Please note: Beginning at 7 a.m. Aug. 18, Lookout Mountain Road west of Highway 6 will close to public access as students hike up the road to the M on Mt. Zion.
GOLDEN, Colo., Aug. 13, 2014 – Incoming Colorado School of Mines students will gather on Kafadar Commons at 8 a.m. on Aug. 18 for the university’s annual back-to-school kickoff, the M Climb.
As tradition dictates, new students haul a 10-pound rock from home to the iconic mountainside M on Mt. Zion west of campus. They will place their rocks on the monument, give everything (including themselves) a fresh coat of whitewash and get bussed back to campus for a barbecue. Classes begin Aug 19.
A Mines education continues to be highly sought after, as evidenced by a record 13,200 applications received for the 2014-15 academic year. New undergraduate enrollment is anticipated to be around 1,000 freshmen and 160 transfers, making it the university’s largest incoming class. The incoming students match last year’s most academically prepared student profile with average ACT scores of 30 and high school GPAs of 3.8 on a 4.0 scale.
About the Mines Class of 2018:
- 144 students report they are first generation students (neither their parents, nor their grandparents were college graduates)
- 184 students report a family legacy relationship
- 65 percent of new freshmen have been awarded some kind of transfer credit for AP (Advanced Placement) or IB (International Baccalaureate)
- 48 percent of new freshmen will move ahead in the core curriculum classes of calculus, chemistry and/or physics due to AP and IB credit
- Five sets of twins
- 25.2 percent women
- 18 percent underrepresented domestic ethnic or racial groups
- 58 percent Colorado residents
- 42 percent from out of state (top 5 U.S. states outside Colorado are Texas, California, Washington, Illinois and Nebraska; top 5 non-U.S. countries are Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia and India)
Contact:
Karen Gilbert, Director of Public Relations, Colorado School of Mines / 303-273-3541 / kgilbert@mines.edu
Kathleen Morton, Communications Coordinator, Colorado School of Mines / 303-273-3088 / kmorton@mines.edu