<p>My daughter is a junior in high school and wants to study journalism/communications/public relations. We live in Illinois. Finances are a consideration so we cannot afford Northwestern or out of state tuition (unless a school participates in the Midwest Student Exchange Program). I have heard Ball State has a great program, but I can't seem to get any info about the school outside of their website and staff. Does anyone have any info about Ball State's journalism program?</p>
<p>Have you run the Net Price Calculators on the various school websites? I would suggest you do that if you haven’t. It will give you a better idea of what the actual costs of the school will be for you. Northwestern is one of the schools that meet 100% of need and according to the Common Data Set their average aid package is about $34,000.</p>
<p>Also look at Indiana …I have heard very good things about their program. My neighbor’s daughter went through their SPEA program and now has an excellent job in Chicago.</p>
<p>Hi Judy, we are in a similar situation. D is looking at journalism schools that participate in the Midwest Student Exchange Program. I think Ball State has a relatively good journalism program - but perhaps not top 10. I think for us, we will plan a trip to visit and see for ourselves what is going on in the journalism program. </p>
<p>Other schools we are looking closely at are University of Kansas, University of Missouri, Michigan State (in-state tuition for us), University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and Alabama - which is where my son attends.</p>
<p>Both Ball State and I.U. have summer high school journalism programs. That might be a good way for your student to try one of them out. I have a son at I.U. and a daughter who attended a residential high school on the Ball State campus. I prefer the latter because it has a smaller campus and has about half the student population. Muncie is not have the kind of college town that Bloomington is. It doesn’t have the international population and restaurants to go with it, but I know that doesn’t matter to every student. It has a nice orchestra and performing arts program and does bring in shows etc.</p>
<p>Ball State had a great Broadcasting department back in the day; David Letterman is a graduate. They were well represented at our broadcasting honor society conferences. And Mr. Letterman donated a nice sum to the Communication & Media dept. [David</a> Letterman Communication and Media Building opening](<a href=“http://www.bsu.edu/web/news/letterman/?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bsu.edu%2Fnews%2Fletterman&ei=3V6MUK-dGpLk8gSWxYG4Cg&usg=AFQjCNH9swNJyHPia2yt3MHT_cK1ei_Ccw&sig2=OQGT-L1xHjRmKE17fy-oow]David”>http://www.bsu.edu/web/news/letterman/?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bsu.edu%2Fnews%2Fletterman&ei=3V6MUK-dGpLk8gSWxYG4Cg&usg=AFQjCNH9swNJyHPia2yt3MHT_cK1ei_Ccw&sig2=OQGT-L1xHjRmKE17fy-oow)</p>
<p>Ball State is a wonderful program. I would also look at Indiana University (Ernie Pyle scholarship is quite coveted). I have a very close family friend at Ball State and generally 2-7 kids each year from our high school attend. The broadcasting major has great facilities and decent alumni support. </p>
<p>About the culture of Ball State-there are a lot of Indiana kids, and they are generally happy kids. One problem that I have seen in the past is that a lot of kids go home on the weekends, or hang with their hs friends. Now my good friend is not having that problem and her life has been nonstop adventure and fun since she moved in. She is also in a demanding theater program. The caliber of students is higher at IU, but that school has a much bigger (and well-earned) party reputation. </p>
<p>It is hard to beat Bloomington, but Muncie isn’t a bad town-it just isn’t really a college town. I would say visit both and apply. Applying early to both is key for the most financial aid.</p>
<p>We have been to Mizzou and Ball State and scheduled for IU next week. One daughter wants Broadcast Journalism and has been accepted at all three. My other daughter wants print journalism/magazine with Creative writing double major. She has been accepted at IU and is looking at other schools where she can double major.
At Mizzou,every student that we talked to from OOS, including two we know locally (in Indiana) have applied for and become Missouri residents for Sophomore year and are now paying in state tuition (Staff is very upfront during visits about the process for this), IU has very good automatic merit scholarships for in-state and out of state and has just proposed freezing tuition sophomore year for students who are on track to graduate in four years. Both very enticing for us.
My daughter had great visits both places. Mizzou is unbelievably impressive…campus, presentation and programs. Ball State completely different but more acommodating in meeting with my daughter, personal tour of newsroom, met the head of that department as well as meeting with another professor in the department, friendly campus, met with honors staff etc. Felt that we had all of our questions answered.
If money was no object, and Mizzou was slightly closer, my daughter would choose Mizzou hands down, it just had a wonderful feel to it.</p>
<p>Another school to look at for Broadcast Journalism is Robert Morris in PA (not in Chicago). It’s right outside of Pittsburgh. They have amazing facilities and a very strong relationship with the news media in Pitt. It’s a very well connected college for many majors actually. Merit aid is pretty generous as well.</p>
<p>Rob D, I assume you are/were in journalism as a career. You say Ball State had a good program back in the day. Do you think their telecommunications program is competitive today for job placement?</p>
<p>I am 20 years removed from that career 
but I will say that for telecommunications, the big thing used to be having a good internship. DH & I went to what would be called a directional state university, but it had a great broadcasting department, with faculty who were really involved & connected in NYC and we had fantastic internship opportunities as well as freelance opportunities. Anyone looking into programs in that field should be asking about where their students are interning, and where they’re getting jobs after graduation.</p>