Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is just over a century old -- a relative newbie compared to the elite universities it is often grouped alongside. Still, much of modern-day campus life is influenced by the private research university's history. Students in the marching band perform in kilts and knee-high socks, and the school's mascot is the Scottish Terrier, both of which are nods to founder Andrew Carnegie's Scottish roots. The university even offers a bagpiping major within its music school. But true to its founding as a technology school, Carnegie Mellon is best known for programs in computer science, engineering, and information technology, with a broad academic offering of 80 undergraduate majors and over 90 minors. Each spring for 100 years, student teams have designed and built "buggies," which look like a cross between a soapbox car and a luge racer, for a race called the Buggy Sweepstakes (or Buggy for short). Another well-known custom draws students outside in the middle of the night to paint a campus fence that serves as an announcement board for student groups. Tradition dictates the hours the fence can be painted -- between midnight and sunrise -- and that students must then stand guard to keep other groups from claiming the fence for their own message.