<p>TAXGUY...go for it. If your D wants to go there...not YOU!</p>
<p>Taxguy,
Another question to throw into the mix if you are calling CMU: What will your daughter's options for housing be, if she is accepted off the PWL? CMU assigns housing based on a first-come / first served philosophy. The order of the list is determined by the date of the housing deposit. When my son, sent in his deposit, it was late (but before May 1) due to merit offers still coming in at the last minute. As a result, he did not get any of his choices at CMU, but at least he got something. I heard of students who were temporarily placed in apartments due to "overbooking". That would not make a very nice start to a freshman's year (in my opinion). CMU us a great school. I feel it is just better to know the issues up front.</p>
<p>Taxguy: My D did not get her deposit in early enough for housing and ended up in an apartment. Now that she will be a Junior, she's opting for that apartment she gave up after her freshman year. It's not sooooo bad as everyone makes it out to be. Maybe because she is a girl!!! Your S will have more options after his freshman year...like those CRAZY fraternities my D always talks about! At least the food is better there (if he doesn't cook!)</p>
<p>^ That was last year when more ppl matriculated than expected. All students were put into normal dorms within a week or so. I don't believe this is an issue when deciding whether to spend your 4 most important years at an university. Most likely she will be put into regular Morewood.</p>
<p>The biggest issue I see is Taxguy's apparent vandetta against CMU and the issues with respect to finances. Sgiovinc1 says "If your D wants to go there... not YOU!" However, I wouldn't want to go to a college that my parents hated. Both my parents were heavily supportive of me in choosing CMU over Columbia/Cornell. Perhaps a talk with the daughter would be best here and a compromise on choosing another school might be in order.</p>
<p>No, I know TAXGUY loves CMU, but his D also liked RIT. SHe has to make the ultimate decision unless she has other better options that she is not really aware of. My S had the option of Cornell and Harvard. He was leaning towards Cornell and I certainly convinced him otherwise...there was NO comparison in my mind!!! It has served him well as a HARVARD grad! No loss for job opportunities even in computer science!</p>
<p>Really? I've browsed all of his past posts and I can't really find one positive thing he says about CMU. </p>
<p>I definitely think that Carnegie Mellon offers a much better college experience and a much more marketable degree than RIT. Pittsburgh is a great city and the job opportunities associated with Carnegie Mellon are unsurpassed (Newsweek #1, Princeton Review's Top list). </p>
<p>I guess it all depends on Taxguy's personal feelings and those of his daughter's. Perhaps the financing issues can be solved since RIT is considered a "peer" and CMU will match RIT with respect to aid.</p>
<p>AcceptedAlready you obviously didn't search too hard. Read my "Overview of our visit to Carnegie Mellon." Do a search of this forum. It was a sticky thread for a long time till some moderator decided it was no longer valid.</p>
<p>I LOVED the school! In fact, for me, it would have been an ideal school. I thrive on tough competition and rigorous courses. In fact, the tougher the competition, the more satisfaction I would get in obtaining top grades. However, I am not my daughter. Despite trying to get her to see CMU the way I do, she has her own mind and heart set on other schools. Her current favorites are Univeristy of Cincinnati DAAP, RIT , and RISD, if she gets in.</p>
<p>AcceptedAlready, I will admit, that I REALLY wouldn't like paying $34,000 for her to go to CMU if she wanted to go there when others are geting lots of scholarship money. However, if her heart was set on CMU, I would bite the bullet.</p>
<p>I hope that I set the record straight.</p>
<p>Taxguy: I remember your "Overview of Carnegie Mellon." I thought it was the highlight of this CMU site. I will try to find it and have it reposted somehow. Moderator??? Where are you when we need you? I thought it was brilliantly written and right on target. I do hope you lean towards CMU for your D. My D is getting a great education, loves the kids, school, work load, Pittsburgh, and all that CMU has to offer. We got NO financial aid although we had some savings. I was eligible to retire last year, but, like you, had to bite the bullet for another few years while watching ALL my friends travel hither and yon, cruising, European excursions, etc. I just stare into my vodka martini glass and "hummmmmed." After enough martinis and humming so that I am now practically blind AND deaf, it makes the conversation with them more bearable. But in the end...you have a CMU graduate!!! HA!</p>
<p>I was accepted to CMU from the priorty wait list and could not be happier. Yes we lost a deposit to another school, but that was a sacrifice my family was willing to do becuase of CMU's amazing program (Im in drama). Last year kids on the priority wait list were in the top 10% of applicants. I dont know about merit scholarships, call admissions and theyll be able to help you out. If CMU is your kids first choice, do it, they will probably get in.</p>
<p>i guess its easy for drama students to get accepted from PWL.
they only accept 20~30% from CIT. It seems that PWL is still very hard to get admission from.</p>
<p>luckyboy22-</p>
<p>luckyboy22-
It all depends on how many students take the slot they were offered. Remember the School of drama does not accept many students to begin with. Usually 10 MT's (6 boys 4 girls) and 18 actors, (12 boys and 6 girls). This number is of course not set in stone. If you go to the school of drama web site and look up current students you can see how many are in each section.</p>
<p>im still somewhat confused though
is PWL binding in CMU's cases?
or is it just another way of stating that, if you choose to accept PWL, you must give enought thought to say that this is your first choice?</p>
<p>So you know, CMU often uses the proirity waitlist for overqualified applicants. CMU has abismal enrollment rates for accepted students (as low as 25% in hss) so they use the proirity waitlist (over the normal waitlist that they also have) so kids they want but they think would turn down cmu wont affect this percent (that is so important for usnews). I dont know the breakdown of the use of the proirity waitlist for this purpose but if you visit or talk to someone they might make it clear what is up (did for me).</p>
<p>In theory need based finantial aid is affected because the school has a limited amount of things like work-study and you will be the last to get them. I found however the finanatial aid to be generous coming off the waitlist. There is no merit.</p>
<p>Housing sucks, you are put at the crappest places. I got an apartment 15mins off campus with only a couple other freshmen, virtually all upperclassman.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure if you send the money you are saying that if accepted you will attend, it should be stated pretty clearly in the forms you recieved. Of course, what are they going to do if you dont want to go, you lose the money but it is not like they are going to take any additional steps.</p>
<p>They understand that you must make a commitment to other universities, you cant just wait for what they say then decide, it would be too late. Dont worry about any moral delillimas, if they expected a firm commitment it would be like an early action promise, a real promise with no $500 fee.</p>
<p>does everyone who is waitlisted at CMU have the option of being on the priority waitlist?</p>
<p>We notified them that we won't accept priority wait list but to put us on the general wait list. There were two boxes to check: priority and general. We checked general because we weren't sure about CMU now. I double checked to see if we filled out the form correct, which we did.
However, they notified my daughter that she is on the priority waitlist. What should be do? Notify them of their mistake or just wait and hear?</p>
<p>everybody who is waitlisted has the option of declaring Priority Waitlist, and contrary to what is implied in some of the earlier posts, you don't have to send in $500 before you are notified, but rather IMMEDIATELY upon notification (i.e.... you will be notified on May 05 and must have deposit postmarked by May 06).</p>
<p>Probably a fair percentage of applicants who declare PWL don't meet that deadline or change their mind, thus opening up a new round of acceptances within the next week or until June 01.</p>
<p>It would seem that the "normal waiting list" would be the equivalent of a snowball's chance in hell, but maybe I'm wrong.</p>
<p>DGB, WRONG!</p>
<p>Not everyone received the priority waitlist option!</p>
<p>Only 400 of the 2000 people waitlisted got it.</p>
<p>ok, here we go</p>
<p>NOT everyone who gets waitlist has a priority waitlist option - the priority waitlist is only offered to a small # of waitlistees, like JimmyShi said</p>
<p>Priority Waitlist is NOT binding</p>
<p>Priority Waitlist acceptees get NO merit aid</p>
<p>Priority Waitlist acceptees CANNOT appeal for CMU to match need-based financial aid with that of other colleges</p>
<p>All this is information I got straight from Cornell (interesting name, nie?) who is up in the ranks in their admissions office.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if it fits here, but I'm just so excited. (BTW, I was PWL to SCS)</p>
<p>Wow, just checked that whole "Where am i in the process?" page. I got really ugly finaid, and asked it to be reviewed. They said no, but my grant jumped up 4k! That makes me really happy.</p>
<p>O, and I'm pretty sure Dmitriy hit it on the head there. I called a while ago and was told that PWL is not binding, but it is a "moral contract." The guy said that I am saying if accepted, I will tell them honestly, on the phone, either "yes" or "no," but they don't care which one. But the whole "no merit aid" makes me wanna cry. My efc was 9k (yea, im poor next to some of you), and i now have 16k grants and 18k in loans, so its not that bad. But I was hoping I might pick up some scholarships somewhere, sometime.</p>