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. Carnegie Mellon is best known for programs in computer science, engineering and information technology, with a broad academic offering of 85 undergraduate majors and over 90 minors. Graduates excel when they enter the workforce, with median early career earnings of nearly $100,000. 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.