I’ve applied here for social work, which I’ve heard it’s great for. I haven’t visited, but I’ll hopefully be able to. Can someone tell me about the school?
I know it’s an expensive school, but I recently read they meet full need for half of students. Please don’t flood the comments with financial opinions.
Catholic U is one of the Cardinal Newman schools and I believe the only school run by the Council of Bishops. It is under the Jurisdiction of Rome, the Holy See.
Siena and Scranton might have been better choices for you unless you have a religious reason to attend.
The financial aid looks poor AVG cost to attend is close to $40k a year.
I looked at Catholic U and honestly was underwhelmed and my D did not connect with it at all so chose not to apply. It just seemed to lack anything special but the info session we attended was quite poorly done, so that may have swayed our opinion. That being said, it was a nice campus in a convenient location and having the National Cathedral on campus was kind of neat. They also seemed to be generous with merit money and there was some program where if you have your parish priest sign a form you automatically get a small scholarship. The law school is well regarded.
Catholic was one of the least generous (for merit aid, didn’t qualify for need-based aid) schools that D applied to. The DC location appealed to her, as Political Science was one of her potential majors, but the merit award package and the conservative nature of the school in general pointed her in a different direction.
The school adjoins to a really lousy area of DC, but there is a subway stop right on campus so there is easy access into the better parts of the city. People who aren’t used to major cities and how quickly they can change from street to street might be put off by the location.
@InigoMontoya Do you mean it’s in a boring area, or bad area? From what I’ve seen online, it seemed much more suburban than I pictured. I live right outside of NYC, so I’m pretty picky about cities, although I have been to and enjoyed DC.
I qualify for need-based aid, my estimates were only about 28K. I wouldn’t qualify for merit aid, though, so I probably won’t attend unless they meet full-need for me.
I’d pick Montclair State over Catholic U.
I agree with ^, unless you’re a very faithful, observant Catholic who wants a doctrinally approved college (it’s the only university under Holy See).
If you want a Catholic university, what about applying to Siena?
This poster is only interested in location as if she will spend all day off campus recreating. The school, its culture and campus life are not a priority. What will happen is that when she goes, she will discover that the city location was not the pot of gold she expected. She won’t have the time or money and her friends will spend most of their time on campus.
There are many much more fun, progressive Catholic schools than CU that offer social work.
Siena, Scranton, Bonaventure, Fairfield, Sacred Heart, Manhattan College are much nicer than CU.
For the few times students actually do city stuff a major city about an hour away is fine. Siena has Albany 5 minutes away, Bonaventure has Buffalo, Scranton is in town and has an exceptional campus.
She seems unaware that CU is a pontifical school.
Nazareth in Rochester is a great school as well.
@newjerseygirl98 I see you’re getting a lot of snark here, so I’ll try a more measured response. The area that Catholic is in is not like Georgetown or GW, which have a lot going on. But there is a subway stop on campus so getting to places in DC is easy. American also out of the way, but the neighborhood American is in would be considered better than Catholic albeit a bit suburban
They meet full need for less than half of the students who receive any aid at all.
For 2014-15, they met the full determined need of 231 freshmen (out of 830 freshmen, 540 of whom received aid.)
Run their online net price calculator for your own estimate.
I know it’s a pontifical school.
I don’t want to be “off-campus all day”. I know many students in NYC never even see the Empire State Building. I never said the school or culture isn’t important, of course it is! I just don’t want to live in the suburbs or country.
I’m not interested in going to PA or NYS, I’ve said that on my other threads. Somehow, it keeps coming up. I’d rather stay in-state than go to PA or NYS.
I was asking about the school’s culture, not for recommendations…
@tk21769 I did. I read they “meet full need for 52% of students” in the Fiske Guide, maybe they meant half of those who received aid.
Until you get hard numbers from the school its just a guess. However, before loans the average cost of attendance is about $40,000 a year. That would not represent a good value. College Factual shows the average net price at $43,000. Could you do better possibly but I would not count on a number remotely like Montclair.
In terms of culture, it is one of the most conservative Catholic schools in the country. It would have to be if it is recommended by The Cardinal Newman Society. Remember it is governed by Bishops and ultimately the Vatican.
I’ve visited several times, I’ve been accepted with a decent scholarship and there’s a good chance I’ll go to CUA this fall. I wouldn’t necessarily call the area bad, I’ve been to some of the restaurants within walking distance and they’re “fast casual” and on a nice, city-like street… It’s not the bustle of NYC but it’s not a far walk to get off the somewhat suburban feel on campus. I like that the campus isn’t too much of the city because it isn’t overwhelming. The metro stop on campus is really convenient, and that easy access to inner city is good enough to me.
I am coming to this thread late, but I’d like to offer a different opinion on the culture and surrounding area of Catholic U, @newnerseygirl98.
My child attended a summer program at Catholic last year, and she found the students and professors in her program to be very open minded and accepting. The program participants, several who were seniors planning to attend CU were a diverse bunch and all got along well: at least half were African American and Hispanic, and there were gay and trans students as well. Several of the kids attended mass at the Basilica, but there was no pressure to do so. Also, the area around Catholic had some great restaurants and seemed quite safe (check the Clery reports if you want statistics though, as I’m just giving you my impressions) The surrounding area also had a more neighborhood feel and was much less touristy than say Georgetown.
My son was accepted into the engineering program and also the Honors program at CUA. We have visited two times. We are Catholic, but that’s actually not why we looked at the school. (We are quite liberal in our views.) My son wants DC for the city life and internship opportunities! He is seriously considering CU because they were very generous w/ merit aid. He got 21K/year (without a parish or alumni grant). He most likely will attend either University of Maryland or CUA. The campus is beautiful and the people were friendly. I would recommend a visit!
We visited last year and were impressed. Great tour/info session; seems like internships would be readily available/accessible. Love the Metro Stop right on the edge of campus! My DS is a junior, hopefully he will be applying in the Fall.
My son is a Junior at Catholic. We love it, they gave him great aid, we are not Catholic, but the surrounding area can be dangerous. Once you are out of a 4 block radius it is sketchy - DS was mugged last yr. That said, it is a city, & having the Metro right there is great. He got into both American & Catholic & would choose Catholic again. Catholic is collaborative where as American is competitive.
I’m a little late in responding but I wanted to speak up as it seems like a lot of the people in this thread are parents. I’m a senior at CUA right now. In terms of your original question, I think CUA was kind of generous with its aid and scholarships for me, but I will tell you that I’ve taken out loans each year except my freshman year. But the amount of the loan could be much worse. The worst part about loans is that they’re private and the interest rate is frustrating, so it could take a long time to pay them off. I’ve heard horror stories from some people, mostly at other colleges, who have loans out exceeding $100k. I don’t know a single person who is actually paying the full $60k here.
As for the neighborhood, CUA’s neighborhood is not amazing. We have some pretty good restaurants though! It is slowly becoming gentrified, but residents rob their own 7-11s and local restaurants. I would say a robbery occurs less than once a month, but definitely a few times throughout the academic year. CUA’s campus is pretty safe though; we have the blue light system and armed DPS officers. I’ve walked in the neighborhood during the day and at night (this only with friends though) and I’ve never been held at gunpoint or even approached by someone suspicious. That said, isolated incidents happen. Most of the time it’s about common sense. The cool thing about CUA’s location is that it is a college campus within a city. Other schools in a city have trouble distinguishing their campus from the surrounding area. CUA has a metro stop 10 minutes from Union Station which is pretty awesome. Other schools in DC will require you to take a shuttle, transfer to another line on the metro, or travel for a half hour to get somewhere significant.
The comments about CUA’s religious atmosphere are interesting as well. The majority of students (probably like 80%) are Catholic or Christian but most people I know either don’t go to church or only go like once a week or something - which isn’t a factor which labels them extremely religious or something like that. The fraction of students who are extremely vocal about their Catholicism stand out more because they are in-line with the required beliefs of the school. These kids speak out about pro-life issues or go to mass every day or something like that. There are plenty of students who don’t act like this. The majority of my friends don’t go to church or care about any of that. The religious stuff also don’t necessarily equate to political beliefs; there are plenty of students who are Democrats or Republicans.
Just wanted to clarify some of these issues that have been brought up. Good luck with your decision.
I got in! If it’s affordable, I think it’s my second or third choice. 