<p>Hi, I just applied to Case Western and had some lingering questions as I never got the chance to do a campus visit.</p>
<p>How challenging are the classes compared to similar schools?</p>
<p>How is the environment (dorms, study halls, etc.) for incoming freshmen?</p>
<p>Finally, if you got accepted to a school of similar recognition (say, 20-30 according to some online rankings) would you still choose to attend Case Western or opt to go to a different school? </p>
<p>hey Arde - FYI, it's the last week of classes / beginning of finals, so I imagine most people won't be on here much...I'll give some quick answers now though (I'm a senior at Case).</p>
<p>The difficulty of the class depends heavily on what major you're in. If you're talking about engineering, the classes will be very challenging. There will be easier classes too, but the majority require serious effort and time commitments. It's rumored that Case has one of the heaviest homework loads of all colleges in the US. Challenging classes mean that you actually do learn a lot though, so I think it's been a great thing for me.</p>
<p>Dorms for freshman are ok, pretty standard from what I've seen at other schools. The buildings are old but in pretty good shape, and the Village at 115 for upperclassmen is quite frankly amazing. Check out the interactive tour (Residential</a> Facilities - Case Housing, Residence Life & Greek Life) if you haven't done so already, and you can get an idea for what the typical room, study area, etc looks like.</p>
<p>I got accepted to several other schools with similar reputations. I chose Case because I felt the most comfortable here - from the moment I stepped on campus I realized that I belonged here. In the end, Case also gave me the most merit aid, but they were my first choice before I knew that. If you have the opportunity to visit in the spring, you should try to come, sit in on a freshman level class, and get a feel for the campus. When I visited schools I was taking AP Chemistry, so I chose to sit in on a freshman chemistry class at several of the schools I visited. This gave me a good comparison of the representative teaching styles, class sizes, etc and allowed me to compare them to my high school. Case isn't for everyone, and I think it depends also on the type of social atmosphere you are looking for, but Case is great choice for most of the people that apply here.</p>
<p>Son had a hard time choosing between Case and Emory where his brother attends. He came for another look in the spring and liked what he saw so he is there now. His roomate, also from his high school, chose Case over Carnegie Mellon. They are really enjoying their freshman experience both academically and personally as they have made a lot of friends. They are both from the East Coast and enjoy the friendliness of a lot of the kids from the Midwest. As a parent, I'm glad to see his progress academically and socially, and that he is enjoying himself. I think Case is highly underated. There also is a SAGEs program which offers seminar and writing-intensive courses for incoming students that are focused on interesting, interedisciplinary topics. Case is really trying hard to a create a progressive undergraduate curriculum within a small-medium university, and seems to have done it well, in my view.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, it is what you make it! My S is perfectly happy at Case. His social life revolves around the campus groups he is involved in. It is a tough school, not party central.</p>
<p>I've grown up in Michigan, and lived in the midwest all of my life, so this might be a bit biased, but I don't think that cleveland is a depressing city at all. Sure there are the more "ghetto" parts of town, but there are in all major cities. Downtown has plenty of things to do, bars/clubs, concert venues, some decent restaurants. Sure, because Case is right down Euclid ave. there are the sights of some homeless people and what not walking around, but its not any different from any other urban campus. The city of Cleveland has come a LONG way since the 80s and 90s and is really picking up. Hey, on the bright side, Cleveland has only had like 120 homicides this year, I'm from detroit, I'm pretty sure we're close to 600 by now...</p>
<p>Its really cliche to say that the social life is "what you make it", so I won't. I will admit, yes, there are a fair amount of kids who fit the geeky, nerdy stereotype very well. But there are also a lot of kids I know who are outgoing and who don't just sit in their rooms playing WoW all day and not showering.
No, case is not party central, but here is an interesting fact, there has been a big upshot in alcohol related violations in the past two years so much so the administration thinks that the newer case classes have a "drinking problem". I'm a student ambassador for case, so I host prospective students, and I have spoken to an employee of admissions about this. He spread this message along to all of us hosts, but, he also said that he believes the administration has WAY over reacted, and that case just might be breaking out of the stereotype, and the administration is worried about the image.</p>
<p>Thanks for your post - it put Case nicely in perspective for me. I live outside of Philly and the murder rate is very high. I had read that Cleveland was the mortgage default capital so was a bit worried about how the city was.</p>
<p>I second the posters above. My S has had great experiences with finding friends, with classes, and ECs.</p>
<p>This year he lives in South Village, where he & friends have a suite with SINGLES and a nice common room. Best of both worlds.</p>
<p>Another good thing about Cleveland--excellent public transportation, incl. a direct link from campus to the airport (red line) with no transfers. Convenient if you live too far away to drive.</p>
<p>Did anyone get a call from admissions counselor asking if you had a question? I wasn't home but my mom picked it up and asked a few of the questions that were on our minds. But isn't it a little bit weird to be called?</p>
<p>My son was called also, around 5:30 pm. The admissions office wanted to know if he knew how to check his admissions decision and if he had any questions. A little strange, I cannot believe they would call if he wasn't going to be accepted.</p>
<p>My mom said I got a call... she said the guy said that everything I had was turned in. I tried calling back but I got an answering machine, and I never took it any further than that. I've just been checking my App. Status on the CaseID page.</p>
<p>Case really likes to call their applicants randomly to see if they have any questions, I think after I applied I got called 3-4 times between the fall and spring periodically.</p>
<p>I visited here and didnt like the campus at all. The architechture and such was gorgeous (especially the ribbon building or watnot), but the fact that there is pretty much a ghetto surrounding it turned me off. Not even exaggerating, during the tour, I saw a dude hitting a crack pipe right across the street. Maybe this doesnt bother some people, which if it doesnt case is perfect (everything else about it was amazing), but to me i want to feel somewhat safe (especially if you have to walk as far as case kids do)</p>
<p>That's too bad you had a negative experience. My son and I were fairly impressed with the campus and the facilities. We walked around a bit after the tour to see some of the areas not on the tour and felt quite safe. Like many other schools in urban areas (Yale, Columbia and University of Chicago come to mind), you need to be aware of your surroundings.</p>
<p>I know the site says that tuiton is something like 40-50k, but how much do people actually pay? I'm not talking about people with scholarships, merit grants or extremely low income, but does the average person who was lucky to even get into CWRU still pay full amount?</p>
<p>The total cost is between $40K and $50K. If you don't get any scholarships, grants or fin aid, then obviously you pay the full amount. Tuition is just a part of the total cost of attendance, granted the biggest part.</p>
<p>I just feel like there's no way THAT many people are paying the full $50,000 a year. For example, how many people get FAFSA (or whatever it's called) and other government grants like that.</p>