Simmons and then an East Campus dorm such as East Campus or Random Hall. (You can choose others. There are threads on the differences between the dorms.) Try to talk to kids in each of the dorms and around campus.</p>
<p>CPW is a unique weekend. It’s representative and not respresentative at all. Everyone on campus is prepared for the influx of 800-1000 pre-frosh plus many parents. There are activities planned for the students literally around the clock (and parents during the day). Most kids say that they don’t sleep all weekend. The MIT students are in the middle of the semester still working on their projects and p-sets and trying to entertain the pre-frosh as best as possible. You’ll be exposed to everything that MIT has to offer without having to try to find the people to talk to and arrange it yourself which you would have to do if you visit another weekend.</p>
<p>In some ways visiting another weekend is more like the real MIT because students will be intensely going about their business. However it will be harder to get all of your questions answered when sometimes you don’t know what questions to ask. There are many things that are different about MIT than other Colleges and Universities (such as housing and dining and UROP and MISTI) and you and your parents might assume that MIT does things the same way. At CPW, everything is placed before you and you may even have the reaction “I didn’t know they had that”. So CPW is a wonderful time to really see the uniqueness that is MIT.</p>
<p>But if you can’t go to CPW, try to visit during the term before you have to fill out your housing preferences.</p>
<p>yeah i mean visiting is better than not but CPW is far, far better than just visiting</p>
<p>Haha yeah so I’ve decided to go to CPW…just wish plane tix weren’t so expensive >< oh well, looking at the lineup of activities, it should be worth it!</p>
<p>Sent from my iPod Shuffle.</p>