Frequently Asked Questions

This is an error that will occur if you are logged into a personal Gmail account. Here's how to fix it:

1. Log out of your personal Gmail account.
2. Navigate to docs.carleton.edu  and log in using your Carleton username and password.
3. Now click the application link again; you should have access!

If this does not work, please email Lin Winton.

1. Go to go.carleton.edu/aleks where you will be prompted to log in with your Carleton username and password. 2.  You will be brought to a screen asking you to accept the usage agreement. Read the terms, check the box indicating that you agree to the terms, and click continue. 3.  You will then be brought to a screen indicating that your registration is complete, and your ALEKS account has been successfully paired with your Carleton account. Click continue. 4. The next screen confirms your student registration is complete in the CUBE class. You may click continue to your ALEKS class to begin.

The application deadline is June 25th, and we hope to let students know by early July if they have been selected to participate.

CUBE is a great way to connect with the Carleton community before you come to Northfield in September. It is a free opportunity to brush up on quantitative skills you may have forgotten or missed in high school, so you are more prepared to do college-level work. Finally, CUBE gives you the opportunity to earn credit that can help ensure timely progress towards graduation. Upon successful completion of the program (both summer and fall components), you can earn up to 6 credits.* That credit buffer is an advantage because it gives you flexibility in the future to take a lighter course load one term and still be on track to graduate on time. *In some rare cases, a student may already have earned the College maximum of 36 pre-matriculation credits from AP exams or community college courses, in which case the student is not eligible to earn additional pre-matriculation credits from this program.

There is no additional cost or fee to participate in this program.

The CUBE program includes an on-line summer component and a face-to-face fall component, and you must participate in both portions of the program to be eligible to earn credit. During the summer, you are expected to engage with program activities for 7-10 hours/week from July 19th–August 27th. Scheduling is flexible, with only 60-90 minutes of synchronous scheduled meetings with other participants each week. You can earn up to 5 credits for your summer participation. During the fall, you are expected to register for IDSC 110 Thinking with Numbers, a 1-credit course that meets weekly for an hour for the first 5 weeks of the term. Students must successfully complete both the summer and fall portions of the class in order to be eligible to earn up to 6 credits.

As noted in the CUBE program expectations, the first portion of the program is an online component during the summer. Students must have reliable access to a computer with an internet connection. A student whose only access to the internet is via a mobile phone will not be able to fully engage in the activities of this program. All Carleton students are expected to bring a personal computer to campus (minimum recommended specifications), so Carleton provides a laptop stipend to students based on income eligibility requirements. If you qualify, you will receive an email from Adit Burkule with information about how to participate. In case of shipping delays, Carleton can provide a loaner laptop for the summer. Carleton also has a limited number of WiFi hotspots that students in the CUBE program can request to use at no charge if they do not have reliable access to high-speed internet.

Students will work in teams on several activities, including exploring Carleton-specific data sets that might tell a story about the College and collaborating to solve the problem of the week. In addition, there will be opportunities for self-paced quantitative skills review and practice through online resources. Students will get to know each other (and a few campus notables) through an activity called the “Weekly Cube” and some Carleton alums will share how they are using quantitative skills in their careers.

CUBE is a short-term program to support students in any field with the transition to college courses, while FOCUS and TRIO are programs that provide cohorts of students extended support over all four years at Carleton.

FOCUS is a program that supports incoming students with an interest in science and math. FOCUS is a science and math cohort program that includes 9 credits of coursework in the first two years, while CUBE is a short-term program to support students in any field with the transition to college courses. A student may participate in both FOCUS and CUBE.

TRIO is a federally-funded program to support students who are low-income, first-generation, or have a documented disability by providing academic, financial, and social programming. There is no coursework associated with TRIO. Students can participate in both TRIO and CUBE.

CUBE is designed for students with a broad range of interests; we will be drawing on examples from the sciences and the social sciences. In addition to brushing up on quantitative skills that are used in math and science classes, it’s a great opportunity to get to know other students in your incoming class. Science students might also be interested in the FOCUS program, described elsewhere on this page.

CUBE is designed for students with a broad range of interests; we will be drawing on examples from the social sciences and the sciences. At Carleton, every student must complete three courses that provide quantitative reasoning encounters (QRE) in order to graduate, and over 200 classes at Carleton are QRE courses.

CUBE is designed for students with diverse interests and backgrounds who would like to have the opportunity to brush up on their quantitative skills before classes start in the fall. Plus it’s a great opportunity to get to know other students in your incoming class.

The program focuses on skills that are usually covered in math and statistics courses up to and including pre-calculus. Many of these skills are ones that you may have already seen in a high school course, but you may not remember all of these skills well.

Skills will include evaluating and manipulating algebraic functions (linear, exponential, logarithmic), some geometry and trigonometry, graphing, and basic statistical analysis of data sets. The program will review these quantitative skills by exploring how they are relevant in a wide range of disciplines.

No. Don’t worry if you find yourself rusty on many of the topics! The initial assessment for CUBE will not be used for placement into any courses and it won’t be shared with your academic advisor.  

If you have received an invitation to participate in CUBE, you can find the program application. The application deadline is June 26th. The application will ask you to answer several questions about your interests and then you will be asked to complete an initial quantitative skills assessment using the ALEKS Prep for Calculus software. The initial assessment takes about an hour to complete. Invitations to apply to CUBE are sent to students having the potential to benefit the most from this program. CUBE has a maximum enrollment of 30 students. We may not be able to accommodate everyone who applies to participate.