<p>I've read about their summer research internship program and really wanted to apply, but they only accepted kids from the NY area and I live in Cali. All in all, Cooper Union is high on my list of "colleges I really want to go to." I doubt I'll apply ED though because it's just too binding. </p>
<p>If anyone else has any information/opinions concerning Cooper Union, (or other engineering schools) please post.</p>
<p>My D is a sophomore in the engineering school at Cooper Union and she's enjoying it very much. I've been reading this thread and would like to emphasize that the engineering curriculum is tough but it is a very small school and the students do help each other out. My D did not feel the atmosphere to be cut-throat. The professors are extremely helpful and I think the faculty student interaction is very high so you can really get help if you need it. When my D visited the open house during her senior high school year - the dean of engineering emphasized that one should not consider applying if the SAT I is below 1350. One the whole, Cooper Union selects students based on the academic standing as well as the SAT I & II and I also find that the graduating students (at far as engineering goes) have been admitted to some impressive graduate schools such as Stanford, MIT, Princeton, etc.</p>
<p>On the whole, I think Cooper Union is a great school and offers significant opportunities (whether it be engineering, architecture or art) and it's up to the individual to take full advantage of what the school has to offer.</p>
<p>worriedmom, glad your D is enjoying CU. </p>
<p>I remember a long thread a couple years ago (prob somewhere in the Princeton Review discussions archive) written by an engineering Cooper Union student. I only bring it up because it was so sad and very detailed. It went on and on about how unfair many of the profs were, the facilities, lack of cohesion of the student body, etc etc, it got a lot of attention on the PR (I think it was PR, not CC) boards. I remember one poster saying he was going to Carnegie Mellon specifically as a result of this student's thread. Of course it was just one person's (very negative) opinion and other posters defended the school though. It might be worth trying to find if you are interested in Cooper.</p>
<p>The location is great...super area just north of NYU and below Union Square.</p>
<p>Hey, I am also a sophomore engineer at Cooper Union, so there's a real great chance I know your daughter.</p>
<p>At least in the engineering school, no one competes with one another, except sometimes the various engineering disciplines joke on each other.</p>
<p>The administration is dumb like bricks though, and they are going to knock down and rebuild two buildings in a way that's going to screw the place over bigtime. I think you could still go for the class of 2009 in engineering without being affected by that too much except during your senior year. As for art and architecture class of 2009, I wouldn't know very much as I'm not in those programs, but basically they plan on knocking down all the artist studios sometime in 2006, then not building enough to replace them, and what's more they so far seem to have NO IDEA where they will put artist studios temporarily until the first new building is done.</p>
<p>Tim</p>
<p>Can you elaborate more on this building plan? It doesn't sound all that great. Actually I'll be the class of 2010 (if I get in). How much will this affect the college as a whole?</p>
<p>Here's, to the best of my knowledge, all the buildings that Cooper uses that are related to school functions (as opposed to buildings and land they own as income-generating real estate.)</p>
<p>Foundation Building - the original brown one you see as the face of Cooper Union. The interior was hugely renovated within the past two decades, and it's the nicest building at Cooper. Used for art and architecture classes, their offices, the library, the Great Hall...</p>
<p>Hewitt Building - this was built around the turn of the twentieth century. They screwed up building it; it was planned to be six stories but they could only build two because of problems with the foundation. It hasn't been renovated to any great degree as far as I know, so it's the worst building at Cooper. It's used for studios, maybe some art/architecture classes, and a lot of miscellaneous purposes like the cafeteria, a lounge, etc.</p>
<p>Engineering Building - Built in the 50's, six stories. There's never been a concerted renovation, but parts here and there are rebuild and updated as the various departments desire and can afford. Ugly but servicable. Houses the entire school of engineering (classrooms, labs, offices), and humanities.</p>
<p>30 Cooper - Cooper Union rents several floors at this building for administrative offices. It's actually owned by a Cooper Alum, who has refused to donate or will the building to Cooper. I don't know whether or not rent is charged, but I think at least some is.</p>
<p>Dorms - Opened 1992, capacity 182 students in an 18 story building. They actually never call it the dorms - it is always the "Residence Hall" to the people in charge. To everyone else, dorms. Rents are like $4,000+ a month for a two bedroom apartment, two people per bedroom. (If you don't know your East Village real estate, that is still considered expensive.) Most people I know now pay about the same rent per person in their non-Cooper apartments but have their own rooms as opposed to sharing. You still might want to live here the first year as you get to know people and it is right across the street from school.</p>
<p>President's Residence - A swanky house that was donated to the school around the year 2000. So it's not bad that the president is provided with a nice residence at this cash-strapped place, but it is bad that he had the school renovate it for him at a cost of 1.5 million. Just to give you an idea of the administration's priorities.</p>
<p>Here's the building plan they have:</p>
<p>The Foundation building will be mostly unchanged. There might be some minor renovations to more efficiently cram things in there.</p>
<p>The Hewitt building will be knocked down sometime in 2006, to be replaced with the 8 or 9 story NAB (New Academic Building, unnamed until someone drops $35 million.) Construction will take maybe a year and a half.</p>
<p>The Engineering building will be knocked down following the completion of the NAB. The site will go from school to income generation - I think the most recent plan is for a fifteen story office block.</p>
<p>At 30 Cooper they will rent at least another floor to fit more offices there.</p>
<p>The NAB (99,000 sq ft. "programmable space") is going to be slightly smaller than the current Engineering building. The Hewitt building is 40,000 sq ft. "programmable space". Programmable space is basically useful space as opposed to hallways and elevators. So there is going to be a loss of 40,000+ sq ft. once the Engineering building is demolished. Obviously things are going to be tight. There will not be enough studios to maintain the art school at current enrollment, for example, but the President says "there are no plans to make the school smaller." He is a disingenuous kind of guy, who has "no plans" to do anything people don't like. Various groups, labs, etc. are going to have to fight for sufficient space or maybe even existence in the NAB. There's also a lot of space being given over to architectural frippery, along with other problems like the brilliant architectural idea that the elevators should only stop on 3 floors. In general the architecture of the new building is going to be really bad, but that's an annoyance, not the major issue.</p>
<p>They're letting concerns about real estate income dominate over getting the best building for school use. Unless the financial situation is many times as dire as they're letting on, this is wrong. The Hewitt site, because of its small size and zoning issues, is probably the worst major site the school owns, so that's the one the students get. The reason the NAB is not going to be big enough is that it can't be any bigger on the NAB site. Across the street from the school there is a school owned lot which was a parking lot and is now a 21 story residential building, $2-$10 million per apartment. Even that site, which is small, would probably have been better for the NAB, because at least there they are allowed to build a tall building - the apartment building is going to be over 113,000 sq ft. A conservative Ukrainian population (along with general sentiment against tall buildings) is preventing that at the Hewitt site, as a bigger building would destroy an alley where they park about 20 cars and mean less light for a stained glass window in their church.</p>
<p>I have a nice quote from some meeting minutes:</p>
<p>"motivation for plans is to increase earnings to Cooper from real estate holdings. Parking site building brought in $11M on signing and is expected to bring in $1.85M per year. Engineering site is expected to bring in $3.7M per year."</p>
<p>It's the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Real Estate.</p>
<p>Is it going to wreck the school? I don't think so. The quality of the school comes from the professors, students, and curriculum. But it will be bad for it.</p>
<p>If you go to <a href="http://www.cooper.edu%5B/url%5D">www.cooper.edu</a> and click on "Cooper Builds" you can read their side on the NAB. To me, it reads as an egregious pile of BS.</p>
<p>Tim</p>