<p>My son is a second year actor in the College of Fine Arts. He is SO happy there. For those of you who have children whose "heart is in the work", they will love CMU. My s works very hard but as he says when you love what you do it doesn't feel like work. I don't know where else he could have found such wonderful faculty who really care about the students.</p>
<p>Dorms: Frm CMU website. there are pictures and 360 views of dorm rooms along with the dorm layouts. Freshman dorm are large dorms unless you luck out and get an overflow apartment off campus. Sophmores get a slight preference of buildings to choose from. Juniors have higher ranking than frosh and sophs. Seniors of course get their pick. Triple rooms are more individual and have more character along with a small cut in room costs. IMHO, because the school is a urban area and the student body is relatively small, CMU is able to provide smaller dorm buildings that facilitate more interaction amongst the kids. The kids figure it out. We are just glad that this school provides guaranteed housing for 4 years-not many can say that. </p>
<p>Tuition: Why is it that everyone talks about the $$. People on CC seem to want to go to more costly schools anyway. When we did the research, there didn't seem to be much of a cost difference between any private school. Yes there is some difference but what is $2-3k/yr between schools, when the total cost is $40k. If you can't afford $30k then you're not going to afford $40k. </p>
<p>CMU is NOT and IVY League school. CMU was founded as a technical and fine arts school for the working class people. The founders, I believe, believed that the working class deserved a practical education and not a philosophical education. Where we live, Ivy is a weed and that is only eradicated by pulling by roots or by burning. I do not think we as a nation has done all that well by electing IVY people. </p>
<p>Interesting comments on your visit. Did you go to the conservatory in the park, see Andrew the Dino?</p>
<p>Visited your website. For those people who have not taken every advantage of the tax system-too bad, so sorry, you lose. For 19 years we have taken EVERY advantage for the future education for our kid because we knew we could never make the kind of $$ to send him to a good school. The only hope we had was to use the system and use it to the last dime. As a side note, it is also sad to say that we in the process discovered that the those who could afford it, pay the least in taxes and for schooling. Hope everyone goes and reads your book.</p>
<p>I do agree that Ivy is something we pull from the roots. That was a very clever analogy indeed. You are right. Too bad we, as Americans, don't realize that. </p>
<p>Yes, did visit the Andrew the Dino Statue. I am very nosy. I poke my nose into as many legal spots as possible, That is why I even checked out some of the bathrooms.</p>
<p>WCT: Almost everyone I spoke too liked the school. I don't exactly know what the school is doing. They have mediocre weather like RIT ( well, maybe not as bad as RIT), they have no great teams that should invoke great school spirit such as Syracuse or Miami,but the kids really love the school.</p>
<p>taxguy: You might want to do more research on VCU before you visit. The art department has a good reputation, but it is a hugh university in a downtown area that is depressed. I attended in the 70's and there was very little interaction between students and professors. My roommate was an art major, and she was frequently in tears because the professors were very critical, etc. There is some discussion of VCU in the archives, if you want to search them. I don't think it is anywhere in the same league as CMU.</p>
<p>As they say "Be careful where you stick your nose, It may come out to be a different color." Mine isn't exactly the same color and shape that I was born with either. </p>
<p>How do you order in a new restuartant? I do want arounds - of course my wife and kid hates it.</p>
<p>Taxguy,
So far so good at Pratt. She loves the area and the axcess to museums. Often the classes meet at the Met or she has to go there for assignments. No problem with the neighborhood and so far campus is very safe. She actually loves her English class. I can't belive she had to go to an art school to discover English. Art History is her most difficult. Memorization of dates does not come easy but she has a great teacher.
Cama</p>
<p>My s is a freshman CS major at CMU. He was accepted to UPENN and Cornell, but chose CMU for it's academic standards.</p>
<p>Cornell was beatiful and is very solid in academics, as was UPENN. But when my s listened and to the people during the visit he fell in love with the applied philosophy of school academics. He wanted to go right to admissions and put down the deposit. </p>
<p>As of today, he couldn't be happier. Not only is he challenged to go beyond his limits, he has met the nicest people at the school. He constantly tells me how great the majority of the people act at CMU. He was turned off at Princeton and Cornell because of some of the pretentious attitudes that existed in his brief visit. He finds the people at the school a lot more interested in their particular major, than in their social status.</p>
<p>But like many have said, if you are a person who is searching for yourself and do not really know what you want, stay away from CMU. This school is certainly designed for those student who already know what they love.</p>
<p>Coriolis, it sounds like your son is like the students I described when someone asked if CMU is a backup school for the ivies. Though there are certainly a number of kids who end up at CMu who were not accepted to the ivies, there are also a number of kids who are there who could have gone to an ivy. </p>
<p>I also believe that the HS&S College is an undiscovered gem as is Case Western's offerings in the same subjects and Johns Hopkins'. There is flexibility in that school, but the uniqueness of that College at CMU is the pragmatic philosophy towards the liberal arts. This "applied philosophy" as you so well described makes CMU unique among colleges. And it can certainly help kids who do not know what they want to do. Studying upper level courses in English and History can really be a bear for kids not that dedicated to higher academia in those discipines, and yet that is what it takes to get a degree in many top flight schools. Otherwise you need to go into an area or interdiscpline major. With CMU there is an alternative path with these disciplines.</p>
<p>WE have a web site that lists all schools that our HS grads attended within the last two years. It notes the SATs of acceptances and SAT and grades of those who were rejected. Carnegie Melon has an average accepted GPA from our school of 4.45 (weighted) and average SATs of almost 1450. This, of course, varies from school to school,but the web site didn't break down which school in CMU these kids got accepted. Although this is median, I would say that the bulk of kids that got in had about 4.50+ weighted GPA and about 1480 on the SAT. </p>
<p>The median takes a lot into account such as schools, affirmative action etc.</p>
<p>Hey taxguy, what's the imperssion of the Pittsburgh community about CMU? Do they view it as a whooa-hard-and-cannot-resist-to-get-in type of school?</p>
<p>I actually have some friends in Pittsburgh. They view CMU as an educational gem in their neighborhood, just as folks from St Louis views Wash U ST Louis.</p>
<p>Instructions: Click on guest option to the right. Then click on "college lookup." Set the state to Pennsylvania and click go or go to the "C's " for the college names. Click on CMU or whatever school you are interested in. Once the school comes up, you will see 4 options,one of which is "graph.:" Click on the graph option. It will give you a great idea of where you stand in admissions.</p>
<p>My physics teacher went to University of Pittsburgh and he's sorta like "oh, Carnegie Mellon... good school, pretty campus, I sorta wish I went there..." and then he tried to convince a friend of mine (who only applied to schools with even more prestigious names) to apply there.</p>
<p>I'm a student at CMU in my sophomore year, and it may interest any prospectives or people who are generally just curious to know, that CMU was actually invited to join the IVY league this year, and was invited in the past, but rejected the offer on the grounds that they did not want to change their innovative research techniques to fit the IVY league standards, which is similar to Georgetown University's decision not to join the IVY for self-preservation reasons. (Georgetown did not want to give up their Jesuit association)</p>