<p>How to get past the department head and the committee? There's probably no committee, and frankly your rule about being too busy applies to any department head. If I have the explicit discretion, or if I know that I have implicit discretion, the process is either for me to go online to "permit" the student to enroll or for me to go to the academic advisor in the department and ask her to do it. Even if there's a built in (software controlled) criterion for admission to the course, this can often be appealed or overridden. It's not a matter of "high policy." Maybe it is at CMU, for reasons I mentioned in my first post on this thread, but again the profs have a lot of independent influence in deciding individual cases, and department chairs/heads are usually focusing on more important issues than who gets an override into a course. (I was a dept. head for 9 years, and I never had such a case referred to me.)</p>
<p>I am aware of that. I came in w/ advanced credits and have had help from several advisors.....I have taken more hours than is normally approved, taken upper level courses, registered for majors early, taken courses by virtue of permission and in the end am submatriculating for a graduate degree. I have found my school to be very supportive and flexible. To date I have or have had no less than 5 advisors......all of whom were supportive and helpful. I do very much appreciate the advice, support and help that all have given me.</p>
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at least understand what they're thinking and what they're willing to do
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</p>
<p>I simply we needed to understand how rigidly they intended to follow the rules. My wife and my experience in our 4 respective universities was that they're pretty understanding about somethings and not so understanding about others depending on who you deal with and how. </p>
<p>Most of the time we encountered people like mackinaw, who were reasonable about exceptions if we could make a reasonable case for them. That's more than fair. </p>
<p>The folks in my son's major seem like that so far. This is our first exposure to the folks in his minor and the email my son received was pretty brutal. If that's the line they're going to take, we've got a much tougher row to hoe than we expected.</p>
<p>Has your son talked to anyone about his "minor dilemma" other than this advisor? Do I understand that your son won't be allowed to minor in this area unless he goes to CMU for four years (instead of three)? Is CMU trying to discourage people from graduating in three years?</p>
<p>We just learned of this this morning, so he hasn't had much chance to talk to anyone yet. </p>
<p>I don't think CMU considers this an explicit policy. For that matter, you can graduate from CMU in 3 years if you take all the hours at tcMU itself. The combination of policies just work against students who transfer in a lot of hours as a freshman.</p>
<p>They don't take regular transfers in his school so the number of hours my son has is unusual.</p>
<p>Who cares how long it takes to graduate: I mean if you have to spend lots of academic hours taking courses for "interest" but are restricted from upper level, graduate, courses because you haven't been at the school for 3 years....hmmmmmm</p>
<p>Apparently CMU doesn't accept "profoundly" gifted and accomplished kids who come into college w/o HS and want to move to graduate courses immediately? How sad.</p>
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**The combination of policies just work against students who transfer in a lot of hours as a freshman.
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**</p>
<p>I have missunderstood your situation from the get go. Never did I understand that your son was a transfer student. I wrongly took the idea as he came in highly accelerated......as in lots of early college courses or AP credit or other........</p>
<p>IF space is limited and CMU serves their own students first then your issue is different than limiting academic challenge and access to advanced course work.</p>
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I have missunderstood your situation from the get go. Never did I understand that your son was a transfer student. I wrongly took the idea as he came in highly accelerated......as in lots of early college courses or AP credit or other........
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<p>He entered CMU immediately after graduating from high school, just like everyone else. He just had 69 semester hours, most of which transfered. He attended a residential high school on a college campus.</p>
<p>I said they don't take transfers at all, you may have misunderstood me then, because you were right the first time.</p>
<p>The only thing remotely mitigating against spending another year at the school when you could complete your degree without it is $43,000.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. I thought that I was hearing you correctly at first. OK so your were at a HS who must have had some experience w/ their students and CMU.......have they offered any help? Did your HS suggest or give you grand support regarding CMU? It just seems odd to me. </p>
<p>I hate to hear this........not because of CMU necessarily but because of a student who believed that acceleration was available to him. </p>
<p>I cannot understand then how CMU would accomodate say a student who accelerates over the summer....each summer. How does that work? It makes no sense that they would limit their access for by doing so they eliminate "profound" students from their campus. How does that cohort work? This is quite stunning to me. It may however explain why the school isn't so popular with kids from whence I came.</p>
<p>Stark:</p>
<p>Would it really be the end of the world if he didn't have a "minor" in a second department?</p>
<p>Does anyone really care?</p>
<p>Hazmat:</p>
<p>My read on the situation is that the course the lad wants to take is over-enrolled. It's not a situation where they are preventing him from taking the course simply out of bureaucratic spite. But, rather, there simply isn't a seat for him and he's low man on the totem pole because he's only been on campus for one semester and students who have been on campus for three or five or seven semesters get priority.</p>
<p>I understand..........in truth it could also have been any course that is in the coursecatalogue but not taught each year.....or taught only by a prof that is on leave for a year.......these things all happen. Many folks who are researching academic programs fail to look deeply such as how often is a course offered? Can one begin a sequence course off schedule? That type of thing.</p>
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Stark:</p>
<p>Would it really be the end of the world if he didn't have a "minor" in a second department?</p>
<p>Does anyone really care?
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</p>
<p><strick></strick></p>
<p>Except for it being a requirement for graduation, no, I guess not. ;)</p>
<p>He was "low man on the totem pole", but top of the waitlist. I suppose if you think that a student who's been on campus a long time should receive priority over someone who would graduate at the same time but is a "johnny come lately", you could think that way. </p>
<p>But if a school does, is it necessarily a good place for motivated students with prior achievements to attend? And it's certainly reasonable to ask if they knew his circumstance before making the decision, not mistaking him for a freshman who didn't know what he was doing for instance, rather than what you suggest.</p>
<p>If the message was just that class was full, we'd understand. That's life. If the message is they don't make exceptions even though he's as qualified as anyone who is officially a junior and that will prevent him from finishing when he could, it's something else all together.</p>
<p>Having a minor is a degree reqirement? How many students are carrying the designation of Junior status in that specific department versus the number of registration spots in the course? I am curious if you see a problem? In the FWIW I have had kids from GW say that registering there and getting all the required courses in 8 terms is a problem.</p>
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Having a minor is a degree reqirement?
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</p>
<p>I've never heard of a college with that as a graduation requirement, either.</p>
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If the message was just that class was full, we'd understand.
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<p>What other message could you take? The term "waitlist" implies that the course is full. The fact that the school put him on waitlist suggests that they weren't going to prevent him from taking the course, should a spot open up. It didn't. That's life. </p>
<p>Surely they will offering this course again sometime in the next two years. Just have him take something else in the meantime.</p>
<p>To the Op-- I share your pain. However, you seem to be personalzing a situation which does not seem personally directed at your son. Do not try to parse the tone or intent of an email. It was probably written at 7:30 pm by someone who was late picking up a child fom Brownie's or who needed to get to the cleaner's before it closed. Emails are generally curt- it's just the medium.</p>
<p>Before you and your son ascribe all sorts of mean intents to the CMU administration, why doesn't your son make an appointment to see the undergrad DUS or whatever that dean is called. Your son needs to lay out what he would like to do; the DUS will know if in fact, that course of study is possible given the time, money, and credit constraints, and then you'll have all the facts at hand. </p>
<p>Whinig about the professor is ridiculous; most of these "sorry you've neen waitlisted" emails are auto-generated by the registration system that's in place-- it may be signed by a professor, but it was written by the software vendor.</p>
<p>There are lots of academic programs all over the place which are theoretically possible but tough to coordinate-- Brown and RISD cross-registration; MIT and Harvard, etc. some times the reality of the schedules, the wait-lists, the capacity constraints, etc. make something which appeared reasonable from the catalogue almost impossible to pull off. If this is one of them, you know early enough so you can shift gears, but don't look to transfer out without getting the DUS involved.</p>
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Required Minor. A sequence of courses prescribed by the requirements of the particular department. Completion of a second major (or double degree) also satisfies this requirement.
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<p>From the department's website. They only offer one degree, so we understand a minor would have to come from another department. He has spent time with his advisor, honest.</p>
<p>interesteddad, they didn't tell him the class was full, they told him he was getting kicked off the top of the waitlist because he was a freshman. That's not the same thing as simply saying the class was full.</p>
<p>By the time he got to register for classes, there weren't many classes left he needed to graduate. If that continues when he's a sophomore, he won't be able to graduate. Mainly I just want to know what they plan to do in the long run and whether or not they offer any flexibility.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice folks, we'll just have to see what they say.</p>
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The fact that the school put him on waitlist suggests that they weren't going to prevent him from taking the course, should a spot open up.
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</p>
<p>This could be true or the situation may be true that creation of spaces correlates with the exact number of second semester juniors in the department with that major. Then I would have to disagree.</p>
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**By the time he got to register for classes, there weren't many classes left he needed to graduate. If that continues when he's a sophomore, he won't be able to graduate. Mainly I just want to know what they plan to do in the long run and whether or not they offer any flexibility.
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**</p>
<p>Let me understand: all electives have been fulfilled by the advanced credits correct? Every course your son needs to take is required in the department.</p>
<p>No, but not everything he needs is offered, and as I mentioned, he can only take so many courses in his major between prerequisites and courses his advisor advises they not take together.</p>
<p>It's not advised to do more than one project course a semester, for instance. The consider the three courses he's taking in his major a little crazy as it is, but fortunately he shouldn't have to do that again.</p>
<p>And he is down the list on the other course he was wait listed for. No chance of making that one.</p>
<p>So you are factoring 6 semesters and it doesn't factor now? Is that one survey each semester? Out of curiosity how many degrees from this department in the last couple of years? Any graduates mid term?</p>
<p>If they're rigid about not letting "lower classmen" take upper level course, he basically looses all the minor course he needed to take next year. The first chance he as to take any will be as a senior and the rotation won't allow him to do that successfully.</p>
<p>The gradutation numbers we heard were pretty good, but we haven't seen anything offical for his department.</p>