<p>Does anybody know anything about the music practice rooms (location, condition, availability, etc.) ???</p>
<p>Good question. I've heard that at some colleges, if you are a non-music major, you can get put out of a practice room if a major wants it. I've never heard anything about music at Pitt.</p>
<p>I hope we start to see some posts by Pitt students here.</p>
<p>Pitt doesn't have a whole lot in the way of music, especially as compared to Duquesne and CMU, but I do know they have a music building and therefore they must have practice rooms. I will have to check it out the next time I'm in the area. My son is an accomplished musician who happens to be studying engineering and taking music lessons privately. He just needs a place to practice.</p>
<p>Lots of people read this, but I agree that we need more Pitt posts!</p>
<p>We will be visiting Pitt later this summer w/ our third daughter, who's interested in biology. She plays clarinet, and might continue to play in college.</p>
<p>Several summers ago, our middle daughter spent the summer at CMU, in their pre-college program. She is now a sophomore in engineering, at another school. Is your son also looking at CMU?</p>
<p>My son has just graduated from high school, and was admitted to Pitt Honors College and CMU, as well as several other schools (PSU Honors, Case, UVa, W&J). He plays clarinet, too! Unfortunately, CMU's financial aid package was the stingiest we received, bordering on insulting. CMU might be great, but it probably wasn't worth the undergraduate debt for us. </p>
<p>I went to Pitt for Pharmacy and so took alot of bio and chem in CAS, before my Pharm classes. I think Pitt would be quite good for Biology, Bioengineering or health related professions.</p>
<p>I don't know if you are from the Pittsburgh area, but there are lots of musical performing opportunities here.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son about the Honors College! Does he have an area of engineering that he's interested in? Have you visited any of the dorms at Pitt? If so, what did you think?</p>
<p>I'm not familiar w/ W&J--is that Washington and Jefferson? </p>
<p>Case has been talked about here as having good scholarship money. What was your experience there?</p>
<p>We live in NE Ohio. Our experience w/ CMU $$$ was similar to yours. Our daughter who applied there ended up taking a full scholarship elsewhere.</p>
<p>Chris,
He's probably intersted in mechanical engineering, but might consider engineering physics. He's always been quite interested in aeronautics and astronomy. The engineering tour at Pitt was the best organized one of any college we visited. Very impressive. He may ultimately be intersted in IP law or even music technology. I guess we'll have to wait awhile to see!</p>
<p>Regarding the dorms, the rooms in the Towers were remodeled about a year or two ago and I am told that they are pretty nice. That's where the first year honors community is located. For upper class honors communities, the dorms are in Sutherland Hall, Pennsylvania Hall or the Forbes Craig Apartments. Sutherland and Pennsylvania are brand new. They have suite style living, 24 hour computer lab, all-you-can-eat cafeteria, post office, etc.. Forbes Craig has indoor parking for the residents. There are also other living and learning communities based on interests. Pitt also has some nice suites in the Quad (center of campus) and some of those are designated for all female dorms and sororities. The other big dorm, Lothrop Hall, is mostly Nursing and other health related students because it is located in the hospital area. </p>
<p>Washington and Jefferson was very nice and personal, and my son may have gone there, except they had inadequate upper level German classes, and he decided against the 3-2 engineering program they offered. After 3 years of basic classes, the students must transfer to Case or Washington University in St. Louis to complete their engineering classes. They have very nice suite style dorms and two traditional dorms, and a large variety of totally awesome homestyle food.</p>
<p>Case was in his top couple of choices, too. They did offer excellent merit aid, but we were a little wary of having it attached to the gpa. Their merit aid is based solely on gpa and SAT score. Case seemed clean and well run. The dorms were only so-so, but they are building a new North Village Residence area. I don't think we got a very personal feel, though, because we were in group tours. I requested a personal advisor meeting and tour of the engineering lab facilities, but they just scheduled us for another group tour (mostly outdoors), so we declined to go to that. We saw only one classroom, one dorm, no labs and no cafeteria. Also, the last time my son was at Case, he got stuck in a snowstorm in April...not a great memory.</p>
<p>Did you older daughter enjoy her first year engineering experience?</p>
<p>you dont have to be a music major to use the practice rooms. just present your pitt id and leave it with however is watching the keys and then go and practice. When you are done, you bring them the key and they give you back your id. the conditions are ok, but not a lot of abailable practice rooms. i think its noramlly open till like 8 or 830 during th eweek and it closes aroung 5 or so on the weekends.</p>
<p>Her first semester was nearly overwhelming, as it was for most all of her class. Second semester, she was better adjusted to the idea of "learning to swim in the deep end of the pool." This year, she picked up a few hours of work a week as a sort of machine shop assistant. She took her french horn, and played in a college orchestra her first year. but I don't think the horn came out of its case this year. She has taken up juggling with fire though . . . .</p>
<p>I am very glad her scholarship is not tied to gpa. Her gpa is fine, but she sure doesn't need any more pressure than she already has with keeping up with everything. </p>
<p>We also recently visited Allegheny w/ daughter #3, and they said that their merit scholarships are not gpa tied (other than staying in good academic standing) and are for four years. That's a good deal, IMHO.</p>
<p>Thanks bonafide20! It's good to know that some space is available for practice! Do you have any idea if the practice rooms are usually full or can you normally get into one?</p>
<p>chrisd,
Allegheny is in a beautiful area and is conveniently near an outlet mall! I know some folks who went there and loved it. Case's awards are generous; I think you can even look up what you would get with a certain gpa + sat. But they do require awardees to keep a certain gpa which changes a little after freshman year. I'm not certain if it's a semester gpa or an overall gpa, but it might pay to check. I have every confidence in my son, but if he lost that scholarship, we'd be back to $40K and he might as well have gone to CMU (ouch$).</p>
<p>My son works 8 to 12 hours every Saturday. He also intends to continue his music studies and performance group. Do you think that's too much for a freshman engineering student?</p>
<p>I don't think my daughter could have handled both work and music during the first year, at the school she is attending. But, every place and every student is different. She had considered attending OSU, and planned on trying to do marching band there. She's a mechanical engineering student.</p>
<p>The Engineering Major board here would also be a good place to find out others' experiences. </p>
<p>Thanks for the comments on Allegheny! I think Case is too intense a place for our daughter who's considering Pitt. I've heard from others with similarly poor tour experiences at Case. Even though we only live an hour away from Case, and my husband did a year of post-grad study there years ago, we have no real "feel" for the school.</p>
<p>Do you think your son will do a co-op while at Pitt?</p>
<p>I hope he considers it. He did engineering apprenticeships with PSPE in 11th and 12th grade, and it was a wonderful way to get a look at a typical day in several fields of engineering. He also got a study abroad scholarship from Pitt, which would probably be a great experience. </p>
<p>Case is weird that way. I saw nothing negative, and everything seemed very organized and tidy. People were nice. We just got no real feel for the school from their tours. Pitt, otoh, had very personal tours, student panel discussions, and an engineering tour that included small student-led groups visiting each eng dept. At each eng stop, some folks in that department gave a 10-15 minute show and tell about what they were working on at the moment, interspersed with student questions and discussion. Felt VERY personal.</p>
<p>One other thing about Allegheny is that I know families who sent second and third students there, so they must have been satisfied!</p>
<p>Our experience w/ tours at OSU was very much like yours at Pitt. With my eng. daughter, we went with no expectation that she would apply there. It was just a visit because we had the day to do a visit. She came away with a great impression of the program. Her visit to RPI was led by a engineering student. It was a great tour, looked like a great education was available there, but the city was just too depressing.</p>
<p>My potential--Pitt daughter is concerned that Allegheny is too small. And, OSU too big, so Pitt sounds like a compromise--an urban school, with a moderate sized student body, and bio-research going on.</p>
<p>Although Allegheny is nice, I wouldn't choose it for bio research. I think Allegheny is great as a liberal arts college, but there must be more cutting edge stuff going on at a state-funded research institution. I don't think Allegheny could have the same facilities or funding as Pitt, and I don't think they even have graduate programs. In fact, I thought that part of Allegheny's appeal was that it was a little bit small-town and secluded. Depends on what you're looking for, I guess! Is you eng daughter at OSU?</p>
<p>My daughter has lost interest in Allegheny due to the size. And, after visiting OSU, she think she'd prefer a school more of an urban location, rather than the small town setting like Allegheny. We attended our oldest daughter's graduation yesterday at Ohio U, in Athens. While our youngest may apply there too, I think she'd prefer OSU. OU is in location similar to Allegheny.</p>
<p>My engineering daughter is at Olin College of Engineering. She liked the Oakland area when she spent a summer at CMU, and that's how we've come to look at Pitt for D#3.</p>
<p>are there pianos that you can plAy for fun?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, several…</p>