Is Cooper Union Really That Bad?

I’ve heard all of these things after their financial crisis, like it’s the worst school ever. But is it really that bad of a school, and are the reports being exaggerated? Or is it just as bad as everyone seems to think it is?

By “everyone” do you mean other high school students? Ignore what you “hear”. Visit the school and see for yourself.

Thanks, I will.

i can speak directly about the art school. It has a LOT of issues.

stones, do you know anything about the engineering school? I’m planning on commuting from home to Cooper. I don’t care much about the traditional college experience and social life. I just want to learn as much as I can. Cooper seems the place for that because of their insanely hard curriculum.

@stones3 ^^

@goldz09 stones3 doesn’t know anything about the engineering school and as a matter of fact only knows the art school from the HS program. Her daughter was not accepted to Cooper and therefore she has a scorched earth policy regarding the school. They should send her a stop and desist order!!!
The engineering
school is very hard, but if you’re prepared, you’ll survive it!

My son’s friend attended Cooper for one year and then transferred. I think he didn’t like living in the city. I also think that he wasn’t used to not being, if not THE smartest kid in the room, at least in the top 5. He came home every weekend. I didn’t realize until after he transferred that his parents didn’t know he was coming home. I thought he was stopping there first and staying at our house occasionally because he and my son had early morning plans. He apparently rotated where he was staying so that none of us parents would become suspicious and call his parents. It’s a large, cohesive group of boys who grew up in and out of most of the other houses. Many times, the kids went camping and I didn’t think anything of it that he was here from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. I always knew that he was more of a country than a city kid.

I once asked him about it and he said that he went there because his parents forced him due to the free tuition.

jimbobcharlie- thank you so much for speaking on my behalf.

I don’t know what real world experience he has with Cooper( I am guessing absolutely none). Anyway , all worked out for the better as she was accepted to All of the top elite design schools and made the wise choice of attending VCUARTS where she just finished her first semester with a 3.85gpa. Also an added bonus was selling several pieces of her work from the semester!(that was with the help and suggestion of her instructor)!

Our experience with Cooper was not one I would like to repeat. Say what you will, we were not impressed at all.
Sorry if you don’t agree , but this was based on a year of attending classes and lectures as well as spending a great deal of time on the so called campus.

as I stated twice before, any prospective students that want to hear the whole story please pm. I am not posting It here due to too many trolls.

As for engineering , it has a very strong rep. However, I might suggest for the accepted student undoubtedly the student would also be accepted to many other very fine universities that would probably offer a more complete college experience . After all aid, one should consider where they will be happiest and thrive.

@techmom99 My son told me a similar story at the end of his freshman year that one classmates’ parents was having a hard time dealing with him not getting a 4.0 and being at the top of his class. He had graduated from either Bronx Science or Stuyvesant, I can’t recall which one, but he ended up transferring out of Cooper.

there are many engineering programs that are highly respected and academically rigorous. However, there is no
pre-req that states the student must also be unhappy. Go to the program that you can thrive and be happy at.
I would not call Cooper a “happy campus”.

@jimbobcharlie - You have to have a sense of humor. Personally, I troll for Stones’ posts. They are so deliciously biased and ill-informed. Imagine, in this case, an entire generally respected art and engineering program is being disparaged based on hearsay from a high school student who engaged in no more than a pre-college summer art program. No engagement with Engineering at all. But you can always PM her for the real dope. Just like The National Enquirer!

lol I’m only posting this so I can get in the last word!!

The school has been run into the ground financially and needed the state to intervene. They had to be forced to change the board and forced to get rid of the president and increase tuition substantially. But BrooklynRye keeps posting -without firsthand experience of any kind - its great. I can assure any reasonable person that these problems have, without a doubt, had a serious affect on the school. Would be silly to believe otherwise. National Enquirer?

Reality check.

96% Freshman Retention Rate
70% 4 year Graduation Rate
79% 5 year Graduation Rate
81% 6 year Graduation Rate

95% offered employment within 6 months

Thank you @ClarinetDad16 for injecting some empirical data into this discussion.

There are numerous posts (including mine from back in October 2016 under the thread “What Is CU Art Department Like?”) regarding the true facts regarding the problems faced by Cooper Union, the actions taken, as well as the school’s strong push to return to free tuition status. These circumstances are a matter of public record. For the umpteenth time, extrapolating from the experience of a 16-year old who attended a summer program and didn’t have the best time, to trash an entire school and all of its programs (including programs with which neither the poster nor her daughter has any experience at all), is ludicrous. As the poster of this tripe is fond of saying, do your own research.

Fact Checker Alert: Stones’ daughter was not accepted to “All of the top elite design schools.” She was accepted to all of the top programs (in Stones’ estimation) to which she applied. We know, for instance, that this did not include Cooper Union, RISD nor, apparently, any school West of the Missisippi.

Brooklynryebread- actual first hand experience with Cooper =ZERO. ?

@stones3 - You are fool.

Please forgive me for bringing the dean of admissions Mitchell Lipton into this:
http://collegestrategist.org/what-colleges-really-want/
“Lipton has lamented the prevalence of coddled students and over-involved parents. He’s told stories about parents who try to meet with professors on behalf of their offspring. Cooper Union, he made clear, is intent on avoiding that sort of student in the future.”

It’s more than that @jimbobcharlie. Contrary to what @stones3 posts, I make no claims to firsthand knowledge regarding the Cooper Union Art or Engineering programs. Rather, I cite empirical data and facts. In marked contrast, this very foolish person cites anecdotal experience that is not even her own. These are the shallow experiences of a teenager with the bare minimum of contact at the school in question. Some lectures and some summer sessions do not an expert on Cooper Union make. Sorry your kid didn’t enjoy her summer. Move on.