Tell me everything about Mudd

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvey Mudd College
1

<p>Hey, I was thinking about applying to HMC ED2, but I live in New Jersey, so I never had the chance to visit. I had the following questions about HMC I was not able to answer to my satisfaction:</p>

<p>1) Can HMC students use any libraries within the Consortium?</p>

<p>2) Is it possible for a CS major with little to no prior CS experience to compete in the Harvey Mudd CS program?</p>

<p>3) How bad is the GPA deflation, especially if I am considering Grad School (like an MBA after working for a few years)?</p>

<p>4) How tough is it to intern DURING the school year?</p>

<p>5) How tough is the competition for the top internships here (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc.)?</p>

<p>6) How do HMC students fare against Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech students for the top internships and jobs?</p>

<p>7) How many courses can I truly take out of Mudd within the consortium?</p>

2

<p>1) Yes, you can use all the libraries. My D does (in fact, she said she spent Friday morning before break going from library to library returning all the books she had checked out during the semester).</p>

<p>2) Yes. My D had only a tiny amount of programming background (playing around with Arduino with a friend in high school a little bit) before she got to Mudd. Mudd has an intro CS class for students without programming background to help you get started. My kid took that, and is succeeding as a CS major with kids who had more experience. She got a summer internship with a CS prof the summer after freshman year, too, and learned a lot there.</p>

<p>3) No lie, there is grade deflation. First semester is pass/fail, which helps. GPAs tend to climb once the core semesters are done, too. I don’t recall the exact numbers, bur recent year’s seniors average somewhere around a 3.3 or 3.4 GPA. And if you look at the standardized test scores of the students they are admitting, you can see that these are really top students. Someone who is GPA obsessed may not be happy at Mudd.</p>

<p>4) Really no time to intern during the first couple of years, IMHO. Mudders typically are taking 5 classes, and a lot of them are tough STEM classes. They have a Clinical program for junior or senior year (depends on major, I think) where you work with a team on a problem for an external company for a couple of semesters that is very much like interning.</p>

<p>5) Sure, there is competition, but Mudders fare very well in general for those internships and jobs post-graduation. Mudders get a very intense, deep STEM education, they know how to work hard, and a lot of Mudd graduates already work at those companies. Mudd is very much a “feeder” school for those companies.</p>

<p>6) They fare very well.</p>

<p>7) My kid is a sophomore. She took one class outside first semester this year, but is taking two next semester. I would expect she will take 1 or 2 every semester from here on out. The core semesters are pretty “internally focused” at Mudd. But students take courses on the other campuses for sure. And if your secondary concentration requires courses that aren’t offered at Mudd (like my kid may do her secondary concentration in visual arts), then I think you get to take more than the normal limit if you need to.</p>

<p>All that said, I honestly would be hesitant to recommend that anyone ED to Mudd without a visit. It is a very intense place. For the kids it is right for (mine is one of them), there is no place she would rather be. But it isn’t for everyone.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the detailed and insightful response. I have to be honest, I am leaning towards RD myself, but I feel that it would possibly damage my chances of getting in.</p>

4

<p>^Responses are accurate.

  1. You can think of the consortium like a single campus for the most part. There are a lot of shared resources such as the libraries, athletic facilities, etc. that are open to all. A student taking a course on other campuses should have access to facilities/resources available to the “home” students. Major social events are open to all, the dining halls are open to all, so you end up having lots of choices.
  2. Mudd doesn’t do co-op type programs where you work for a semester, which is one reason they have a high 4-year completion percentage. Many students do summer internships, particularly after the frosh summer. There are also summer research opportunities at HMC. Mudd also pioneered the engineering clinic concept where students work on a project sponsored by an outside company. That provides a “real world” work experience for students during the school year. It does require intensity since you are working on the clinic project along with a full complement of classwork.
  3. The fact that Harvey Mudd appears near the top of Payscale rankings and in percentage of students that go on to grad schools indicates that Mudd graduates fare well post-undergraduate life. </p>
5

<p>Thanks @Miles Perrara - Do most CS Mudders stay in the tech industry? </p>

6

<ol>
<li><p>Yes, very many people do it.</p></li>
<li><p>Ok the grade deflation can be hard when applying to some jobs and internships that have cutoff GPAs. Usually employers and colleges can see past that though. It seems like grad school isn’t that tough to get into. (My friends say that you just need a good recommendation.) Medical school can be a little tougher. Mudd is not the best place to go if you want to go to grad school.</p></li>
<li><p>You’re not going to intern during the school year unless you take a semester off, which a couple of my friends have done. You can do research at school during the school year for pay or credit, though. Many people find it hard to find time for it, but I guess you could schedule it in like it’s another class.</p></li>
<li><p>Well, Google and Facebook is FULL of interns from Mudd (especially women, actually). So is SpaceX (but those are mostly men.) It seems to be pretty easy to get a good job once you graduate as well. (Especially if you have a CS degree).</p></li>
<li><p>Because there are so many graduation requirements at Mudd, it is pretty much only feasible to take humanities classes at the other colleges. (About 1/3 of the classes we take are supposed to be humanities classes.) I have taken some great classes at other campuses. The complicating factor is that we are required to take at least 5 humanities classes on campus besides the required freshman classes. I am a junior now and I have only taken one on-campus humanities class, so I think I have to take all the rest of my humanities on campus… I personally like off-campus humanities better.</p></li>
</ol>

7

<p>@musisat , do you mean on #3 that it is not the best for med school? Agree, hard to get the needed GPA. But Mudd has very good grad school placement results.</p>

8

Yeah, not too many Mudd students are pre-med because it’s hart to get a good GPA and you have to take so many other tech classes.

9

I’m not as concerned about Med School as I am a not-so-high GPA coming back to haunt me after a few years of working when I apply to top MBA programs. Is anyone familiar with how this works out?

10

Honestly… I doubt a lot of Mudders go on for MBAs. They sort of aren’t the types – their passions tend to be for math & science, and they have little patience for the BS of business studies (I can say that because I have an MBA…). If you don’t really want to work in the sciences, engineering, or math, another school might be a better choice for you anyway. Because few Mudders go on to MBAs, you may bump into the issue of them not recognizing the difficultly of Mudd (whereas graduate programs in math, engineering, and science generally will understand this).

11

I have something to add to this… there is a LinkedIn group of Mudd graduates who also have MBAs. Appears to have about 30 members. Quite likely not the full population of MBA Mudders, and indicates that some students do eventually go in that direction after graduation.

12

Am I understanding this correctly that Mudd is not the best place for engineering major looking to go to graduate school due to the grade deflation? I know that Caltech has a grade deflation as well with pass/ no pass first semester.

13

No, Mudd would be a good place for an engineering major looking to go to grad school because of the excellent fundamental education. Mudd’s deflation tendencies can’t have a significantly negative effect at most graduate schools, else they wouldn’t send as many students to grad school as they do. For those thinking of attending grad school after working for some years, your more recent work/research history is probably a little more important than your graduation GPA (within reason).

14

I agree with @Miles Perrara - with the exception of Med and Law School, course.

15

An unusually large percentage of Mudd graduates go on to earn Ph.D.s. It is definitely a school where simply having its name on your degree will open doors for you.

16

Yeah it seems like engineering and physics graduates always get into good grad schools. At least the ones I have known.