My son has been admitted to both Chapman and SDSU. We are out of state so both are kind of the same price. What should he choose?
Chapman is a private school in Irvine.
SDSU is a large public school in San Diego.
There are many differences. What does your son prefer?
@“aunt bea” Chapman is actually in Orange! It is not too far from Irvine, though. 
Also, like the person above said, it heavily depends on what your son wants in a college, what he plans on studying, and more.
Costs?
Intended major?
Has he visited?
My D was also accepted into both. Chapman will cost you roughly an additional $30,000 per yr. Chapman is $76,000 (based on fa package) and SDSU $41,000.
Chapman is a beautiful school in a beautiful and relatively safe are. Classes are small and personable. During our school visit everyone was super nice & accommodating.
SDSU (we are local) is in a relatively unsafe area. I feel like we hear weekly reports of some crime on campus on the news. From car break ins, grabbed cell phones, peeping toms, to more violent crimes. After dark most girls will not walk alone on or near campus. The staff are obviously overworked.
Aside from these 2 glaring differences I feel that SDSU is more known. If going on to grad school or future jobs this may make a difference. Out of all our local colleges UCSD, SDSU, & USD it’s my opinion that SDSU is the more popular. Sports are heavily attended by non college affiliated community members, SDSU is a highly sought out school among many of the better hs even over UCSD.
I would definitely tour both schools. SDSU has their admitted freshman day on 3/23 and if you are not local I would go to Chapman on Friday then SDSU Saturday. They are a 90 minute drive from each other.
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I would go to Chapman instead of SDSU. On the costs, Chapman usually offers merit scholarships and Chapman grants. Presidential scholarship is $32000 per year and actually not too hard and many people got it. Even many lower tier students can get the $10000 merit scholarship with SAT 1300 and weighted GPA 3.6. In SDSU, you have to be very very top 4.7 GPA and 1550 SAT to get scholarship of just $5000 or so. On the other hand, it is very possible for your son to change to California resisdency the second year in SDSU and pay only $8000 in state tuition. Your son just have to work a little bid and file a tax return as a California resident and show it to the admission office. They will switch your son from out of state to in state.
Why I would choose Chapman over SDSU? Both college are almost equal. However, Chapman is smaller and people are nicer. Classes are 30 to 60 instead of 300 in some freshman classes in SDSU such as Biology 101. It is like a theater that it is hard to know anyone in your class. Because of the budget cut and record enrollment, it is sometimes hard to get the necessary classes in SDSU to graduate on time especially in hot major such as computer science. Many students are trying to crash into some courses the first week of every semester. There are sometimes as many as 50 students trying to crash into a class at the first day of school but the professor can take a few. Most students took 5 to 6 years to graduate. I think Chapman and other smaller private colleges would be much better on classes availability. I think if your son can get into UCSD or UC Irvine, that would be much better. On the other hand, SDSU is number 2 in the Cal State system and has lower acceptance rate at 35% than Chapman 57%. San Diego and Orange are both very nice city but SDSU is located in an older and poorer neighborhood. Chapman is in a better neighborhood.