DOHA, QATAR –Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar kicked off its fourth Summer College Preview Program started yesterday. The program targets rising high school juniors and seniors, and gives in-depth focus on college-level material that students will undertake if they choose to attend an American university. SCPP’s mission is to prepare top high school students for admission to highly selective universities such as Carnegie Mellon.
Forty-one students enrolled from various private and independent schools in Qatar and the surrounding region. With roughly 200 applicants, the Summer College Preview Program remains highly selective, with students applying from Qatar, India, Kuwait, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
“Our desire is to make good students better,” says Bruce Volstad, manager ofp-college program at Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “This program helps students who have a dream about studying at a western university bring their dream and reality closer together.”
The program covers advanced knowledge in subjects such as math, English and SAT preparation. SAT practice exams to give students a more concrete insight into the workload expected of university students, especially in highly-ranked universities such as Carnegie Mellon.
The program also works on personal development through workshops that emphasize personal responsibility in the learning process and introducing techniques and strategies required to be successful college students. Throughout the three-week period, students are offered the opportunity to work in groups on a capstone project in one of the degree programs Carnegie Mellon Qatar offers: Business Administration, Computer Science or Information Systems. This project uses all the skills learned during the program in one interactive and challenging project that they will then present to their classmates.
“The independence and pressure of university is very different from the pressure that students face in high school and the SCPP does an exceptional job at allowing students to get a feel of that difference,” says Aliah Dehdary, an alumna of the SCPP and a current student at Carnegie Mellon Qatar.
“This program really gives a very strong and thorough idea of what Carnegie Mellon is about. If it weren’t for the Summer College Preview Program I probably wouldn’t have attended Carnegie Mellon.”
Dehdary says one of the best parts of the program is getting to meet new people and amking many new friends. “I met many students during the SCPP and am friends with almost all of them, even though it has been three years since the program. That reason was also why I chose Carnegie Mellon. Knowing people before coming to a new place and a new environment like university makes the transition so much easier.”
