I’m jumping into the fray. CWRU has been wonderful for my son. He is a sophomore macromolecular engineering major, which is a fancy way of saying he is getting a polymer science/nanotech degree. Case has arguably the best polymer science program in the world and one of the best funded ones as well. My son’s prof, who teaches one of his introductory polymer classes, is on the short list for the Nobel Prize. You don’t typically find those men and women teaching undergraduate classes. He has found amazing mentors each semester who work with him and answer his questions. He hangs out in the graduate research labs for fun and they are happy to answer his questions. He has become certified in several different lab techniques. He was published in two research papers his freshman year. Bottom line: you get as much out of Case as you choose to put into it. The professors seem warm and engaging and willing to share insights with their undergrad students.
His classes are NOT easy. He has to study. A lot. And he’s a bright kid. He also has embraced Greek life. His fraternity has so many people now working at Microsoft that they could start their own alumni chapter in Seattle strictly for Case guys.
He loves Cleveland–we are from south Texas. He loves the fact that there are four seasons. Not 11 months of summer with a couple of cold weeks. He loves the culture around the school and has given tours for many folks we know who have come to visit after hearing us go on about it.
I will say that he ends up being the spokesperson or presenter for most of the group projects that he has had, primarily because many of his classmates, while brilliant, seem to lack some social skills: making eye contact, explaining things so most can understand, speaking clearly without mumbling, etc. Other than that, he has no complaints.
We visited a lot of schools when he was making a decision: Harvard, MIT, Renn Poly, Bucknell, Olin, Carnegie Mellon, WashU, and Rice. Case and Rice were his top two choices. Case has been a great fit for him.
@bigred93 The polymer science students at Case Western often get into great graduate programs, with full funding.
We know a CWRU class of 2016 grad in polymer sciences who won a three year Graduate NSF grant, and brought it to U Penn Chemical and Biological Engineering program, for a PhD. I agree Polymer Science is strong at Case, its a combination of chemistry, physics and materials science, with some chemical engineering thrown in there. I think its a bit ambitious to publish two articles as a freshman though, if one is an experimentalist, but sometimes younger students, who are largely technicians, in the beginning, do get their name on papers. By senior year, they may have a better sense of what research is, and be more active in the meat of the research work. Case is generous about adding undergrad’s names to papers. My son had one paper with a physics professor and writing another with the same professor, while he has some time before he commits to his PhD research at another institution. So he is still working with his Case Western advisor remotely, after graduation, and its very helpful for an academic career hopeful, to keep publishing with this physicist. It changed the course of his life, to meet and work with a biophysicist at Case Western.
I’m just assuming - but @Coloradomama probably feels as I do in that CWRU is a hidden gem.
My daughter is a second year nursing student and is absolutely loving her experience - in class, in clinical, in Cleveland.
We are from San Francisco - when my daughter comes home, she heads straight for the In and Out and requests home cooked meals, and sushi - other than that, there is very little that Cleveland misses the mark on.
If my daughter had stayed in California, we would have received no aid from the UC or CSU schools - all of their nursing programs are not direct entry. I feel like we won the lottery finding CWRU!
@SuperAzn69 - not to be rude, but if you are that unhappy, transfer. Life is too short to be unhappy and you are not doing anyone any favors by bashing CWRU. No school is perfect, and life is all about being open minded. My daughter is not in your field, but she has a lot of friends who have done research and internships at places like NASA and Proctor and Gamble. If that’s not “special” enough for you - I don’t know what to say. All internships are competitive and I haven’t heard of any school that fast tracks these opportunities.
In nursing, even after the first year, my daughter’s advisor offered to help her find a job at University Hospital. Her fellow nursing students and sorority sisters have all found nursing jobs during the school year, for the summer, etc. CWRU is the only BSN program that exposes students to clinicals the very moment you start.
I work in a field that has nothing to do with healthcare - but we have professors and grad students working on grant projects - one is a nursing professor from Samuel Merritt College. I couldn’t stop smiling when she told me that CWRU is “the hardest and most prestigious undergraduate nursing school.”
Pretty special I’d say - especially since CWRU is known for being an “engineering” school.
My daughter had three friends that transferred after first year - two to NYU, and one to Georgetown. From what I gather, they were disappointed that CWRU wasn’t a “name” school - to each his own.
Case Western Reserve is a member of the American Association of Universities, a prestigious group of 62 leading research universities that “continually advance society through education, research, and discovery”. Membership in AAU is strict and colleges need to maintain the highest standards to retain their standing. CWRU is not a regional school. By a long shot.
I do not think Case Western is hidden, but its a top school with a national rank. Its not a regional school
which was the original debate. I am from New Jersey, and plenty of us applied to Case Western in the 1970s and
thus CWRU is well known on the east coast since the 1970s. I did not apply as there were closer options that fit me.
When my sons were thinking of schools, I immediately thought of it, as we are living in the intellectual wasteland called Colorado! While we have well ranked public schools, my son needed a smaller environment. Case proved to be better than its rank, for him. It was a perfect fit for size, musical options, science and business math options, strong science departments etc. I think the engineers at Case do fine, since I followed my son’s friends carefully
since I had another son who wanted to study engineering. Both sons got scholarships, very generous ones that that tipped the scales for us. One ultimately chose Georgia Tech, also a pretty good bargain for OOS costs, though, so I don’t have as much knowledge about the disgruntled engineers at Case Western. Class size is a little bigger in engineering, but thats the same across the board at Purdue, and the other schools mentioned as “better” in this thread. Purdue and CWRU are very different locations, sizes, and focuses. Purdue is the agricultural powerhouse for Indiana, and the engineering powerhouse school with big ten football. Its in a dinky small town with nothing to do, but Purdue does offer a lot of on campus stuff to do. CWRU is located in a vibrant CITY. If a student
wants an urban environment, its truly a great place. Students need to find schools that fit their interests and comfort with urban environments. The midwestern schools discussed here are all rural, so very different than living inside
the city of Cleveland.
Here is a fact to consider about Case Western:
The student-faculty ratio at Case Western Reserve University is 11:1, and the school has 59.1 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students.
Yes, engineering classes are a little larger, but they are not the 800 student class size of Purdue or UIUC for
the freshman math class. Case breaks down math into math for premeds and math for engineers. I don’t know
what math the nurses take at CWRU, but Case does an OUTSTANDING job with mathematics for its students. My son was a good math student and a math major so he TAed the freshman math as a senior, so I learned a lot about math at CWRU. its well done.
As an example, UCLA, and many state schools ,and even U of Pennsylvania, a larger Ivy School, do not grade math homework.!
All engineering students are expected to teach themselves calculus and answers are provided for the homework sets. Our friend there was really appalled at how
few students learn mathematics well at UCLA. Students are on their own there. Thats the basic difference between
a huge public school and CWRU.
Purdue, for its size, does a good job there. It earns the high rank for engineering with top research PhD programs as well.
CWRU is more of an undergraduate focused place, even for engineers.
I think what the disgruntled bioengineering student is trying to say is that the classes are going to get you
about the same information at Purdue or CWRU. I agree with him on that. But he seems to be missing
all the other factors about a college education, social life, urban setting versus rural, music ensembles, research options with Cleveland Clinic, that he may be too young to take advantage of , he is only a sophomore. If he stays at CWRU he may feel a lot better after he finds what his academic passion is. He is allowed to explore at CWRU. At Purdue he would have been in an engineering slot with 1000 other kids, and not allowed to explore, as public schools make it difficult to change majors, compared to CWRU.