Open House

<p>I will post the happenings in the OH yesterday for those who wanted to attend but did not.</p>

<p>The OH started with speeches by the President, the Dean and Asst Dean of Admissions, the Dean of Humanities and a few others. The Dean of Engg was not there since she just had a hip-replacement procedure.</p>

<p>After an hour of speeches, the prospective students were whisked away by a large group of current students for tours, informal discussions and buffet. The Dean of Admissions insisted that prospective students must ask all sorts of questions to the current students, and that the current students had not been tutored and were free to give their absolutely frank, honest and candid opinions.</p>

<p>The speeches were very balanced, no aggressive sales-pitch, at the same time no arrogant 'take it or leave it'. They insisted to the parents not to impose Cooper on their children just because it was tuition free. They implored us to listen keenly to the children and their gut-feel about the place after the OH, and make the decisions after that. All this was discussed after the students left, when the parents were having their own Q&A. </p>

<p>The Dean said that the curriculum was tough, but no tougher than Princeton or MIT, so like students there, they wanted Cooper students also to pursue ECs while keeping their grades up. And they gave some stats about Cooper beating this one and that one in certain sports. </p>

<p>About retention rates, he said 94% of freshmen stayed back. Some left on their own since they wanted to study a different area not offerred by Cooper. Some left because they failed. But of those who failed, only a miniscule failed because they could truely not cope inspite of their best efforts. Most failed because Cooper was not their first choice, and had perhaps been forced into it by the tuition-free-concious parents, and therefore found failing as the only way out. </p>

<p>There is one humanities subject every semester, the first 4 semesters the subjects are considered core and compulsory, but after that one can choose a subject.</p>

<p>Engg students can enroll for arts/architecture classes after those majors have finished registering. But these courses would be in addition to the engg. and humanities courses required for the semester. They advised not to enroll for such additional credits until junior year. Since my son is into pencil-sketching this was of importance to us. </p>

<p>As for career recruiting they agreed that there were not too many companies coming in. But the reason was mainly due to frustration of the tiny number of graduating students available for recruiting, an average of 100-120 engg students distributed over 4 programs. So the cost of coming in to recruit is sometimes not justified. But that did not mean that any of their student was left jobless. Also a good percentage went to grad school (MIT, Columbia, Princeton, UMich etc.) and some into MBA or law. </p>

<p>My impression of the current students ? They looked like good old, salt of the earth, hard-working, honest, middle-class stock. </p>

<p>My S was quite pleased. He liked the students, the facilities, the dorms, the general atmosphere and the area. He will certainly accept this offer.</p>