<p>Carnegie Mellon has a page up about its fall 2007 regional information session schedule. </p>
<p>More locations may be added to the list, but perhaps your city already has a meeting scheduled (mine does not). Check it out.</p>
<p>A bump to indicate that a more complete list of cities has been posted since I first opened this thread. </p>
<p>R.S.V.P. through the online form or by telephone. You may find these meetings helpful as you plan your applications. </p>
<p>A more complete list of regional information sessions by lots of colleges can be found at </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=389153%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=389153</a> </p>
<p>Good luck during the application season.</p>
<p>Has anyone on CC been to one of these meetings already? The one in my town is next week.</p>
<p>I went to one. It was ok. They answered a lot of the questions I had but nothing you can't find online.</p>
<p>My son, wife, and I all attended this evening's Carnegie-Mellon information meeting in suburban Minneapolis. My son and I have been to one of these meetings before. We arrived late because of schedule conflicts. </p>
<p>As we arrived, the admission representative Robert Tallerico had just finished playing a video showing lots of students and their activities at CMU. He mentioned that Pittsburgh has 86,000 students attending ten different colleges and universities and is thus the second-largest college town in the United States after Boston. He said the CMU campus is about five miles from downtown Pittsburgh in an upscale neighborhood. (I have been to Pittsburgh but I don't think I have ever seen the CMU campus.) The campus is near a park like New York City's Central Park--the park had the same designer. </p>
<p>He said there are hundreds (really? so say my notes) of applicants to CMU each year from Minnesota. [Dozens from Minnesota, and hundreds from the Midwest? I wonder if I recorded this wrong, or misheard it.] The campus is very international and diverse. He said the most common question an admission officer from CMU will hear is "Why do you admit so many internationals?" He said the answer is that you meet more different people that way as a CMU student, and that adds to the experience. </p>
<p>Carnegie-Mellon has an overseas campus in Doha, Qatar. It also has overseas programs in Greece, in Indonesia, and in Australia, and is the only non-Australian university allowed to issue Australian graduate degrees. </p>
<p>All classes are taught by members of the CMU faculty except for the introductory computing class (a class on how to operate computers on the CMU network) and the first-year writing class, which is taught by Ph.D. students. There is a 10:1 student:teacher ratio. The average class size is from 25 to 35 students. About 75 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students. </p>
<p>There are many campus activities and clubs. About 15 to 18 percent of students participate in Greek fraternities or sororities. </p>
<p>You can study abroad pretty much anywhere in the world through CMU, even in Antarctica, where some CMU physics majors have done undergraduate research. The study abroad office helps students travel to Europe, Australia, South America, and Asia. </p>
<p>Carnegie-Mellon has Division III NCAA sports. About 80 percent of students participate in intramural sports. The most popular sport is Ultimate. The CMU teams are the Tartan, "the most feared piece of cloth in the NCAA." A new mascot for the Tartan teams is the Scots Terrier. </p>
<p>Housing is guaranteed for four years. About 75 percent of students live on campus all four years. Some students who go off-campus find that they can't come back to on-campus housing once they have left, but the guarantee works if you stay on campus. CMU is a "happy, vibrant campus community." There is food-court-style dining; not everyone dines in the same building. Dining plans are required of on-campus students. </p>
<p>Two students at Carnegie-Mellon are majoring in bagpipe performance, the only such students in the country. The bagpipe majors have been interviewed by national news media about their unusual major, which reflects CMU's Scottish heritage through founder Andrew Carnegie, who immigrated to the United States from Scotland. </p>
<p>Spring Carnival is a big event on campus, and draws back more alumni than the autumn homecoming. There are no classes for a week during Spring Carnival. There is a buggy race that started with Soapbox Derby-like cars some decades ago, but now features very small, aerodynamic, and rather fast (30 to 40 miles per hour) vehicles pushed by a student and steered by a small student inside. Short students are recruited each year to be buggy drivers. </p>
<p>The Fence is a CMU institution. The original fence was painted once by a frat to announce a party, and gradually it became a campus tradition for student groups to paint the fence to announce group activities. Each group that desires to paint the fence must paint it between midnight and 6:00am, and no other group may paint it if the first group to paint it guards the fence in person. So there are often tents holding students who stay overnight near the fence. The true, original fence won a Guinness Book of World Records recognition as the most painted object in the world and eventually collapsed under the weight of so many layers of paint. The replacement fence is still a proud campus tradition. </p>
<p>CMU has Career Center to make sure graduates have somewhere to go after they graduate. Carnegie-Mellon does better at placement than any university in the country. All students have career advisors, including the fine arts students. There are between 1,200 and 1,300 new graduates of CMU each year, but there are 10,000 on-campus recruiting interviews each year. Many universities publish placement statistics for graduates six months after graduation, but CMU publishes such statistics for graduates as of graduation day, when 90 percent of graduates have a job or other plan lined up. </p>
<p>Pittsburgh has twice been named the most livable city in America. Western Pennsylvania is an area with a lot of sportsmen, and school pupils there get the first day of hunting season off from school. </p>
<p>Mr. Tallerico showed a video (which my son and I saw the last time we attended a CMU meeting) about how CMU is viewed by employers. Theater producers were overrepresented in the video, but Bill Gates also appeared talking about computer science at CMU, which he holds in high regard. </p>
<p>Then Mr. Tallerico talked about applying to CMU. He said CMU uses the Common Application with its own supplement, and that all forms may be submitted online. Two letters of recommendation are required, and one should come from a counselor. Don't submit more than three letters of recommendation; that shows you haven't thought about who knows you best. </p>
<p>The question students always ask admission officers is "What are you looking for?" CMU is looking for </p>
<p>1) Secondary school performance. </p>
<p>The transcript and choice of courses is important. When a teacher writes a letter of recommendation, the teacher often has more to say in your favor if the course was not a course that you easily aced, but rather a course where you started out slowly in and had to really work in to get an A. </p>
<p>2) Non-academic information. </p>
<p>Let CMU know about your activities, including part-time jobs. Anything that takes up your time is good to tell CMU about. CMU is looking for "well-rounded students," who succeed both inside and outside the classroom. Your essays are important because you have control of them. You can still do something about your essay after your grades and activities are mostly history. Tell CMU something that is not in the rest of your application when you write your essay. If CMU's admission committee likes the person who submitted the app, after being won over by the essay, they are more likely to like the application. </p>
<p>3) Standardized testing. </p>
<p>You should submit an SAT I or an ACT score, and CMU has NO preference for one test over the other. Take either or both test as many times as you want. CMU takes the highest scores, so if you aren't satisfied with your first test results, be sure to take the tests again. Some colleges at CMU require various combinations of SAT II Subject Tests. There is a portfolio review for fine art students, and a very decisive audition for performing art students. </p>
<p>CMU has both merit scholarships and need-based financial aid. There is no separate application for merit scholarships, and the usual federal FAFSA form for need-based aid. </p>
<p>The average need-based package for CMU's annual cost of attendance of $49,000 is $22,943 (down a little bit in the most recently reported year from previous years) of which $18,094 is grants. About 10 percent of the class will have merit scholarships, so don't expect one of those. </p>
<p>The meeting ended with a video showing alumni, including astronauts (more than one), inventors, and many performers and artists. </p>
<p>After the meeting, my son talked to an alumna who studied computer science and is now a lawyer. She told him about a classmate of hers that invented something while still an undergrad, making enough money to buy his mother a house. I said, "That's the right story for us." :) </p>
<p>We went home tired but glad to get more information about CMU.</p>
<p>Couldn't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure my son sent in four recommendations. Two teachers (Latin and physics) and two from work - one from a chemist for who he'd written a program that has been cited in several articles and one from the head of the firm for whom he'd done more straightforward web programming. He probably could have used just one work recommendation, but which one? At any rate he wasn't blackballed for having too many recommendations. :)</p>
<p>Mathmom- I am glad to read your son submitted 4 letters of recommendation and was admitted. My son is getting 3 from teachers and the guidance counselor too. I hope admissions won't frown upon this. He feels all 3 know him well and can write strong letters. They are band, japanese and computer science ( his intended major). Anyone else have a comment or opinion on this?</p>
<p>A minor point but I don't think CMU cancels classes for a whole week for Carnival. Friday for sure, maybe Thurs but I believe that's all.</p>
<p>Parents: try to catch the buggy races at least once while your S/D is there (if he/she doesn't mind...mine didn't). Very cool, and they put a lot of time into it. S along with fraternity brothers practiced on weekends for months, very early weekend mornings when he wasn't let's say at his best ;). The buggies whip around amazingly fast, sometimes wipe out, generally small females (who aren't claustrophobic) drive and the strongest and fastest men or women are the pushers. Racing against the clock, it's very competitive...lot's of spirit for a school that doesn't have D1 sports.</p>
<p>No expert but can't imagine they'd frown on an extra rec...band, japanese, and cs seems like a good combination of different interests that will paint a more complete picture of your S, which is the idea.</p>
<p>Great writeup, tokenadult! I'm a current undergrad and a have a few comments/clarifications about what you wrote:</p>
<p>Usually the percentage of students involved in Greek life is quoted as being higher than 18%, I think, but there are many students that are fraternity or sorority members without living in the houses, so this could be the discrepancy. Or I could be wrong. :) Dining plans are required of first year students; those physically living on/really close to campus are required to have a full plan, while those living in off campus apartments through CMU can have a reduced "commuter plan," at least for second semester. Sophomore year and on you are free to do whatever you want. For Spring Carnival we only get Thursday or Friday off (but considering how few breaks we get, that's a lot! And Wednesday-before-Carnival classes usually don't have the best attendance :) )</p>