D wants urban and will apply to a number of Boston and NYC schools. How would you compare these 2 given that their raw numbers are very similar? Financial aid will be very important as will the ability to take classes in a variety of departments before committing to a major.
While both of these schools have billion-dollar endowments, they also have large enrollments, and so neither one is particularly wealthy on an endowment-per-student basis. They are not noted for great financial aid; NYU has a particularly weak reputation in this regard. Unlike wealthier schools, neither commits to meeting the “full need” of admitted students:
So if financial aid is "very important", then you may just want to pick the school that gives you the better offer.Luckily she has some good in-state options so if these Boston/NYC schools don’t accept or come through with aid she will have alternatives.
Have you run the NPC on both? Neither is especially good for financial aid, so you shouldn’t invest too much “interest” and “likes” in them.
A student who wants an urban university and would consider these universities reachable in terms of stats, is likely to qualify for a scholarship at UMN Twin Cities, Macalester (meets need), DePaul, Loyola Chicago, Loyola LA, Loyola New Orleans, Tulane, UPitt, Temple, American, USC-Columbia…
IMO there is no reason to compare these two schools at this early stage. You should be keeping the options wide open for now. If your D gets into both schools with sufficient aid to make them both affordable, THEN it would be time for this type of one-on-one comparison.
CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Hunter college.
Free tuition, stipend for travel related to research/internships.
In past partial dorm costs in scholarship (not board).
Hunter is good for liberal arts, teaching, not as broad as BU (where they have Physical Therapy,
Hotel Management etc). But you have to pay much more. There are other campuses of CUNY but most do not include the dorm, and even at cost, no dorm with honors students, and most others commute. Hunter with the Macaulay Honors at least gives the fresh/soph dorm experience, but not on other CUNY campuses. In general, NYC is very expensive, and Boston these days similarly, so if fin aid is important, then your goals of big city and lower cost may be somewhat incompatible. Maybe shoot for smaller cities with schools of interest where COL is lower, and it’s possible for more merit.
Unfortunately these and similar schools (like George Wash, the closest equivalent in DC) are need aware, and might even reject a student because they have significant aid needs. Some deny it, some admit it, but it is true. They have something other colleges do not have, Boston, DC and NYC… There are lots willing to pay to be in such places.
^ Macaulay is only for instate at this level. Due to Excelsior, I’m guessing Macaulay for instate students will change a bit (study abroad? research stipend?) OOS students don’t get much anymore (the cultural passport + access to the seminars).
@happy1 - I’m thinking about this now as I’m trying to figure how many days to budget for a Boston trip.
I don’t think you need to spend more than a day at any one college (including BU) so it would depend on if you want to see other schools in the area.
That’s the issue - do i budget a day for BU? If may fall into the visit if you’re accepted pile.
NYU is well known for poor financial aid and high average debt levels of graduates. BU, although less commonly given as an example of such, actually has higher average debt levels of graduates than NYU.
Try the net price calculators:
http://www.nyu.edu/financial.aid/misc/npc/
https://www.bu.edu/finaid/aid-basics/cost-of-education/net-price-calculator/