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Mac Friendly Colleges?

Macmaniac

Macmaniac

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 6, 2001
3,341
1
A tiny spec in the "Garden State", 1 square mile i
Does anyone know if there is a list of Mac friendly colleges? I have begun looking for colleges, and the one thing I know is that I want a college that uses/supports macs, and has a good tech policy, no Nazi like tech policies that are clamping down on the internet. Help please!
 
If the college is clamping down on internet use, and requiring PCs, just find someone who has an extremely ancient PC that they are willing to give away or sell for less than 100 bucks, and add an extra ethernet card ($5-$15). Then plug the PC into the ethernet, and your computer into the other ethernet port, and then find a guide online on how to turn the PC into a network bridge. The uni. will be none to the wiser that you are using a mac on their internet connection. :D
 
PSU

Penn State, we have the apple store too. And I think it is the graduate students in comp sci major get Powerbooks. Everything including the wireless on campus, which requires vpn connector, is supported by the IT staff here. We have a couple mac only labs, and almost every computer labs on campus has Macs. The Mac PR guy, talked with him a couple times, said that PSU and Apple have a very good partnership, with PSU spending about 1 million with them every year for new equipment. This summer I know of a Mac lab being installed in the new IST building. Other than that I don't know of any other purchases. I think the deal includes 20 Powermacs for media stuff, and a bunch of xserves to do some clustering, I don't know the details.
 
I know that American Uni in DC has a lot of macs and new one's at that, hell they are probably running panther on all their computers. I attend Evergreen, and they still have jaguar. We need more macs though, this school is dominated by PC's. I was in DC this past summer, where I"m from, doing an internship, and used some of the computers at AU. I found only one guy on campus that didn't have the newest version of the OS. --
 
The University of Wisconsin - Stout (Menomonie, WI - an hour east of Mpls/St. Paul, MN) has three majors or so for which all incoming students are required to have PowerBooks (leased at $500/semester). Majors with this requirement are Graphic Communications Management (GCM), Art & Design, and Technical Communications. All other majors receive Compaq laptops at $500/semester. The campus is wireless-equipped, with a good signal available almost anywhere. The GCM labs are also equipped with G5s and high-end G4s. The bookstore on campus is an Apple Authorized Reseller, however, that may not last much longer, since all incoming students are required to have laptops anyway.

The laptops are leased from the school, and may not be modified physically. After two years, the students are given new laptops. An option for students to purchase the laptops after two years was discussed but determined to be cost-prohibitive.
 
I forgot this too

The computers in the Hub, at Penn State, that are for students to use real quick while passing though are all iMacs. So are the directory computers in the Hub. Computer Store has a full display of many Macs and we have cheap Mac software. Got iLife for about $29, Panther for free.
 
Stanford was pretty Mac friendly. Here at the UW we have a decent number of Macs, most of them G5's with Cinema displays. We have more PC's but its fine for me, they are alway sin use and there are always free macs. USC was pretty Mac friendly, the bookstore was an authorized Apple dealer.
 
Briarcliffe

i got to briarcliffe college in bethpage NY and all we use are macs, just got 3 classrooms of g5's , they took out the g4's the rest of the rooms have g4s' outa lets say 40 classrooms
25 have g4's or g5's
school majors in graphic design and animation/
 
first to acidrock...I went to AU for 3 years and transferred last year because of their horrible multimedia program and unbelievably undertrained staff on macs. My girlfriend is still there and says nothing has changed as far as the macs go.
Anyways to answer the original question a friend goes to Emory in Atlanta and was told she can only have a Mac because their entire campus is Airport Extreme...I haven't been their to visit her but those who have say that it is a Mac lovers dream. Hope it helps.
 
Pacific University (www.pacificu.edu) in Forest Grove, Or. has a lab filled with brand-new Macs. They upgrade like twice a year, I think. Great stuff... And yeah, most of the UC schools are very Mac-friendly. :)

-- Michael Bankston, AKA "LoneGman"
 
Oregon State University is very friendly toward Macs. There are several Mac labs, one of them is a multimedia lab with a bunch of dual 2 GHz G5s and Studio Displays. There's a lot more Windows boxes than Macs, but Macs aren't hard to find and are officially supported.
 
USC and UCLA have many macs, and have a pro mac environment including a lot of wireless for leiti staff and students.

Many universities like the entire CalState system are moving to VLAN by Cisco. That is most definately Mac unfriendly. Although not intentional 9in most cases) the fact that they move to these virtual secure networks tends to exclude the minority of Mac users. Macs CAN be made to work on them, but its difficult and requires extra support the schools cannot provide (ignorance mostly).

Yale has a very nice Mac population and wireless area, although I do not think they 'officially' endorse Macs like some schools. UPenn is good, as is Tufts for Macs.

As an asdie UCLA actually subsidizes student purchases of Macs. They are 2 to 3 hundred less than Apple Store for Education. Its a great Deal.
 
don't base your choice if your machine is compatable, that is always fixable. you can't fix the school if it suxs. you didn't even list what your possible major options are some of theses schools have big advantages in some areas where in others they totally suck.
 
seamuskrat said:
USC and UCLA have many macs, and have a pro mac environment including a lot of wireless for leiti staff and students.
...
As an asdie UCLA actually subsidizes student purchases of Macs. They are 2 to 3 hundred less than Apple Store for Education. Its a great Deal.
Click to expand...

i see professors with PB's all the time when I go pick up the gf.
(except for the law students)
 
the communication department at michigan state had tons of macs. the digital media arts lab in particular was completely mac. when i was there they just bought dual processor 1ghz g4s with flat panel displays. and before that they had g3 towers. its possible now they have g5s.

other than that i think the majority of the campus was pc. the library definitely was.
 
I forgot, you all better be using Rendezvous iChat on those campuses of yours. I know the IT Mac techinition here at Truman is usually on during business hours so I get to alert him of "stuff". Like AFS quit working for a while (still's not quite right however) and QT movies wouldn't download. Anyhoo, it's pretty handy.
 
Baylor University has an Apple Store as very very accomadating wireless internet for free use all over the campus. Baylor was just ranked very respectfully for its array of efforts to help network the entire campus wirelessly. As many colleges I am sure use already, most of Baylor's professors use lecture based, homework based and grade based programs via the internet to enhance their course. I have not taken one class that has not demanded me to use the internet regarding a course.
 
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