Rice with a Greek scene?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Case Western Reserve University
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<p>I've just started doing a little research on Case, and there are a lot of similarities that I see to Rice. However, some of the posts do indicate that there is a large Greek scene. I guess the residential colleges reminded me of Rice, but then also, looking at the ranking, difficulty of school, hearkens back to Rice. Does anyone else see that similarity?</p>

<p>Rice is well known down here in Louisiana as the school you would love to send your child to, if only it wasn't in Texas. No offense from me, but the kids won't go back there since Katrina. They associate it with a bad time, no matter what great opportunities are there for them. </p>

<p>Anyone familiar with the two schools that can do a comparison for me?</p>

2

<p>There are some similarities and some differences. </p>

<p>Both schools are located near massive medical facilities. Both schools send a lot of graduates to Medical School. Both schools are considered to have the top academics in their state. Both are private schools. Both schools offer a breadth of programs, such as engineering, architecture, music, etc. Both schools have a reputation for having an academically-focused student body. Both schools are located in major cities. I think both schools are highly respected by the top graduate and professional schools; if you succeed there, you can get into any grad program.</p>

<p>Among differences I see, is that Rice is smaller (3000 undergraduates vs 4000 at Case) and Rice is much smaller for graduate and professional schools (2000 vs 6000). Case tends to feel like a graduate school even for the undergraduates; some HS students looking for a place to go wild for a few years don’t like this, while others are attracted by it. Case is easier to gain admission undergrad than Rice. Rice regularly appears on lists for “Best Quality of Life” by the major publications, and Case never does (although I believe Case is underrated by the magazines for its overall academic experience). Although Rice does keep its tuition down, Case is more generous with merit awards than any university in the top 35.</p>

<p>The other schools rated highly by the magazines for quality of life like Rice are Stanford and WashUStL (if you are interested).</p>

<p>I think if you are interested in Rice for its academics, programs, size, affordability for a private school, and urban location, Case should be on your list.</p>

<p>ps- I would not pick Case because they have “residential colleges”. I understand it is only a first-year system and not comparable to schools like Rice, Yale or Notre Dame. Case offers an array of living options, including the nicest campus housing you’ll ever see at The Village.</p>

<p>ps2- Case has Greek membership options, but it is not the wild party scene you might expect.</p>

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<p>Disclaimer: I have never been to Rice, didn’t apply there, didn’t even look into it, so I know nothing about Rice.</p>

<p>However, there are a couple of things I can address:</p>

<p>1.The Residential colleges are not that big a deal. I don’t know what they are like at Rice, but I have heard something about residential colleges at other schools (besides Case, the ones I’ve heard most about are small liberal arts colleges). </p>

<p>Residential colleges at Case
a) Are only for freshmen
b)Do NOT mean that you will find most of your friends within your college, you may–it may be more convenient since you may live down the hall from such friends–but you just as easily not.
c) The colleges are not far apart physically: the freshman dorms are mostly pretty clustered together, mostly a matter of at most hundreds of yards apart
d) They all go to the same dining hall
e) You can make as little or as much of them as you want, there are some activities, intramural sports, etc. associated with your colleges, some participate, some don’t. For some people residential colleges pretty much only means that you have card access to certain dorms and not to others. Others play on teams, participate in the college play, etc.</p>

<ol>
<li>Greek Life. I am a member of the Greek community, so there are a few things I can say about it. </li>
</ol>

<p>a. In my experience, Greek life at Case has been very different from Greek life at other schools, the Hollywood’s version. There are people in the Greek system who knew before they went to college that they wanted to go Greek, and there are also people like me who you wouldn’t necessarily have guessed would end up in Greek life. </p>

<p>b. Even within Greek life there is a lot of accommodation for schoolwork.I have really enjoyed Greek life, but I’m a serious student, but that’s OK because many girls in my sorority work really hard too. </p>

<p>c. Partying. I wouldn’t ever drink underage and that has never been a problem, I have never felt pressure because of it, and I have also never felt excluded because of it either.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

4

<p>Case has a very badly-ran administration. similiar to Tulane than Rice. The undergrad population is 4000 plus because the admin. wants to increase the amount of undergrad students yet does not increase the faculty proportionately. The SAGES classes is one example. When the program started SAGES had 14 students in each class. Now the number is like 20 students per class. The SAGES instructors are not even tenured facility members. Some of the so called visiting SAGES scholars are actually instructors from John Caroll or some other university around Cleveland. You cannot really search for the names of the sages instructors because the school wants to hide this aspect from students.</p>

<p>As for the scholarships, even though the freshman scholarships requirements say 24 credits per year, but you need to take more classes than 24 credits or else you lose your full time status as a student, so no scholarship</p>

<p>Furthermore, if you want to retain your scholarship, you must be in university owned housing and meal plan for all 4 years, or else they say you’re not a full-time student on campus.</p>

<p>All this sneaky “fine prints” are not included in the terms of accepting the scholarship.</p>

<p>They give out so much in scholarship money that last year they went broke on the amount of money for scholarships. They use mostly the money donated from alumni for scholarships.</p>

<p>The advising for pre anything (e.g. pre-med, pre-law, etc.) is underfunded and too many students for one advisor. </p>

<p>The music department desperately needs performance space, and the school isn’t funding anything for that.</p>

<p>Students take advantage of other students by complaining about false sexual assualts.</p>

5

<p>Aside from the positive messages from other students, if I were the OP I would do some more research about the revolving door of Case’s administration</p>

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<p>dagitedone: I realize I am biased because I am at Case and love it, but I wanted to comment on some of the comments you made. I am not quite sure why you are so intent on finding fault with Case, I am sorry you have had such a bad experience.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Yes, some of the SAGES instructors are not tenured faculty members. but many teachers of other classes (other Case classes and classes at other universities) are taught by assistant profs who are not tenured. While I agree that some of the SAGES professors are awful, I have had a not-so-good tenured prof. Some people enjoy having non-Case-professors teach SAGES, I have friends who were in SAGES classes taught by a writer from the Plain Dealer, or professionals at local museums. I mean I don’t care for the SAGES program (some people like it, I’m just not one of them), just the way it’s so hit-or-miss with classes, but I don’t think outside profs are the problem. I just wish we had standard English classes so transfers (in and out) wouldn’t get so screwed. Suggestion: whenever I could (i.e. after 1st semester) I signed up initially for 2 SAGES classes a term, went to a couple of meetings and looked at which would be easier or more interesting, and then I dropped one during drop-add period.</p></li>
<li><p>Page A-74 of the 2006-2007 Student Handbook (<a href=“Division of Student Affairs | Case Western Reserve University”>http://studentaffairs.case.edu/handbook/doc/handbook0607.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) states that 12 credits per semester is required for full-time student status, it also states that (A-84) “Scholarship recipients will be
required to have earned at Case at least 24 semester hours in the first year, 54 semester hours by the end of the second year, and 84 semester hours by the end of the
third year.” So if you think you lost a scholarship because of that limit, you should go complain to undergrad studies.</p></li>
<li><p>I still have a scholarship for this year and I am studying abroad (i.e. not on campus). I also have a scholarship for next year although I will be living off-campus not on the meal-plan.
The fine print is in the student handbook, by enrolling your are implicitly agreeing to the student handbook and are responsible for its contents. It is a contract and you should use it to contest anything unfair you think has happened.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t understand why it matters where the scholarship money comes from. As long as I get a check, it doesn’t matter to me.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, the pre-professional advising stinks. In fact, so does all the advising at Case. I don’t know how it is at others schools, but usually I would rather ask someone who has actually applied to and been accepted at professional programs or had students who have done so. Fortunately I realized early that Case Undergrad Studies did not have good advice for me and instead I went directly to professors and family friends who were in that field. I don’t care where I get information, I always go back to the handbook to try to confirm it because that is the contract and that I can hold Case to no matter what.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, music space sucks, I really enjoy music (not a major or minor) and really wish there were more facilities.</p></li>
<li><p>Administration: yes there has been some–correction, a lot of–instability, but Barbara Snyder, our new president, has done an amazing job picking up the pieces. For example, last fiscal year, Case had a $20mil deficit, this year we had a $100k+ surplus. That’s pretty impressive in one year. ([The</a> Observer](<a href=“http://media.www.cwruobserver.com/media/paper1370/sections/20081031News.html]The”>http://media.www.cwruobserver.com/media/paper1370/sections/20081031News.html))</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>dagiftedone: </p>

<p>I’m sorry, but you are simply wrong about some of the things you said. You do only need 24 credit hours/year to remain a full time students. I know countless students that have taken at, or just above this amount, and kept their scholarships.</p>

<p>Also, you absolutely do not need to live on campus and have the meal plan for all four years to keep your scholarship. I swear, I don’t understand why some Case students are so eager to place so much fault on the administration, and apparently invent random (and incorrect) offenses on the school’s part. Sure, it perfect, but it seems to be getting a helluva lot better IMO.</p>

<p>SAGES: I’m also rather on the fence about the program. Like Casegirl says, it causes a lot of issues for transfers, both in and out. Also, the classes are very hit or miss. I happened to despise my first SAGES class at Case. My last one, on the other hand, ended up being my favorite class out of my three years thus far at Case, and my favorite professor as well. I also enjoy that they bring in outsiders to teach the courses, as they can often provide more practical insight to the theme of the seminar (ie. one of my courses was taught by a writer for one of the local papers, as mentioned above). </p>

<p>Don’t know anything about music…and the advising DOES leave something to be desired. Really though, people need to give this school more of the credit it deserves, and quit being so whiny.</p>

<p>(sorry, I realise this was a rant.)</p>

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<p>Okay.</p>

<p>Let me clarify my position.</p>

<p>1) Personally, I know also countless students (including me) who were removed from their scholarship this year. I believe the school is cracking down on scholarships more strictly this year due to the financial crisis its effects on the endowment at Case. The Observer newspaper has mentioned this situation in one of its articles. However, I cannot
go into details about the people involved because they are still “fighting the system” .</p>

<p>2) Many of my own personal friends got their scholarships “reduced” to a grant-in-aid because they were so called not “full time”. They rented a house not owned by the University. The only details I can confirm about this case is that they are now currently seniors and they now live in the new Village.</p>

<p>3) I agree about Case Spartan’s comments about SAGES however. Some students really enjoyed it. Other students hated it. I did not learn anything about writing essays in that class. Furthermore, my first SAGES professor graded me down to a B when I tried to use what he calls “fancy language”. He told me on my paper to “stop overwriting”. </p>

<p>He did not understand what the word “paroxysm” meant, so he told me to tone down my paper a bit. In fact, many of the humanities professors at Case still advise students to write like this “The first reason why [blah blah] is good for [blah blah] is”…</p>

<p>“Next, [blah blah] should also be”…</p>

<p>Those were a list of transitions that my SAGES professor in my first course told me to use.</p>

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<p>And here are some internal documents I pulled from Case Western Reserve University’s web site about how instructors should approach the SAGES program.</p>

<p>Meeting your SAGES Co-Instructor: suggestions</p>

<p>Below you will find suggestions (and a set of useful boiler-plate emails) for meeting with a SAGES co-instructor for the first time. These have been collected from writing faculty or culled from meeting notes of SAGES 101. I have attempted to provide useful headings: Approaches, Good Questions to Ask, Suggested Emails
Approaches

  1. It’s a great idea to ask your prospective co-instructor out for coffee… maybe in the SAGES caf</p>
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<p>That was from this web site:
artsci.cwru.edu/wiki/writing/uploads/2/23/​SAGES_​Introducingyourself.doc</p>

<p>In fact, the English department even acknowledges that SAGES instructors may be grad students.</p>

<p>“These pages are designed with English department and SAGES Graduate Student Instructors and Writing Lecturers in mind. In addition to the other Writing Resource pages, which provide information about the writing process and other relevant topics, these pages address the needs of graduate students and lecturers teaching writing at Case.”</p>

<p>adopted from this web site:
[Writing</a> Program Resources - English Courses](<a href=“Writing@CWRU | Case Western Reserve University”>Writing@CWRU | Case Western Reserve University)</p>

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<p>About the administration. Yes the administration has changed. But people should take notice of how the administration has changed. </p>

<p>The administration has succeeded to get rid of the budget deficit left by Dr. Hundert (who is at Harvard right now), but it has done this through the cancellation of some student activities.</p>

<p>One that is visible to me is that the university’s career services department used to have a service for free to open up a credentials file. Now, the university outsourced its credential files services to Interfolio. So, the university does not care about its students after they “exit from the ranch” so to speak. Back when they had the paper file services, the service was free for students. Now, Interfolio charges around 15 bucks to open the account and 10 dollars per year to maintain the account. That is what the students at the Career center told me. </p>

<p>Case marginalizes the change, telling students that electronically backing up the files is better. But, Case’s career center web site never mentions the high fees involved with this service. Here’s the web site:</p>

<p>[Credential</a> Files - Case Career Center](<a href=“Division of Student Affairs | Case Western Reserve University”>Division of Student Affairs | Case Western Reserve University)</p>

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<p>Alright, dagiftedgone, I didn’t read through all your posts just because that’s one HUGE post. But because this is a relatively heavily trafficked post, I have a couple of things to say. </p>

<ol>
<li> From what I understand, you have had a very bad experience at Case, that’s fair, some people have bad experiences at college. But I’ve seen most of your posts and I have a hard time finding any comments of yours that are in any way positive about Case. When I see someone bashing my school like you have, I kind of have to say something, I feel sort of as if my family’s reputation were on the line or something, especially when I feel like Case is getting criticized unfairly.
So to all you prospective students out there, bear in mind that some of these posts are by (that includes me, although I do my best not to be) very biased people. And I think there are only a handful of us Case students on here so, so probably not very representative. So seriously, take EVERYTHING any of us say with a grain of salt. And try to verify with someone else anything you hear on the internet. OK, now I sound condescending, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, I think it’s just combination of nostalgia now that I’m a senior and feel momma-bearish because my lil brother’s now a prospective.</li>
<li> Being removed from scholarships sucks. But unfortunately if you don’t fulfill the guidelines, you have to be aware that may happen. And unfortunately with the economic crisis, Case probably has (I not knowledgeable enough to know precisely how hard Case was hit), along with many other colleges suffered. Therefore, Case probably cannot afford to be as lenient as it may have been in the past. When I was considering schools the fact that Case’s guidelines were RELATIVELY lax was a huge positive for me. Some schools I looked at (I believe it was actually Tulane, but don’t quote me on that) had a scholarship requirement of 3.5, which I didn’t want to have to </li>
<li> When you talk about your friends scholarships being reduced because they were in off-campus housing, it SOUNDS like they are talking about need-based financial aid. Just want to make that clear. A student’s parents could make 5 million a year and his/her academic scholarships would not be affected (in fact, they wouldn’t file a FAFSA, but that’s beyond the point). Yes. Financial Aid IS changed 3if you move off-campus housing, but that is common to many many schools. Again, don’t quote me on this but I believe it’s a requirement for federal grants that schools are not allowed to take into account off-campus living into your need-package. For this reason, I know people who have had to stay on-campus because it would be MORE expensive to live in an apartment even though that apartment had a sticker price much lower than Case Housing. Also, I hate to say this, but Case’s need-based financial aid is worse than many other schools. Case focuses its money on merit-scholarships</li>
<li> What exactly was your point in copying-and-pasting that long blurb about SAGES, can you summarize for me? (By the way, I think you meant to give a different link, none of the info you quote is actually on that link) Where did it say SAGES instructors could be grad students? I’ve had writing co-instructors be grad students, but I’ve never heard of SAGES class for which the main instructor was a grad student. </li>
<li> The career center. I don’t actually use the Career Center much. And I have never used the credential file. I just still don’t know what I want to do after graduation so for me it would be kind of weird to have professors write letters of reference before I knew what they were referring me for. But even if I had started a credential file freshman year $15 + $10 +$10 doesn’t seem like all that much money.</li>
</ol>

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<p>

</p>

<p>My D lived in the Village the last 2 years and was not on a meal plan. Her merit scholarship was not affected and there was no such restriction on the scholarship. casegirl’s suggestion that it may affect FA may be what you are referring to, but I do not know.</p>

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<p>Fine, in order to be objective, I will have to say that Case Western reserve’s engineering and pre-med programs are top-notch.</p>

<p>For instance, Case has a strong biomedical engineering program. My friend at Case told me a couple of the biomed enginering grads go to Stanford med every year. </p>

<p>Safety is not as much an issue as the city’s reputation suggests. As long as you’re not outside at night you should be fine. However, I am going to reference a previous thread about
safety at Case (when this forum has more students here):</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/359026-safety-case.html?highlight=safety[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/359026-safety-case.html?highlight=safety&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Like the thread said, there was an incident about date rape on campus.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately (as I believe was mentioned within the post you are linking to) date rape can happen anywhere, at any school, and likelihood of it occurring depends on the type of people you hang out with, how smart you act, as well as other factors outside your control, but not really on previous history of date rape at a certain school. From what I heard, Case administered very severe repercussions in this incident, so I’m confused as to why you’re bringing it up.</p>